The Teacher's Secret (31 page)

Laurie tries again. ‘Year 6,' she says, ‘please say good morning to Mrs Foreman.'

Half-heartedly, they sing out, ‘Good morning, Mrs Mormon,' and from somewhere in the group, she hears a loud whisper: ‘Where do you reckon she's put all our stuff?'

Laurie zeroes in on a group of boys sitting together. ‘Was that you, Kurt Ward?'

A brown-haired boy opens his eyes wide. ‘No, miss.'

The freckled kid beside him sniggers.

‘Ethan Thompson, is there something you'd like to share with the class?'

The boy—Ethan—shakes his head and looks down, but there's a smile on his face and Nina can see the little blond kid to his right trying not to laugh.

‘Any problems, Mrs Foreman,' Laurie says loudly, ‘just send them down to me.'

This makes the blond kid lower his head right down while his shoulders keep shaking.

Laurie turns back to the class. ‘Well, Year 6, I'll let you get to know your new teacher then.'

Once she is gone, there is a shift in the room, a loosening almost, as a roomful of eyes stare up at Nina.

‘Right,' she says, ‘I think we'll take the roll.' To her dismay, there is a quiver in her voice. She tries to cough it out. ‘Normally when we take the roll, I'd like you just to say
present
. But today, because it's our first day together, I thought we might do something a bit different.'

There's a slight rustling. This has generated some interest.

‘As you can see, the classroom has changed a bit. That's because I've divided the class up into teams. Each team will be on the same table.'

When they hear this, Kurt and Ethan start to poke each other.

‘So today, when I take the roll,' she continues, ‘I'd like you to say
present
then listen for your table number.'

When she calls out ‘Cody Archer', the skinny blond boy beside Ethan calls out, ‘Present,' in a high voice. When she gives him his table number—table two—he struts across the room, half performing, half self-conscious, his head turning back to look at his mates as he takes a seat.

When Elsie Burnett is also sent to table two, Cody points a finger to the side of his head like he's taking a bullet then slumps down in his seat. Nina is about to reprimand him, but Elsie doesn't seem perturbed. Instead, with a pleasant, vague sort of smile, she ambles up to the table and sits beside him.

Kurt Ward is directed to table one, which is closest to the front of the classroom. Cody seems disappointed by this, but Kurt himself makes a victory sign. ‘Number one,' he says loudly, ‘that's got to be me.'

And when Ethan Thompson gets sent to table one, he's beside himself. ‘Yes,' he hisses to the ceiling, eyes closed, fists clenched. ‘Yes.'

Jade Maxwell is also on table one, and as she slips into the seat beside Ethan, she gives him a tickle on the back of his neck. Nina sees that she's wearing a necklace with the letter E. They'd be better separated, she thinks.

Beside Bridie Taylor's name is an asterisk. Laurie says she's the one to keep an eye on, so Nina has put her on table one too. When
she calls out her name, a tiny scrap of a thing puts up her hand. Nina is dumbfounded. Surely not, she says to herself. Surely not a little thing like her?

For their first lesson together, Nina hands out a maths sheet. Nothing too difficult, just something to get them started.

Immediately Kurt's hand shoots up. ‘Miss,' he says, ‘why did you take down all our paintings and that?'

This makes the rest of the class look up.

She isn't prepared for the question so she just tells them the truth. ‘I thought it would be good to start afresh this term.'

Kurt keeps his hand up. ‘What do you mean, miss?'

‘I thought it would be a good idea to start again this term, to decorate the room together as a new class.'

Kurt shakes his head hard. ‘But we didn't ask to be a new class, miss, we just wanted to be the same one. We just wanted to keep on being 6P and that. That's what we wanted, miss.'

Kurt has a pleasant voice, melodic and casual, but Nina feels like he's just slapped her. ‘Well, Kurt, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. You're in 6F now, not 6P. And even though it's a different name, you're all still together, aren't you? You're all still in the same class.'

‘But, miss, how come we got you now, instead of Mr P? How come Mr P left?'

She does have an answer to this question, one that she and Laurie nutted out together. ‘Well, Kurt, Mr Pritchard has reached an age where he doesn't have to work anymore, so he decided to retire.'

While the others mull this over, Ethan rails against it. ‘But he told us all this stuff he was going to do so we'd be good for high
school and that. So, I mean, why wouldn't he wait until then? Why didn't he wait and retire next year?'

‘I don't know,' Nina says softly. ‘I don't know about that.'

Elsie puts her hand up. ‘Why don't you ask him, miss? Why don't you ask him and then you can tell us what he said?'

There is murmuring, then a nodding murmuring, and Cody calls out, ‘Yeah, miss. You could ask him why he left.'

Nina feels cornered. ‘I don't know,' she says, faltering. ‘I don't know where he lives.'

Little Bridie holds up a skinny hand and her voice, soft and high, wobbles as she speaks. ‘I'll ask my nan,' she says. ‘She'll know.'

No!
Nina wants to shout.
Not you, not any of you. And especially not you.
But that's not what she says. ‘I'll think about it,' she tells them. ‘I'll have to think about it.'

After school, she stops by Laurie's office. ‘Do you have a moment?' she asks.

Laurie frowns at the computer before she looks up. If there's a look of irritation on her face, it's only a momentary thing. ‘Sure,' she says.

‘The class want to know what happened to Terry Pritchard. They want to know why he left so suddenly.'

This time the irritation settles on her face. ‘I thought we'd dealt with that. He retired, simple as that.'

‘But he promised to see them through the year. They want to know why he didn't.'

Laurie shrugs. ‘That's too bad. All the students need to know is that Terry Pritchard has retired and you're their new teacher. Nothing more than that.'

The answer doesn't satisfy her. ‘But they feel let down because they don't understand what's happened.'

Laurie frowns again. ‘What do you want me to say? It's not the last time they'll be let down in their lives. And anyway, getting rid of Terry Pritchard is the best thing that could have happened to them, we both know that. In the long run, they'll be thanking us for it.'

The next day, Laurie is at the classroom door again. This time, she has a boy with her; a boy whose skin is so dark it's practically black. He's new to the school, Laurie tells her. His name is Sebastian, Sebastian Chuma.

He's wearing the school uniform but there's something odd about it. It takes Nina a moment to work out what it is. It's the socks. He's wearing knee-length socks. None of the boys wear knee-length socks.

Sniggers come from table one. Nina fixes on Ethan Thompson and slowly shakes her head at him. It doesn't do any good. Instead, in a whisper that carries over to her, he says, ‘You speaka de English?' That sets off the rest of the table again.

‘Ethan Thompson,' she announces, ‘I'd like you to move over to table two.'

He looks at her in disbelief. ‘What do you mean, miss?'

‘Just what I said, Ethan: I'd like you to move your things over to table two.' It's the only table with a spare seat. And if Ethan moves there, she'll kill two birds with one stone: she'll separate Ethan and Jade and she'll have the new boy close by if he needs any help.

But Ethan doesn't move. He just screws up his face and stays where he is.

‘Ethan,' she says, more sternly this time, ‘please move to the seat next to Cody.'

This time, Ethan does move. In fact, he moves so forcefully, his chair scrapes hard along the floor. His face is thunderous as he scoops everything up from his desk. Carrying it all in his hands, he takes it over to table two and dumps it on the spare desk.

Nina tries to keep her voice modulated as she turns to the new boy. ‘Sebastian,' she says, ‘I'd like you to sit in Ethan's old seat.'

The boy hesitates then slowly makes his way to the seat. When he sits down, he looks so uncomfortable she starts to regret what she's done. Especially when she sees Kurt staring at him strangely. When she looks more closely, she sees that he has turned himself cross-eyed. Sebastian doesn't seem bothered by it; in fact, he's just smiling at Kurt. And that spurs Kurt on, it seems, because when next she glances at him, he's still cross-eyed, but this time he's stretched his mouth wide and stuck out his tongue.

He looks so ridiculous she's tempted to laugh. Instead, she raises her voice. ‘Kurt,' she says, ‘that's enough.' Then she turns to Jade, who is in the seat beside Sebastian. ‘I'd like you to make Sebastian feel welcome,' she says.

Jade seems pleased to have been given the job and immediately moves a little closer to him. She is not as fair as Bridie or even Elsie, but next to Sebastian, her skin seems extraordinarily pale. This is something Jade has to have noticed too, because now she's lining her arm up against his so that they are almost touching. ‘Look at that,' she whispers to him, and Nina isn't sure whether to silence her or let her go. The boy doesn't seem upset; he just looks. It's true the contrast is great: he is so very dark, she is so very light and they are both so very beautiful. ‘Do you burn, like in summer and that?' she
asks him. When he shakes his head, she stretches her arm right out. ‘I do,' she says, ‘and sometimes I peel and that.' She is leaning over close to him now, her mouth close to his ear, even though her voice still carries across to Nina.

‘Thank you, Jade,' she says, ‘but perhaps you can leave the talking until after school.'

Jade keeps quiet until the bell rings. Then, instead of making her usual run for the door, she waits for Sebastian. ‘How come you're wearing girls' socks?' Nina hears her ask. ‘You should push them down,' she advises as they walk out together, ‘or everyone's going to think you're a faggot.'

Sid

There's that much commotion going on outside, he can't ignore it any longer so he puts down his hammer and hurries out. But even getting to the door has become a problem now that Terry's rug is propped beside it. There's not enough room for a rug that size, but what was he supposed to do, just toss it on the rubbish heap? Terry's beaut rug? As it was, he'd got the shock of his life to find it outside the classroom, together with the rest of Terry's things, the whole lot of it ready to be thrown out. He couldn't believe it. Just couldn't believe it. But it was the note on the rug that had really got to him.
Please dispose of this rug
, it said. Well, that was easily fixed, wasn't it? He just screwed up the note and put it in the bin.