Wicked! (28 page)

‘Don’t take any nonsense.’

Already two minutes late, Janna was further delayed by a telephone call.

‘It’s Harriet from Harriet’s Boutique. We were so delighted to see you in today’s
Gazette
in one of our gowns.’

‘It was a present,’ stammered Janna, convinced now that Pearl had nicked the dress. Harriet’s was very pricey.

‘You looked so lovely,’ went on Harriet, ‘we wondered if as a great favour, we could blow up the photograph and put it in our window – it would be such a boost to our Christmas display.’

Janna was still laughing as she went into the staffroom. The wind had whipped up her colour and ruffled her hair. She looked absurdly young.

The subject for discussion had been going to be the creation of a Senior Management Team (SMT), or lack of it, because Janna was dragging her heels about appointing a second deputy head to succeed Phil Pierce. If she’d had a flicker of support from any of the heads of department besides Mags Gablecross and Maria Cambola, she might have made more effort.

Now the staff had additional cause for outrage. Rain lashed the windows and relentlessly dripped into three buckets. The only cheery note was a blue vase of scarlet anemones which a grateful parent had given Janna, and which she had plonked in the middle of the staffroom table.

On Janna’s right, Skunk Illingworth nearly gassed her with his goaty armpits. On her left, Mike Pitts crunched Polos to hide any drink fumes. Why in hell didn’t he kill two birds and drink crème de menthe?

Beyond Mike was Cara Sharpe, who had ripped up the
Gazette
piece. Now, shivering with fury, she was marking essays on the sources of comedy in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
with a red Pentel. Beyond her, Robbie Rushton was spitting blood and applying for a new driving licence. Opposite him presided a returning Mrs Chalford, whom Janna already disliked intensely.

A self-important know-all, she had a smug oblong face and wore a brown trouser suit with a red Paisley scarf coiled round her neck like a python. Insisting on being called ‘Chally’, she looked as likely to have been suffering from stress as a Sherman tank.

Next to her sat Miss Basket, the menopausal misfit, who had not forgiven Janna for refusing two invitations to supper. She was so red in the face Janna wanted to shove her outside to provide autumn colour.

‘Restore work/life balance’, ‘No one forgets a good teacher’, shouted posters on the wall. The younger staff were waiting expectantly for fireworks. Mags Gablecross looked up from the blue and purple striped scarf she was knitting for her future son-in-law and winked at Janna; Jason was reading
The Stage
, Gloria
Hello!
, Cambola the score of
Beatrice and Benedict
. Trevor Harry, head of PE, shook with righteous rage. How dare that shit Brett-Taylor suggest the only exercise Larks pupils got was running away from the police? Old Mr Mates, who taught science, was asleep.

As a heavyweight and official spokesman, Mrs Chalford kicked off. ‘I wish to object in the strongest possible terms to learning future plans for our school from the pages of the local rag: future plans which are anathema to the majority of my colleagues who are opposed to any partnership with the private sector. To take only sixteen students is also totally against our caring ethos of equal opportunity for all.’

‘The idea has been around since the prospective-parents’ meeting,’ said Janna reasonably, ‘when Mr Brett-Taylor visited Larks.’

‘Such bonding is a flagrantly right-wing initiative,’ accused Mrs Chalford.

‘Not at all, it’s a New Labour initiative.’

‘I agree with Chally,’ butted in Robbie Rushton, who used every steering group or meeting to puncture the atmosphere. ‘It is a disgrace that schools charging parents twenty thousand pounds a year should be subsidized for bonding with their impoverished state-school neighbours. Any Labour Government worth its name should be working night and day to abolish the educational apartheid of the independents.’

‘Sin-dependents,’ murmured Janna.

‘As a socialist, I am amazed you’re committed to the project,’ added Sam Spink.

‘Think of the children,’ said Janna. ‘There is no playing field here where they can let off steam and build up team spirit. Every suggestion box is filled with pleas for more football, more games with other schools. Nor do I want our children to turn into grossly overweight couch potatoes.’

‘I object,’ said Trevor Harris.

‘Later, Trev.’ Janna raised her hand. ‘As S and C won’t help, we have to go elsewhere. If Bagley are prepared to share their facilities with us, we should be gracious enough to accept them for the sake of the children.’

‘How are we going to get there?’ snapped Mike Pitts.

‘Randal Stancombe has given us a minibus,’ said Janna. ‘It’s arriving on Wednesday.’

‘That capitalist snake,’ hissed Robbie.

‘As someone from a desperately deprived background who has clambered out of the poverty trap, I think Randal should be applauded for giving others a chance in life,’ snapped Janna.

‘Why doesn’t he set a good example by sending his children to maintained schools?’ said Chally.

‘You’ll get a chance to ask him on Wednesday; we’re having a photo call at Bagley.’ Janna took a gulp of water. ‘The minibus arrives at midday. We’re going over to Bagley in the afternoon. I’d like volunteers to pioneer this first trip.’

The dead silence that followed was only broken by the furious scratch of Cara’s pen.

‘Hopeless. 1/10’, she scrawled across an essay that looked suspiciously like Paris’s.

‘You amaze me,’ she said shrilly. ‘After the way you’ve constantly complained about the cost of supply staff, you’re now prepared to impose a further drain on the budget?’

‘It’ll only be Wednesday afternoons to begin with,’ said Janna. ‘Later we’re going to aim for Saturdays.’

‘You cannot expect dedicated, overworked professionals to squander valuable time on something of which they utterly disapprove,’ intoned Chally.

‘Hear, hear,’ agreed most of the room.

‘Quite frankly, if I left my post for half a day to commit to this project, which I don’t believe in anyway,’ said Mike Pitts, ‘I’d return to worse problems.’

‘I’m sure we’d all like an afternoon off and a chance to see the Burne-Jones windows, but I, for one, thought we were trying to restore work-life balance, not jeopardize it,’ pronounced Chally.

‘What’s in it for Lord Bountiful?’ sneered Robbie.

‘If you mean Mr Brett-Taylor,’ said Janna icily, ‘he genuinely wants to help.’

‘Rubbish,’ hissed Cara. ‘He’s only interested in his charitable status. Caring conservatism is a classic oxymoron.’

Janna’s fingers drummed in counterpoint to the rain dripping into the buckets.

‘She’s about to lose it,’ murmured Jason to Gloria.

‘You cannot expect instant decisions without adequate consultation,’ reproved Chally.

Mags Gablecross got another ball of mauve wool out of her bag:

‘I’d like to go,’ she said. ‘I’m off on Wednesdays so it won’t disrupt the timetable.’

‘I’d like to go too,’ said Miss Cambola, who was now orchestrating ‘Ding, Dong, Merrily’ for the Christmas concert. ‘I gather the acoustics for the new music hall are stupendous. I’d like some of our young musicians to join the Bagley orchestra. Cosmo, son of my late countryman, Roberto Rannaldini, is their conductor. His mother, Dame Hermione Harefield, has the most beautiful voice of her generation.’

‘Oh, thank you both.’ Janna tried to control her shaking. ‘We need one more.’

‘I’d like to go too,’ drawled Jason. He’d score brownie points if he were seen to be giving support to Hengist’s pet scheme.

‘You’ve already gone over to Rome,’ hissed Cara.

‘Thank you, Master Fenton,’ sighed Janna.

‘I’d like to go as well,’ piped up Gloria to Robbie’s rage. ‘Chance of a lifetime to see their facilities, pick up good practice, must be open-minded, I had an aunt who went to public school.’ She smiled adoringly at Jason. ‘I’d like to see Bagley.’

‘So would I,’ sighed Lydia, and was bleached pale by a laser beam of venom from Cara, who then turned on Jason, hissing, ‘Who’s going to cover for you, Jason?’

‘I will,’ said Lydia.

She turned even paler when Cara added viciously, ‘You know it’s Year Nine E.’

‘Not quite as challenging as it sounds.’ Janna smiled at Lydia. ‘The Wolf Pack are coming to Bagley.’

‘The Wolf Pack?’ Cara’s mad escalating laugh made everyone jump. The grey-green roots of her lank black hair gave an impression of poison welling out of her skull. Her red mouth was slack and twitching; her mad malevolent eyes rolled in every direction. Selecting an anemone from the blue vase and ripping off its petals with scarlet talons, she hissed, ‘The Wolf Pack? D’you want Larks to be even more of a joke?’

‘I’ve chosen kids who don’t normally get recognition and whom I trust,’ said Janna simply.

‘Just because they’ve been enjoying cosy weekend tea parties at your cottage. They’ll trash the place.’

‘Other kids are going: several from Year Ten, plus Aysha, Rocky and Johnnie Fowler.’

‘Johnnie Fowler!’ said Skunk incredulously.

‘Johnnie hasn’t been in trouble since he chucked a chair at me on my second day. He’s a marvellous cricketer.’

‘Who’s going to control them?’ mocked Cara, selecting another anemone.

‘They’re very fond of Hengist and have huge respect for Wally who’s going to drive the bus.’

‘Wally as well?’ snapped Mike. ‘Without a by-your-leave you hijack our site manager. What happens if there’s a fire or a fight?’

‘Fend for yourself for a change,’ snapped back Janna. ‘Use the fire extinguisher on both.’

‘I wish to register a protest against our students being exposed to snobbish and reactionary peer pressure,’ said Robbie pompously.

‘Have you got parental permission?’ accused Chally.

‘I was on the phone first thing this morning,’ said Janna triumphantly, ‘and didn’t get a single refusal. Even Aysha’s mother agreed. Parental consent forms have gone home with the kids this evening.’

‘How long will you be at Bagley?’ demanded Sam Spink, who’d been making copious notes.

‘We’ll arrive after lunch, at about one-fifteen, and be home about half-five.’

‘That could be two and a half extra hours. I’ll have to consult the branch secretary. Unfortunately I’m away on Wednesday.’

‘What takes you away this time?’ said Janna irritably.

‘A course on self-assertiveness.’

‘Whatever for?’ Jason grinned. ‘You’re far too bossy as it is.’

‘How dare you?’ spluttered Sam.

Janna decided she was rather going to miss Jason when he moved to Bagley.

Chally looked at her watch. ‘It’s nearly five o’clock, which leaves no time to discuss the lack of a Senior Management Team. We must have more democratic rule and the opportunity to make informed decisions.’

Her scarf looks set as fast as Hengist’s sealing wax, thought Janna. I’m going to see him the day after tomorrow. She fell into a daydream.

‘Sorry to railroad you,’ she piped up two minutes later as Chally paused for breath, ‘but I’m convinced it will boost the children’s morale. We’re planning a joint play next term.’

Cara gave such a howl of rage, teachers on either side shrank away. ‘As head of drama and English I should be consulted on every development.’

‘Loosen up, Cara,’ drawled Jason, ‘it’s a great idea.’ Then, smiling round the room: ‘Means I won’t lose touch with you when I move to Bagley.’

‘Shall we call it a day?’ asked Mike Pitts, who needed a drink.

‘Have the rest of Nine E been given the option of going or just your Hell’s Angels?’ asked Robbie.

Janna gathered up her files. ‘That’s uncalled for.’

‘I’m sure Simon Simmons and Martin Norman would love to go,’ said Cara ominously.

‘They wouldn’t,’ replied Janna sweetly. ‘Both Mrs Norman and Mrs Simmons told me categorically Monster and Satan don’t do detentions on Wednesdays, so I hardly think they’d be available to go to Bagley.’

Then she regretted it, instinctively crossing herself as Cara shot her a look of pure loathing. Ripped anemone petals lay like drops of blood on the table. She wants to kill me, thought Janna.

26

Hengist, who, unlike Chally, regarded debate as the enemy of progress and had no desire to discuss anything with his (dreadful word) colleagues, often used chapel to issue orders to subordinates who couldn’t answer back.

It was thus on Tuesday morning that he broke the news of the Larks invasion. He softened the blow by asking Primrose Duddon, form prefect of the Lower Fifth, to read a specially selected lesson from St Luke’s Gospel.

Primrose Duddon was clever, earnest, noble-browed and already ample-breasted, which ensured normally inattentive schoolboys listened as she read about the Lord throwing a party and, when all his smart friends refused, dispatching his servants into the lanes to invite ‘hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt and the blind’.