Flour Babies

by Anne Fine

  Then, without warning, the spell broke.

  The other side of the classroom door suddenly suffered the most tremendous thud. The door knob rattled and the panels shook.

  In walked a clumsy young giant.

  A roar of approval greeted the newcomer’s entrance.

  ‘Hi, nit-face!’

  ‘Last one in class gets maimed!’

  ‘Sime! Saved a place for you!’

  ‘Found us at last, have you, you great fishcake!’

  ‘Get a brain, Simon Martin!’

  Simon Martin… Martin Simon… Of course.

  Mr Cartright heaved himself back into his usual position on the desk. So there was the explanation. Simple enough. Mere clerical error.

  Martin Simon… Simon Martin…

  He let the flurry of excitement ride for a few moments longer.

  ‘Where’ve you been, Sime?’

  ‘Got stuck, din’t I?’ declared the newcomer proudly. ‘In Dr Feltham’s class.’

  ‘Dr Feltham’s!’

  Another roar of laughter, and even Mr Cartright had to smile, trying to picture this huge, strapping and unthinking lad marooned amongst Dr Feltham’s boffins.

  ‘Tole him I din’t blong. But would he listen? Not him. Not till that other ear’ole finally came along and rescued me. And even then –’

  To cut off what was clearly all set to develop into a prolonged riff of resentment, Mr Cartright held the plastic tub of votes out towards his brand new pupil.

  ‘Pick one,’ he said.

  Simon Martin’s look of deep disgruntlement turned into one of even deeper suspicion.

  ‘Wossit for?’

  ‘Just pick one.’ Mr Cartright sharpened the tone to an order. ‘Now.’

  Simon Martin reached in and picked the one that happened to be written most neatly.

  ‘What does it say?’

  The lad stared at it for a few moments. His massive caterpillar eyebrows crumpled in confusion as he struggled with Martin Simon’s perfect handwriting. Then:

  ‘Chile… chile… chile dev-lop-ment,’ he read aloud stumblingly.

  ‘Development.’

  Mr Cartright managed to slide in the correction a split second before the explosion.

  ‘That’s babies, isn’t it?’

  ‘We’re not doing babies, sir!’

  ‘That is girls’ stuff. It is!’

  ‘I shan’t be coming in at all now! Not till it’s all over, anyhow.’

  ‘I’m blaming you, Sime!’

  ‘You can’t call it science. It’s just a great big cheatl’

  ‘Pick again, Sime!’

  Hastily, Mr Cartright upended the tub over the waste bin. The remaining votes floated down to join whatever it was Luis Pereira had spat in earlier.

  Mr Cartright flicked through the pages of Dr Feltham’s vast Science Fair memorandum. Oh, what a ghastly way to start the term! Why couldn’t the man arrange things the way every other school did, and leave the great tribute to the wonders of science until the last couple of weeks before the holidays, when classes like 4C could be left peaceably slacking? That was the trouble with enthusiasts, of course. They never allowed for other people’s weaknesses.

  Finding the right page at last, Mr Cartright raised his voice like someone announcing the winner of an Oscar, and declared solemnly:

  ‘And the experiment Dr Feltham has chosen for this topic is –’

  He glanced round. He hadn’t even said it yet, and already a sea of disgusted faces was staring back at him.

  ‘Flour babies!’

  Now scorn was supplanted by confusion.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Is that flour babies or flower babies?’

  ‘They both sound weird to me.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Whatever they are, they don’t sound much like proper Science.’

  Secretly, that was what Mr Cartright thought. He glanced at the list again. Could it be a mistake? Another clerical error?

  No. There it was, clear as paint.

  Flour babies.

  Right.

  Mr Cartright slapped Dr Feltham’s memorandum down on the desk. Whatever they were, there was no time to read about them now. Already, Wayne Driscoll’s cheeks were puffed to bursting, and he was waving his imaginary stopwatch about wildly.

  And, sure enough, the bell rang.

  Just one more short ritual to get through, and the lesson would be over. Who would be first today?

  Bill Simmons.

  ‘Excuse me, Bill Simmons. I don’t remember anyone telling you this lesson was over. Back in your seat, please.’

  ‘But, sir! Sir! The bell’s rung.’

  ‘That bell’s for me, Bill. It is not for you.’

  His heart wasn’t in it, though. No, not today. In fact, to get rid of them just that little bit sooner, he even stooped to pretending he hadn’t seen Russ Mould’s bottom hovering an insolent ten inches clear of the chair, ready to make the big getaway.

  ‘All right, 4C. Off you go.’

  They hurled themselves at the door in a disorderly rabble, leaving him wondering.

  Flour babies… What on earth?

  2

  Simon Martin sprawled over the three chairs outside the staffroom door. He’d been sent there for being a nuisance in Assembly. He’d only arrived four minutes earlier, and already he was bored halfway out of his skull. He’d tried whistling (and been told off for it by Miss Arnott on her way in). He’d tried tapping tunes with his feet (and been told off for it by Mr Henderson on his way out). He’d even tried seeing how many different clicking noises he could make with his tongue (and been told off for it by Mr Spencer as he walked past).

  They’d left him no choice, really.

  They couldn’t expect him to sit there all day doing nothing.

  When the next teacher came out, he’d give it a go.

  The next teacher to come out was Mr Dupasque. As the door swung behind him, Simon Martin surreptitiously shifted one of his quite enormous feet a couple of inches backwards and used his heel to stop the door from closing properly.

  It was their own fault. If they didn’t want someone who had already been picked on in Assembly for no reason at all getting so bored he ended up listening to what they were saying, they should have left him alone while he was peacefully whistling and tapping and clicking.

  Simon settled in for a good eavesdrop. In fact, if he turned his head to the right as if he were gazing down the corridor, he could even see a thin slice of staffroom out of the corner of his eye. Across it, Old Carthorse was reeling, making one of his giant great fusses.

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ Mr Cartright was bellowing. ‘I cannot believe my ears. Are you seriously trying to tell me that these child development project things of yours are literally six pounds of plain white flour sewn into a sacking bag? And you intend to give one of these things to each of the maniacs in my class?’

  ‘Not give, Eric. Lend.’

  ‘Give. Lend.’ Simon caught a brief glimpse of a slice of Mr Cartright’s arms, thrown up in a gesture of despair. ‘With that pack of sociopaths, what difference does it make? No one in 4C could take care of a stone without cracking it. You can’t expect six-pound bags of flour to survive!’

  Through the gap, Simon saw a strip of Dr Feltham’s anxious face.

  ‘Not six pounds, Eric. Three kilos. Now do try to set an example. Think in grammes.’

  ‘I’ll think how I damn well want, thank you,’ Simon overheard Mr Cartright growl. ‘And, frankly, I think you must be off your trolley. There are nineteen boys in 4C this term, you know. Nineteen times six is one hundred and twenty-three!’

  ‘One hundred and fourteen,’ Dr Feltham couldn’t help correcting.

  ‘What?’

  Dr Feltham mistook Mr Cartright’s mixture of impatience and outrage for a sincere quest for mathematical enlightenment.

  ‘I think you must have multiplied the nine by seven by mistake,’ he said. ‘It’s t
he only rational explanation for that particular error.’

  What with all this fancy talk of numbers, Simon’s attention was flagging. He was about to slide his foot forward and let the door close again, when another slice of Mr Cartright reeled into view, and he heard his class teacher howl.

  ‘Hundred and this! Hundred and that! What does it matter? It’s still over a hundred pounds of sifted white flour exploding in my classroom!’

  Outside in the corridor, a look of sheer rapture spread over young Simon Martin’s face. Could he be hearing right? One hundred pounds of sifted white flour? Exploding? In the classroom? Oh, bliss and joy! Worth coming back to school. Worth all the miserable hours spent scraping his massive knees under the dolly desks, being moaned at by teachers, and shrivelling with boredom.

  One hundred pounds of sifted white flour.

  BANG!!!!!

  Oh, he could see it now. Drifts of it! Mountains of it! Clouds of it! The room would be knee-deep in flour. It would rain flour. Flour would puff out of the windows, track from the door.

  The vision was so beguiling, so white and perfect, so absolutely beautiful, that Simon’s ears were temporarily blocked by the ballooning magic force of his imagination, and he completely missed Dr Feltham’s attempt to explain the experiment to his colleague.

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong, Eric. It’s the custard tins that explode, not the flour babies. The flour babies are a simple experiment in parent and child relationships. Each boy takes full responsibility for his flour baby for the whole three weeks, keeping a diary to chart his problems and attitudes. It’s quite interesting what comes out. It’s fascinating what they learn, about themselves and about parenthood. It’s a very worthwhile experiment. You wait and see.’

  Simon caught only the last words, ‘Wait and see’. But he was seeing it already! BANG!!!! And then a floury mushroom cloud obliterating the hated prison of the classroom. He rose in spirit with its snow-white glory, and only floated down in time to overhear the last of Mr Cartright’s desperate attempts to turn down this astonishing and unparalleled blessing.

  ‘Why can’t they do something in Mr Higham’s workshops?’

  A new voice now, raised in anguish.

  ‘Eric! My workshops are buzzing! It’s the Science Fair! Why, there’s the slopes to set up for the slope friction experiment. And the skeleton house to build for 4F’s electronic burglar alarm system. The base for Harrison’s thermistor-powered fan hasn’t even been begun yet. Nor has the frame for the Hughes twins’ electric power station. Even the maggot farm needs a few repairs, or we’ll have maggots all over.’

  Simon saw a flash of Mr Higham in the gap, spreading his hands.

  ‘I’m sorry, Eric. It’s more than my job’s worth to let your crowd into the workshops at the moment. Last time I frisked Rick Tullis on the way out, he had four of my screwdrivers stuck down his underpants. Four! And that Sajid Mahmoud of yours only has to look at a wood plane for its blade to slip out of true. I’m sorry, Eric. But no,’

  If Simon hadn’t been so outraged with Mr Cartright for trying to spurn this gift sent from the gods, he might have felt pity at the broken tone of his voice now.

  ‘I won’t forget this,’ Mr Cartright was saying. ‘Next time any of you are in a fix, I shall remember this!’

  Prudently, Simon drew his heel back as the voice neared the doorway.

  ‘One hundred and twenty-four pounds of white flour! In my classroom! With that bunch! And not one of you came to my rescue. Not one. I shan’t forget this. No. I shan’t forget.’

  Simon’s foot moved sharply away from the door, just as Mr Cartright wrenched it open.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You tole me to come here, sir.’

  ‘Well, now I’m telling you different. Go away. Go back to the classroom at once.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  On principle, Simon stooped, quite unnecessarily, to untie his shoelace and tie it again, in his own time. He wasn’t sorry he took the trouble, either, because although the small gesture of defiance earned him a quite alarming glare from Mr Cartright, it also kept them both standing there long enough to hear, unmistakably clearly, from inside:

  ‘He’s got it wrong again, you know. This time he must have multiplied the one by a seven. It’s odd the way his mind works.’

  Satisfied that honours were now even, Simon shambled off. And Mr Cartright shambled after him. He let the boy draw ahead down the long corridor, to give himself time to think. What was the best thing to do? True, he’d made a firm announcement that the very next boy to make any noise at all would have to choose the topic. And Simon had picked the flour babies. But, fair’s fair, the lad’s neanderthal door-wrenching habits were purely accidental. He hadn’t been trying it on. He just naturally opened doors like a gorilla.

  No need to hold firm unnecessarily.

  They could just choose again.

  Cheered, Mr Cartright speeded up. Working things out, he’d fallen quite a way behind. Far enough behind, in fact, to miss Simon Martin’s breathless announcement to the waiting class as he burst through the door first.

  ‘Them flour babies! They’re dead brilliant! Better than soap, and maggots, and everything! Best science I’ve ever heard!’

  Rolling in twenty seconds later, Mr Cartright doused down the noise without even bothering to tune in to its content. He heaved his rump up on the teacher’s desk, and began in a conciliatory fashion.

  ‘Well now, 4C, I’m a reasonable man, and it seems to me on reflection that there’s no reason why you should all suffer from the noise Simon Martin makes opening a door. One day, when we have a little more time, we’ll explain to him about the principles and use of the door handle. But right now I think we can let bygones be bygones, and go back to discussing the options for the Science Fair.’

  Simon sucked air in sharply between his teeth. He didn’t, on the whole, pay much attention to teachers.But he did recognize their cunning in all its common forms.

  ‘Old Smoothy-chops!’ he muttered bitterly to his neighbour at the next desk, Robin Foster. ‘He’s just trying to wriggle out of the flour babies because they’re the best,’

  Out of sheer habit, Robin passed this intelligence on. So did his neighbour. So did his. The whisper swept round the room so fast that by the time Mr Cartright beamed brightly and asked,

  ‘Now, who’d prefer textiles?’

  they were ranked up and ready with their own form of sabotage.

  ‘Sewing and stuff! Great! You watch out, Foster! I owe you a good stabbing with the unpicker, back from first year.’

  ‘Bet I can stick fifty pins in my face, and keep them there the whole lesson!’

  ‘Bet Tariq can make the sewing machine go so fast it busts.’

  ‘Can I make a Nazi flag, please, sir?’

  ‘If it’s textiles, can we do stains?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir! Yes! I can think of some great stains which wouldn’t wash out. Never.’

  Inwardly, Mr Cartright shuddered.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he said brightly. ‘Let’s not bother with textiles. Let’s just make it consumer studies instead.’

  But they were already lying in wait for him on this one.

  ‘Yeh! Yeh!’

  ‘Done consumer studies before. It was dead good. Once we had to count how many baked beans there were in eight different sorts of cans. Our team would have won, sir, except for Wayne pigging so many.’

  ‘We would have won the value-for-money-in-sweeties test, too, sir. But Tariq kept spitting them at Phil instead of sucking them properly.’

  None of this sort of soft stuff was likely to daunt Mr Cartright, Simon could tell. If they were to succeed in their unspoken purpose of making sure everything except flour babies was right out of favour, someone had to roll out the big guns.

  ‘You’re let off down the shops in consumer studies,’ he threatened Mr Cartright darkly.

  And, promptly, the others came up trumps.

  ‘
Yeh! Only four of our lot came back once. Poor Mr Harris took a major fit.’

  ‘And Russ nearly got run over. That was a laugh.’

  ‘This man jumped out of his car, and as soon as he’d checked Russ was all right, he bashed him.’

  ‘Just for making a dent in his bumper, sir. And it wasn’t my fault. Luis pushed me.’

  ‘Luis was chasing a girl.’

  Luis gazed round the room proudly.

  ‘Met Moira, though, didn’t I?’

  At the mere mention of Moira’s name, there were animal roars of approval. Mr Cartright turned his back on the lot of them. He didn’t want to have to see the rush of arcane and dubious gestures he knew from experience greeted any female name. In any case, he found the whole idea of sending them trailing round the shops utterly dispiriting. Why had schools been invented, for heaven’s sake? Surely to fill young people’s minds with loftier things than knowing how best to shop for floorcloths.

  No, he’d have nothing to do with this new-fangled philistinism.

  He picked up the board rubber, and with two long, firm strokes, wiped textiles and consumer studies off the board.

  ‘How about domestic economy?’ he suggested.

  Cries of contempt rang round.

  ‘Wendy Houses!’

  ‘Let’s pretend!’

  ‘Oh, golly me! You mustn’t use that cloth to wipe the plates. You’ve just used it down the lavatory!’

  ‘Bring in your washing when it rains, or, guess what! It might get wet!’

  ‘You must be making all this up,’ Mr Cartright accused them sternly. But for the life of him, he couldn’t think what else domestic economy might be about, except stuff that any halfwit could work out for himself in a fortnight.

  He rubbed domestic economy off the board.

  ‘You realize,’ he said, ‘that only leaves babies and food.’

  He was convinced that this would settle it. After all, most of the boys in front of him spent half the day industriously filling their faces. You could barely get through a lesson without having to order one or another of them to swallow this, or spit out that, or wrap up the other and put it away until break-time. He should be home and dry on food.

  But, no.

  ‘We’ve done nutrition before, sir. It didn’t have anything to do with food.’