The Secret Teacher

by Anon

  (We need the dark. To dwell in shades of doubt and ambiguity.)

  I told them to put their heads on the table, to empty their minds and just drift, as I read the poem as quietly as I could.

  After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

  The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –

  I was aware of a figure at the door.

  Tom! Good timing. I loved it when Tom came into lessons. We always had fun – we put on wigs and pretended to be poncey critics, which we enjoyed, even if the kids didn’t.

  ‘Hello, Sir!’ I said. ‘Great timing. Come in. Come in! We were just struggling with this poem. Come and help us out.’

  Tom nodded once and asked if he could sit at the back.

  ‘Sure. Sure, why not? You can help Ella.’

  Tom sat down next to Ella as I carried on reading.

  ‘“The Feet, mechanical, go round –” OK, what kind of imagery is that? Anyone? Hmm? Anyone? The feet mechanically going round. What does that make you think of? Isaac? … Zainab? … OK, everyone bang their feet on the ground. Now bang them mechanically. What do you notice? … Anyone? … Why don’t you discuss it in your pairs for one minute and then feedback.’

  While they discussed, I walked over to Tom and whispered, ‘I think you freaked them out!’ He didn’t say anything.

  After the minute was up, I picked on Wally, who guffed on about the juxtaposition of machinery and Christianity and the industrial revolution, and how feet point in different directions in different sexual positions. And how she was not getting enough. Alexia laughed, so Wally got angry and defensive and said, ‘What?’

  Silence returned.

  ‘“A Quartz contentment, like a stone –” What about that image? Extraordinary, don’t you think? “Quartz contentment”. One minute to discuss.’

  The odd murmur. Tom talked to Ella in a low voice. I heard the word ‘prediction’ before he asked to see her folder. She reluctantly pulled it out of her bag and showed it to him. He flicked through it, then took out his iPad and made some notes. He moved on, mechanical, from Isaac – who had forgotten his folder – to Wally – whose folder was covered in Tippex dicks – to Alexia – whose folder was bursting at the seams with everything ever written about Dickinson from the internet packed into plastic covers – to Zainab, whose folder was pristine, with every full-mark essay typed up and covered in lovely bulbous green pen.

  He nodded once in my direction, and walked out.

  *

  At the end of the lesson, I put my email address on the board so they could send me their work. None came through. They all protested that they had sent it to me.

  I searched through the database for myself.

  And there I was. My name, but next to an empty icon. A dark silhouette with no distinguishing features. I clicked on it.

  No face, no details, nothing.

  *

  A cypher.

  A doppelgänger.

  A ghost in the machine.

  *

  Why would they create a doppelgänger for me?

  *

  Maybe I am being disappeared.

  *

  Maybe I am already Invalid.

  *

  I went back to the Department and patted Tom on the back.

  ‘Hey, thanks for coming in and livening up the morgue! God, they were so dead!’

  He turned and looked at me with a dead-eyed shark stare. I asked if he was all right as I waved my hand in front of his face.

  ‘Bueller? Bueller?’

  He took his iPad out and opened the Observation App.

  ‘What was going on in that lesson?’ he asked, combatively.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why did they have their heads on the desk?’

  ‘I had to try something. You know what they’re like at the end of the day. I wanted to let them drift and connect with the poetry.’

  ‘Right. I see.’

  He made some notes on his iPad. I asked him what he was writing, but he ignored me.

  ‘Then there was all the banging on the floor,’ he said.

  ‘Right. Kinaesthetic. Aural. Yeah?’

  ‘I’ve been looking at their mock results.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘They’re not great.’

  ‘No, but we hadn’t read many poems when they took that. They know them much better now.’

  ‘I’m concerned. We’re all concerned.’ He waved in the general direction of Death Star Command.

  ‘Every time I come past, they don’t seem to be writing.’

  ‘No, we are discussing. And engaging.’

  ‘Why didn’t Ella know what her prediction was?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because she’s a moron?’

  He nodded a slow, deliberate nod.

  ‘She’s working at around a C, right?’

  ‘A very generous C.’

  ‘What bothers me is that she did not know what she needed to do to be getting a B.’

  ‘What? You know Ella. But she’s getting better all the time. She’s more confident in class, coming up with loads of stuff.’

  ‘She didn’t seem to know much about the poetry.’

  He pressed a cross on his screen.

  ‘I could only find three pieces of marked work in their folders,’ he continued. ‘By my calculations, they should have eight essays, printed off and annotated in green pen with teacher–student dialogue.’

  ‘We did essays in class at the beginning of term. But since then they have been doing presentations and coursework; researching; you know, independent learning? What we’ve been trying to get them to do? Weaning them off our drained, withered teats?’

  ‘They need to do well in their coursework.’

  He nodded another singular, deliberate nod.

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ I asked.

  ‘By the end of the day you need to have your coursework marks adjusted so once added with their mocks they are in line with their predictions. You need to turn the spreadsheet green.’

  ‘But that would be a lie.’

  ‘Not if that’s what they are going to get.’

  Another singular nod.

  ‘No. No, not if that is what they are going to get,’ I said, as I nodded hypnotically in unison.

  ‘I’ve marked you down as Inadequate in this Informal Observation,’ said Tom, as he clicked a button on his iPad, turned and walked back down the hall, as if being recalled back to his charging station.

  *

  Tom was being disappeared before my eyes.

  Nobody knows exactly how they do it. One minute, a teacher is there – present, affable, joyous – the next, they’re gone. Not physically gone, just gone: vacant, impassive, unresponsive. Gone.

  I couldn’t really blame him. Or them. It’s just the way it goes. It was time. He was ready to go to the next level. I knew he was being targeted. They had started button-holing him in the playground. I saw him at lunchtime, bending over, listening intently to their secret orders; when I walked past, they hushed up. I said, ‘What was all that about?’ He said, ‘Oh, just about the PTA Fun Run.’ But I knew it wasn’t. Little Miss Outstanding was doing the PTA Fun Run. At least, that’s what she told me.

  He was taken over the long weekend. I don’t know where they took him, exactly; some faraway place – a wood or glen or nuclear power station. Some say it is an expensive country hotel, which has a spa and complementary Spin lessons.

  What they do there is a mystery. Apparently, there is a lot of talk of being ‘aligned’ with company values. I bet they ‘align’ them. Stretch them out. Waterboard. Play Beethoven’s Ninth. Electrocute to images of books and flowers. Eat data. Go Spin.

  The next thing I knew, he was the new Ho6 (the Zen floater had already been given the boot). And it was never the same again. Assemblies with Ho6 used to be the highlight of my week. They were like a cross between a picnic and a stand-up routine. She used to talk about herself as a kid, bunking off school; she showed
pictures of the hill she used to sit on and read poetry. She teased the kids, saying it was the equivalent of her chicken-and-chip shop. She could tease them, because she had built their trust over the years, and they knew she had their backs and she loved them. That meant she could also teach them, so when her assembly segued into a rousing panegyric about love and beauty, they lapped it up. They wanted to read more because they wanted to be like her. I remember one assembly when she told them about her English teacher. She said he had changed her life. Then she broke down in tears.

  Now the whole Sixth Form stared straight ahead as Tom put up photographs of the Common Room and berated students for leaving it in such a mess.

  Weekly Form Meetings with Ho6 used to involve eating croissants underneath verses of Paradise Lost. We were of the Devil’s Party. She was our Princess Leia, and this was where the Rebellion was forged.

  Tom was an Imperial Guard now, so there was no levity any more. We just looked at print-offs of absences. He tried to give it a slight whiff of anarchy by introducing an Attendance Challenge. Every week, whoever had the best attendance got a bag of mini-eggs. My attendance always hovered around the 95 per cent mark, mostly thanks to Wally, so I never got the mini-eggs. Little Miss Outstanding had 100 per cent attendance every week, but then she had all the keenies in her form. I was sure Tom was marking me down for this somewhere on that iPad of his.

  He probably has a mini-egg App. There’s Little Miss Outstanding’s head over a full basket; that’s my head over the empty one.

  *

  All SMs really cared about was what could be measured and tallied on a spreadsheet. Results. Attendance. Reply Slips. They knew we wouldn’t give a shit about the Reply Slips. Suddenly, Tom was all about the Reply Slips.

  Tom had asked for the Reply Slips from each form to prove that the parents had seen a letter telling them about the trip to Oxford. Only Little Miss Outstanding had her Reply Slips signed and returned and handed back in a plastic folder, clipped together with a paper clip. A couple of others had a few dribs and drabs. But he made an example of me.

  ‘Where are they?’

  I pulled out a wodge from my pocket.

  ‘I’ve got a few.’

  ‘Where are the rest?’

  ‘They say they’ll bring them in. But you know what they are like. This is Ella, Wally, Isaac.’

  ‘Exactly why we need to follow up. Have they seen the letter?’

  ‘I gave it to them. It passed beneath their eyes for at least a moment. What else can I do?’

  ‘When I came past your form room most of the letters were in the recycling bin.’

  ‘That was after I left –’

  ‘Did you note down on the spreadsheet who had taken them?’

  I hadn’t. I was afraid of spreadsheets, as well he knew. It was the only part of teacher training that I failed. ICT proficiency. I had to tally on a spreadsheet all the students who were coming to Alton Towers on a school trip. It took me the allotted three minutes to fill in the column denoting how many needed vegetarian packed lunches, when the time ran out.

  He handed me a fresh stack of letters, with his name digitally inscribed on the signature line.

  ‘This is the time of year we have to be most vigilant,’ he explained, as if talking to a Year 7 Set 4 who had not done his homework. ‘This is when the Isaacs and the Wallys are starting to fall through the cracks. If we keep following up on the small stuff, the big stuff will follow. I need you to phone home and find out who knows about this.’

  *

  The next day I instigated a Reply Slip amnesty.

  ‘OK, everyone. I really need you to give me that Reply Slip.’

  ‘Which reply slip?’

  ‘The Reply Slip that says that your parent or guardian has seen the letter.’

  ‘Which letter?’

  ‘The letter about the trip to Oxford.’

  ‘What trip to Oxford?’

  ‘The one that’s next week! The one I’ve been telling you about for a month!’

  ‘Sorry. Forgot, sir.’

  ‘Lemme go Oxford!’

  *

  At lunchtime, I called all the parents. The conversations went the same way.

  ‘Hello? Is that Liam’s mum?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hi. It’s Mr Teacher. Liam’s Form Tutor.’

  ‘Oh God, what’s happened?’

  ‘No, no, nothing. Nothing bad. Liam’s fine.’

  ‘Is he not working again?’

  ‘No, it’s not that. I mean, he’s got a little better since our last conversation. He still has a way to go, but that’s another conversation. No, the reason I am calling, Miss Donaghue, is about a trip to Oxford I am organising. Did Liam give you the letter?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah. He should have.’

  ‘OK. When is it?’

  ‘It’s next Tuesday.’

  ‘OK. What time do I need to be there?’

  ‘You don’t. It’s just for him.’

  ‘OK. So …?’

  ‘No, it’s just I need you to sign the letter which says that you’ve seen the letter. And that you are happy for him to come. To Oxford.’

  ‘Can’t I just tell you? Now? Over the phone?’

  ‘No. I really need the Reply Slip. Can you please just sign it? I’m so sorry.’

  *

  I ended up faking all the parents’ signatures and handing the reply slips back to Tom. He didn’t even say thank you.

  *

  That Friday, I had to do Homophobia in Meedja. At the beginning of the lesson, I asked if anyone was homophobic. They all said they weren’t. After a discussion, we established they all were, even the ones who thought they weren’t (all except the Muslim girl who said, ‘My parents taught me to cherish all people’). I told her I wished we all had her parents, then got really angry with the others, put on Queer as Folk, and stormed out, telling them to write down diegetic and non-diegetic sounds on their table. Tom came in when I was out of the room. When I came back in, he nodded at me, and made a note on his iPad.

  *

  Then Year 11. Unseen Poetry. ‘Hurricane Hits England’ by Grace Nichols. We were having a pretty chilled lesson, just doing a bit of gentle analysis.

  Rich was sat next to Janice. They made a funny pair because they were so limby – four long legs stretched out under the desks. Tom came in, nearly tripped, sat down at the back, took out his iPad.

  ‘What is the meaning of trees falling as heavy as whales?’ I asked.

  Silence.

  Finally, Janice said casually, to no one in particular, ‘Imagine if a whale fell on you.’

  Long silence. I wasn’t sure if they were thinking about what she had said, or about the poem, or about something else entirely.

  Tom raised his chin, leant forward and scanned the room for signs of life, like a lighthouse sweeping the ocean.

  ‘I’d probably survive,’ said Rich, scratching his crotch.

  Long silence.

  Tom made a note on his iPad and walked out, carefully stepping over their legs.

  *

  Then I had a cover lesson, in which the Biology teacher had forgotten to set cover, so they were farting around with the gas taps all lesson. During my well-earned Free, I ate a Cheese String and tried to replace all the hyphens in my Dickinson revision booklet. I was measuring a hyphen when an email arrived.

  From: Head of Sixth Form

  Subject: Library

  Hey, I know how you are a big fan of the Library. Fancy going there later?

  At last! My old mucker is back!

  *

  I emailed back that I would see him there at four. As I wrote, another email arrived.

  From: Head of Sixth Form

  Subject: Email Recalled.

  And with that, all our correspondence disappeared.

  *

  I went to the Library at 4 p.m. as usual. Tom was there, at the bar, talking to another teacher. I went up to Tom and patted him on the s
houlder and said, ‘What gives?’

  He looked nonplussed.

  ‘You recalled your email!’

  Still nothing.

  ‘You sent me an email saying you would see me here. And then you recalled it.’

  He shrugged and looked away.

  ‘Sorry. Wrong teacher.’

  *

  He went to talk to another teacher. Probably the cipher who gets sent all the essays. The Other Teacher. His New Best Bud.

  *

  I left, heartbroken, into the night. As I walked past the estate, I saw Kieran surrounded by Puffa fish, laughing and jostling and wolf-whistling at Mercedes, who was walking on the other side of the road.

  I ran the rest of the way home.

  My Personal Best.

  15

  Go Oxford

  Everyone wanted to go Oxford. Everyone.

  They were emboldened by how many had got in last year (whose names were now displayed on a zinc board in the Canteen) and by the Outreach efforts of the university. Every month or so an Outreach officer from an Oxbridge college would come to give a presentation in Assembly, which depicted happy, diverse castles of light. Black, white and brown female students lounged on the quad grass, punted, fenced and threw their mortar boards into the air. Finally, after centuries of discouragement, the 93 per cent were in with a shot of making it to the hallowed groves of academe.

  There were those, like Alexia, who stood an excellent chance; there were those, like Liam, who thought they had a chance, and needed to be told to give up before causing undue heartache for all concerned; and then there were those, like Ella, who didn’t have a chance in hell, but wanted a day out in Hogwarts.

  Organising the trip was a bureaucratic clusterfuck. I had to get the trip approved with SM; then I had to draft a letter for the kids to give their parents, which explicitly stated in bold how much money they needed for the bus, and that they had to bring in their discount cards, and that they would be back around 11 p.m. so their parents could decide whether to tick the box that said they would pick them up or were happy for them to come home alone; then I had to print off all the personal data of the kids who were coming with all the contact details of the kids and their parents and all their medical information, which for some reason produced, like, fifty sheets of data, some of it replicated over and over; one girl apparently had BOWEL PROBLEMS BOWEL PROBLEMS BOWEL PROBLEMS – like that sounds horrendous – three times in bold, we just shouldn’t let her on the coach; then I sent an email in the morning to Form Tutors with a big red exclamation mark reminding them to remind students to get work from those teachers whose lessons they were missing; then I had to field a lot of arsey emails from teachers who didn’t realise I was taking a trip and how disruptive it was to their learning; then I had to chase around the building for those who had forgotten and drag them out into the playground.