Trouble at the Little Village School (10 page)

‘No, I think your position is pretty secure,’ Elisabeth reassured him. ‘Schools need to be cleaned and cared for, and good caretakers are hard to come by. I am sure you have nothing to worry about.’

‘So I won’t be made redundant, then?’ he asked.

‘No, I can allay any fears you have in that direction.’

‘You can what?’ he asked.

‘Assure you that it is not likely to happen.’

‘And I won’t be one of these pyrotechnics?’

‘Pyrotechnics?’

‘Them that travel between the schools.’

‘Ah, peripatetic. No, I can’t see that happening either.’

‘It’s just that Mrs Scrimshaw seems to think that they might appoint some site manager what looks after both schools and that I might have to travel.’

‘Mrs Scrimshaw only knows as much as anyone else, and we are all in the dark as to what may or may not happen, Mr Gribbon, but I am sure things will remain pretty much the same as far as you are concerned.’

The caretaker looked mollified. ‘Well, that’s good to hear,’ he said, raising a smile.

‘I was meaning to speak to you about the part-time cleaner we have been trying to employ here,’ Elisabeth told him.

‘I suppose they’ve put the kibosh on that now,’ observed the caretaker. ‘Mrs Scrimshaw said that they’ll not likely be employing new staff until this amalgamation takes place.’

‘Mrs Scrimshaw seems to be privy to a great deal about the proposed amalgamation,’ said Elisabeth good-humouredly. ‘In actual fact they have agreed at County Hall at long last for a part-time cleaner to start here. Just two mornings a week. She will be on a temporary contract for the time being, but hopefully, if she proves satisfactory, she can be made permanent when they have sorted out the staffing for the amalgamated schools.’

‘Oh, well, that’s good news,’ said Mr Gribbon.

‘She will be calling in at school later this week. Her name is Mrs Pugh. Perhaps I might leave you to look after her and show her the ropes? I have an education officer coming in for the morning on Thursday and then Mrs Atticus’s college tutor and the school nurse visiting on the Friday, so I will be pretty much tied up.’

‘No problem, Mrs Devine,’ replied the caretaker. He strode off down the corridor with a spring in his step, keen to enlighten the school secretary with the good news about the part-time cleaner and his assured future.

Chapter 5

On Thursday Ms Tricklebank arrived to spend a morning in the school. She had spoken to Elisabeth following the governors’ meeting and asked if she might visit Barton-in-the Dale to get to know the staff and pupils and learn something about the school. Of course, Elisabeth realised that there was another agenda for the visit, namely to assess the quality of the education. The senior education officer would no doubt be visiting Urebank as well, to judge that school and make comparisons. It was therefore important, as Elisabeth told the teachers at the staff meeting and the children in the school assembly, that the visitor gained a favourable impression. At the staff meeting the teachers looked anxious.

‘What is she like?’ asked Mrs Robertshaw.

‘Well, I’ve only met her once at the governors’ meeting,’ replied Elisabeth, ‘and to be frank she is a bit of an unknown quantity. She said very little at the meeting and kept things pretty close to her chest. She’s not a person given to much smiling. Rather a stern and forbidding woman if first impressions are anything to go by.’

‘Sounds frightening,’ observed Miss Brakespeare, giving a slight shudder.

‘I’m sure that when she sees what we have achieved here, meets the children and looks at the work they are doing,’ said Elisabeth, ‘she will leave very impressed.’

It was Mr Gribbon who first saw Ms Tricklebank on the Thursday morning. He observed a dumpy, red-faced woman with a rather intense expression on her face standing by the school gate watching the children as they filed up the path.

‘Morning,’ he said, approaching her.

‘Good morning,’ she replied.

‘Are you from County Hall?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I think I am expected.’

‘I’m Mr Gribbon, the caretaker.’

‘I see.’

‘Well, come along,’ he said. ‘Don’t stand out here in the cold. I’ll show you what’s what.’

‘Perhaps I might see the head teacher first,’ said the senior education officer.

‘Oh, she’ll see you later,’ he told her. ‘That’s if she can fit you in. She’s very busy this morning. She teaches during the day and has important visitors to see at lunchtime. She’s asked me to look after you.’

‘Really?’

As Ms Tricklebank followed the caretaker up the school path, he continued to talk non-stop. ‘’Course, it’s an old school as you can see and it takes a lot of cleaning, I can tell you. Dust gets everywhere and we have a problem with cockroaches. They come out from under the skirting boards at night. You get used to them. They’re bloody difficult to kill are cockroaches, I can tell you. They can live for a month without food. ’Course in a school they’ve got plenty to go at what with the kiddies dropping crisps and sweets and I don’t know what, and the teachers are as bad. I put this poison powder down the corridors every night then sweep up the bodies before school.’ He chuckled. ‘For the cockroaches that is, not the teachers.’

‘If I might—’ began Ms Tricklebank.

‘You’re not allergical to cockroaches are you?’ the caretaker asked.

‘Interesting as this is,’ started Ms Tricklebank, ‘I think I really must—’

The caretaker continued obliviously. ‘You’re all right up ladders, are you? Because some of the shelves are high up. I deal with the floors and the boiler of course. You’ll be responsible for the toilets, amongst other things. You’ll find Mrs Devine the head teacher nice enough but she’s a real stickler for cleanliness, not like the last one, and she watches you like a hawk. She misses nothing. Now, the children’s toilets will need a good going-over when you’re in and—’

‘Excuse me,’ interrupted Ms Tricklebank, ‘I think we are at cross-purposes here. Whom do you imagine you are speaking to?’

‘You’re Mrs Pugh, the new part-time cleaner, aren’t you?’ the caretaker replied.

‘No, I am not,’ replied Ms Tricklebank. ‘I am the senior education officer.’

‘Oh,’ gasped Mr Gribbon, stopping in his tracks and hoping that the floor would open and swallow him up.

The first lesson Ms Tricklebank joined was with Miss Brakespeare and the top juniors. The deputy head teacher was rather unnerved by the serious-faced woman who wandered from desk to desk, talking to the children and scrutinising their exercise books.

‘And what would you say is the best thing about your school?’ she asked a large boy with a round moon of a face and great dimpled elbows. He stared at her suspiciously. ‘The best thing about Barton-in-the-Dale?’

‘Dunno,’ he replied.

‘Is it the lessons, the various activities, the school trips?’ she prompted.

‘Dunno.’

‘Well, if there was anything you could change what would it be?’

‘Dunno,’ repeated the boy.

‘There must be something,’ she persisted.

‘I’ve got to gerron wi’ mi work,’ he told her crossly, looking down at his book.

Ms Tricklebank left the classroom with a cursory ‘Thank you’ to Miss Brakespeare.

In the infant classroom the senior education officer sat stony-faced in the corner, listening as the teacher began to read from
The Tale of Benjamin Bunny.
As the children filed out of the classroom later for playtime, Ms Tricklebank tackled Miss Wilson on the choice of story.

‘Don’t you think Beatrix Potter’s stories are rather dated?’ she asked, as if challenging the teacher to disagree. ‘There is so much bright, interesting and perhaps more appropriate reading material available for young children these days.’

Miss Wilson was taken aback. Then colour suffused her face. ‘If you would care to look in the reading corner,’ she said sharply, ‘you will find plenty of bright, interesting and modern books. I believe children should be exposed to a wide variety of literature, including some which might be considered dated. In my opinion Beatrix Potter is one of the finest writers for young children. If we only presented children with up-to-date material they would never come across fairy stories and fables and classics like
The Wind in the Willows
,
Alice Through the Looking Glass
and
The Water Babies
.’

Ms Tricklebank held up a hand and gave a small smile. ‘I take your point, Miss Wilson,’ she said, as calm as a nun. ‘I was merely interested in your opinion.’

After morning break, which Ms Tricklebank spent in the playground talking to the children and watched by the teachers from the staffroom window, she joined Mrs Robertshaw with the lower juniors. The children sat in a semicircle around the teacher.

‘Now, children,’ said Mrs Robertshaw, ‘we have with us this morning a visitor.’ All heads turned in the direction of the senior education officer, who sat by the window straight-backed and expressionless. ‘This is Ms Tricklebank and she may wish to speak to you. I am sure you will make her feel very much at home. We are very friendly in this school, aren’t we, children?’

‘Yes, miss,’ the class chorused.

The senior education officer gave a small nod of the head.

The teacher turned her attention back to her class. ‘Last week Jeremy asked me which was my very favourite story when I was a girl. Well, I am going to read it to you this morning. It’s called ‘The Selfish Giant’.’

Oscar waved his hand in the air. ‘It’s by Oscar Wilde, miss,’ he volunteered.

‘Yes it is,’ agreed the teacher. ‘And—’

‘He’s my mother’s favourite writer,’ said Oscar. ‘I was named after him. My father says he was a very colourful character and led a very interesting life.’

The teacher raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes, I think it could be said he was most colourful and led a very interesting life,’ she replied. ‘I wouldn’t disagree with your father about that, Oscar. Now this is the tale—’

‘Miss, I’ve heard this story before,’ the boy told her.

‘Really?’

‘It’s very sad.’

‘Yes, it is,’ replied the teacher.

‘It’s a sort of a parable, isn’t it, Mrs Robertshaw?’ he said.

The teacher put on a forced smile. ‘Yes, I think you could say that it is.’

‘What’s a parable, miss?’ asked a small girl with long blonde plaits.

‘It’s a simple story with a—’

‘A moral,’ said Oscar.

‘What’s a moral?’ asked the girl.

‘Well—’ began the boy.

‘Oscar,’ snapped the teacher, ‘we can talk about the story later on. Before that I have to read it. Now no more interruptions please, otherwise I shall never finish the story and we won’t find out what happens.’

‘But I do know what happens, miss,’ said Oscar.

‘Well, you are going to hear what happens again,’ said the teacher somewhat brusquely. ‘Now, children,’ she continued, ‘I read a good many books when I was your age but the one story which I loved the most, the one which brings back so many happy memories of my childhood and the one which I wish I had written myself, is ‘The Selfish Giant’
by Oscar Wilde.’

‘He was gay, wasn’t he, miss,’ said Oscar.

Mrs Robertshaw sighed.

‘What does that mean, miss?’ asked the girl with the blonde plaits.

‘Happy and light-hearted,’ said the teacher quickly.

‘No, I meant he was—’ began the boy, waving his hand in the air again.

‘Oscar!’ exclaimed the teacher. ‘I said no more interruptions. Now let’s get on with the story. It is about a very mean and bad-tempered giant who prevents the little children from playing in his beautiful garden.’

The children listened intently as the teacher recounted the tale.

‘‘‘My own garden is my own garden”,’ she told the children, ‘“and I will not allow anyone to play in it but myself.” When spring comes the Giant’s garden remains cold and barren and a great white cloak of snow buries everything. The Giant cannot understand why the spring passes his garden by. Summer doesn’t come and neither does autumn and the garden stays perpetually cold and empty of life. One morning the Giant sees a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the children have crept into his garden and every tree has a little child sitting in the branches amongst the blossoms. They have brought life back to his garden and the Giant’s heart melts. He creeps into the garden but when the children see him they are frightened and run away. One small boy doesn’t see the Giant, for his eyes are full of tears. The Giant steals up behind the child and gently takes his little hand in his. Many years pass and the little boy never comes back to play in the garden. Now very old and feeble, the giant longs to see his first little friend again. One day the small child returns.’

The teacher read from the book:

“‘Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, “Who hath dared to wound thee?” For on the palms of the child’s hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of the two nails were on the little feet.