by A. E. Radley
Hannah sat on the other side of the desk, where a chair had been provided. More flashbacks of school hit her.
“I’m sorry to drag you in,” Miss Spencer said. “I just wanted to clarify some things in Rosie’s homework book.”
“Sure, okay.” Hannah was happy to clarify anything if she could get out of the classroom as quickly as possible. Seeing more of Miss Spencer was pleasant. Doing so in the epicentre of her student nightmares was less so.
Miss Spencer opened Rosie’s homework book which had been laying on her desk and turned it around for Hannah to see. Hannah took the book and looked at it. Everything looked the same as she had left it the night before.
“What’s the problem?”
“Well, the homework I set was for fifteen minutes of reading, but Rosie has logged that she finished the book. She’s also logged that she started another book.”
“That’s right.” Hannah closed the homework book and handed it back. “She obviously read for more than fifteen minutes, as she put down in the book.”
“I did notice that the time was written in by Rosie, which is a surprise as most of the children are soon to learn how to read a clock and tell the time. Did she fill that in under your instruction?”
Before Hannah had a chance to answer, Miss Spencer continued, “Also, both of these books are rather advanced for Rosie’s age.”
“She got the other book from the library in town. The librarian helped her pick it,” Hannah explained. She felt a little defensive. Was Miss Spencer suggesting that Rosie wasn’t reading age-appropriate books?
“If she is reading books at that level, then it’s… well, it’s extraordinary.”
“She is. Reading books at that level. And extraordinary. She’s always been bright,” Hannah explained. “She loves to read. More than anything else.”
Miss Spencer looked across the room to where Rosie sat. “I’m finding it hard to get her to speak to me,” she said softly enough that Rosie wouldn’t be able to hear. “I can’t ascertain if she’s following along in class. I know it’s still early on, but if she is reading at this level, then I will need to adjust my lesson plans for her.”
“She’s still not talking to you?” Hannah turned and regarded her daughter, nose in book, unaware of the world around her.
“Not a word, aside from registration in the morning when she says she’s here. I don’t want to push her too much, but…” Miss Spencer sighed. “I can’t confirm she is reading these books. Obviously, you say she is, but I need her to speak to me to confirm that.”
Hannah knew there was an easy way to solve this matter and allow her and Rosie out of the room. She nodded and turned to look at Rosie.
“Pumpkin? Can you come here a minute?”
Rosie put her bookmark in her book and walked over. Hannah lifted her into her lap and wrapped her arms around her.
“What do you need to know?” Hannah asked Miss Spencer.
She grabbed a book from her desk and handed it over. “Could Rosie read some of this out loud?”
“Sure.” Hannah opened the book to a random page and held it opened in front of Rosie. “Can you read some of this for us, please, pumpkin?”
Rosie nodded happily and started reading. Hannah knew that Rosie’s courage soared as long as she was nearby. She felt proud that her daughter felt so safe and secure in the knowledge that her mum would always protect her.
She looked up at Miss Spencer who was staring at Rosie with fascination. Hannah knew that Rosie’s reading was good. Of course, it would be as she did it all the time.
“Thank you, Rosie,” Miss Spencer interrupted her reading after a couple of paragraphs. “That was very good indeed.”
Hannah closed the book and put it back on the desk.
“Rosie, do you know your alphabet?” Miss Spencer asked.
Rosie nodded.
“You’ll have to say it out loud,” Hannah whispered in her ear.
Rosie reeled off the alphabet without hesitation.
“That’s very good,” Miss Spencer said. “Did Mummy teach you that?”
“No, YouTube,” Rosie replied.
Hannah chuckled. “With my supervision. Obviously, she’s not had free reign on YouTube.”
Miss Spencer smiled. “Rosie, what day is it?”
“Wednesday,” Rosie asked.
“And can you spell Wednesday?”
“W-E-D-N-E-S-D-A-Y.”
Miss Spencer looked up at Hannah. “Has Rosie attended education prior to starting here? My notes say that she wasn’t in Reception.”
“No, she’s never been in school before,” Hannah said. “As I said, she’s always been bright.”
Miss Spencer leaned back in her chair and regarded them for a few moments. She opened her desk drawer and started looking through bits of paper.
“Rosie, how would you like to have a look at an exam paper? You can take it home with you and see if you can answer any of the questions. No pressure, just for fun. I can give you one about English, so spelling and reading. And one about maths. How does that sound?”
Rosie sat up with interest. “Yes, please.”
“It’s not an official exam, but it is an old exam paper. You can have a look and see how much you can answer. If you can’t answer them, then that’s nothing to worry about. It’s just for fun. But you can’t ask YouTube. Or Mummy.”
Rosie giggled. “Mummy is rubbish at numbers and spelling.”
Hannah felt her cheeks heat up in a blush. “It’s true, she gets none of her academic talents from me.”
“I’m sure she gets other talents from you,” Miss Spencer said, that distracting smile back on her face.
In another lifetime, Hannah would have happily pursued someone like Miss Spencer. If this were six years ago in a bar, it would be a different matter entirely. She would have bought her a drink, casually chatted, and fished for some information. Sure, she was older, but Hannah had always found maturity sexy in a woman.
Rosie shifted in her lap, reminding her that this wasn’t six years ago in a bar. It was now, in a school, with her daughter in her lap and her daughter’s teacher sliding two exam papers across the desk.
“In your own time, no hurry,” Miss Spencer was saying. “And, again, it doesn’t matter if you can’t answer them.”
“Can I do them now, Mummy?” Rosie asked her.
“You can do them when we go and see Uncle Adrian.” She didn’t want to mention the salon, in case Miss Spencer thought that wasn’t an appropriate place for a child to spend her afternoons.
“Yay!” Rosie jumped off her lap and grabbed the papers. She dashed over to get her bag.
“Well, that’s made her evening,” Hannah said. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you, it’s nice to hear her talking. You have a wonderful daughter.”
“I do,” Hannah agreed. She turned to watch Rosie packing her things away, anything to stop herself from getting lost in Miss Spencer’s eyes. It was only the second time they’d met, and Hannah was already finding herself intrigued by Miss Spencer. It had to stop, she decided.
She glanced over at the desktop, noting there was no ring on Miss Spencer’s finger.
She snapped her head back towards Rosie. Stop it, she told herself.
* * *
Another evening had disappeared in a blur. Rosie had spent the afternoon in the staff room at Chopz, had a quick dinner, then a shower, and went straight into bed. Well, not straight into bed. She had spent a few minutes complaining about her bedtime again, but soon drifted off in the midst of arguing.
Hannah had taken that as a win.
She cleaned the kitchen and made Rosie’s lunch for the next day. Thoughts of Miss Spencer floated around her mind. The woman was unfairly attractive, and with Rosie’s exams suggesting the need for a second meeting, any hope she had had of not seeing her daughter’s teacher had flown out of the window.
Of course, she knew that her daughter was talented. She had an insatiable curios
ity and a thirst for knowledge like she had never seen before. Hannah had indulged it as much as she could. It had quickly become apparent that Rosie could take to any new subject, easily learning things that were often beyond Hannah’s understanding with the help of some books from the library or a quick search on the Internet.
She’d never been academically minded, and her maths skills had always been atrocious. Rosie took to numbers, though, like a duck to water. It had been a weird sensation when her five-year-old daughter had first explained to her an easier way to do her monthly banking.
Rosie was five going on fifty in many ways, and that worried Hannah. She wanted Rosie to have a normal childhood. To play, to make friends, to do what five-year-olds did. But that was already looking like it wasn’t going to happen.
After all, Miss Spencer had quickly picked up on Rosie’s abilities.
Hannah was proud of Rosie. Who wouldn’t be? But she secretly wished that Rosie didn’t have to stand out. Blending into the crowd was all she had ever wanted when she was a child, and it was the thing she wanted most for Rosie. People who blended into the crowd were left alone. People who stood out were bullied. The thought of Rosie being bullied made her heart ache.
She looked at the completed exam papers on the dining table. She’d tried to ignore them, but she couldn’t. Her daughter had breezed through examination papers in English and Maths labelled “Key Stage One.” Hannah knew these were the tests that Rosie should be taking when she was seven.
She flipped through the pages. Most of the questions were answered, with a few left blank. When she read the questions that Rosie had skipped, she realised she couldn’t answer them either.
She put the papers into Rosie’s bag with a sigh.
This could be a problem, she thought to herself.
11 THIS ENDS NOW
“Are you okay, Mummy?” Rosie asked.
Hannah squeezed her hand and looked down at Rosie’s concerned eyes.
“I’m fine. I didn’t sleep very well, so I’m very tired. In fact, I might fall asleep… right here.” Hannah stopped in the middle of the pavement, closed her eyes, and lowered her head.
Rosie shook her hand. “Mummy, you’re not asleep.”
“Give me another minute, and I might be,” Hannah muttered.
She opened her eyes and offered Rosie a quick smile and a wink. They continued the walk towards the school.
Hannah was exhausted. Stress dreams had woken her up every couple of hours throughout the night. They all had the same theme: Rosie being bullied or in some way excluded. In one, Rosie’s brain had grown to ten times its usual size, and she was in a laboratory while Miss Spencer performed tests on her.
It had been ridiculous, but Hannah knew the absurd dreams were pulled straight from her fears.
Ever since Hannah had learned she was pregnant, she was determined that her child would never have a school experience like hers. While her own situation had been caused out of neglect and bullying, she wondered if Rosie’s exceptional intelligence was going to lead her down the same path.
Children, specifically bullies, focused on peers who were different. Standing out in school was bad. Hannah had already been concerned that Rosie wouldn’t be able to make friends because she was shy. Now Miss Spencer wanted to add to the complicated situation by having Rosie complete tests for seven-year-olds.
It wasn’t happening. Hannah had made that decision at three o’clock in the morning. Miss Spencer could put any ideas of personally mentoring the next Einstein out of her mind. Rosie was going to have a completely normal school experience.
“You’re coming in?” Rosie looked at her in confusion as they both crossed the threshold onto the school property.
“I’m going to give your exam papers to Miss Spencer,” Hannah explained. “Just to make sure she gets them and knows you didn’t cheat.”
She hated lying to Rosie, but she was too young to understand the implications of what was happening. She’d had fun with the tests, but what came next wouldn’t be fun.
Hannah unclipped the clasps on the rucksack and took the exam papers out of the bag, rolling them up so the other eagle-eyed parents wouldn’t notice them. She bent down and kissed Rosie’s hair.
“I’ll take these upstairs to Miss Spencer. I might not see you before the bell goes, so have a good day at school. I’ll see you this afternoon.”
“Okay.” Rosie’s eyes were already scanning the playground, looking for her friends.
Hannah hurried towards the school before she lost her nerve. Seeing Miss Spencer was enough to put her on edge but saying what she was about to say made it worse.
Guarding the door was Lucy Gibson.
Hannah kept a neutral face as best she could. “Lucy.”
“Hannah.” Lucy took a tiny step to the side to let her past.
Hannah brushed past her. She hurried up the steps, taking them two at a time. She walked down the corridor in a daze, sleep-deprived and eager to have her encounter over with as soon as possible.
The form room’s door was open, and Miss Spencer was sat at her desk. Eating an apple of all things. The woman was straight out of a movie, one in which the sexy, older teacher read the morning paper with her glasses perched on the end of her nose while casually biting into the juicy flesh of an apple.
Hannah took a small suck of air and marched into the room. She tried to place the exam papers down gently on the desk, but the force shocked Miss Spencer into jumping in her seat.
“She’s done them,” Hannah said, “but that’s it. I don’t want any special treatment. Nothing. She’s a little girl, a normal five-year-old and she’ll do normal five-year-old work. Okay? This ends now. No more… exams… or… or anything.”
Nerves were making her lose her pre-prepared speech. She nodded her head sharply and left before Miss Spencer could reply.
* * *
Hannah wrapped her hands around her coffee mug. She’d been pacing the staff room in Chopz for the last thirty minutes while she told Adrian exactly how deluded Rosie’s teacher was.
“I told her no way,” Hannah repeated. “Not happening. Not to my little girl.”
“Hmm,” Adrian said. He’d been sitting, watching her pace since she started ranting.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” she demanded.
“If you say so.”
She stopped and stared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If you say so.” Adrian shrugged.
“No, if you have something to say, say it.”
“I really don’t want to,” he confessed. “You’re scary when you get like this. I know you think you’re protecting Rosie but—”
“THINK? I AM protecting her!” Hannah argued.
“See? Scary.”
Hannah put her mug on the table, probably with a little too much intensity. She pulled out a chair and sat down, looking at Adrian intently.
“Okay, I promise to remain quiet and you can tell me what you really think. Because you clearly disagree.”
“I don’t have a death wish,” Adrian pointed out. “I’m fine nodding when you think I should nod.”
“But I know you don’t agree with me. Come on. Tell me what you think.” Hannah folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. She was convinced that she was right, but if Adrian had something to say, she’d listen. And correct him, if necessary.
He blew out a long breath and looked at the table top, presumably to avoid her intense stare.
“Rosie is great. You know I love her like she’s my own kid,” he started. “But she’s not a normal kid. She cashed up the till in the salon when she was four. Four, Han, four. That isn’t normal. She’s been reading, counting, adding, and doing all those things way early for her age. She’s obviously got a photographic memory, but she can also process what she is reading and that’s incredible.”
“I’m not denying that,” Hannah said.
“You kinda are. You tell people she’s bright. It’s a massive unde
rstatement. She’s amazing. And, the only reason you are keeping it on the down-low is because you don’t want her to be treated different. I get it, really, I do. I know you had a shit time at school. And I know you don’t want that for Rosie, but what if you’re holding her back?”
Hannah opened her mouth to argue, but he held up his hand and fixed her with a pleading look.
“I think you’re projecting,” he said. “All you wanted to do when you were at school was fit in. You wanted to be normal, end of story. Maybe Rosie doesn’t feel that way? Maybe Rosie isn’t you? Maybe Rosie is happy about a chance to reach her full potential?”
Hannah swallowed down some choice words.
“This teacher, Miss Spencer? She does this for a living. She’s spotted that Rosie is really clever, and she’s trying to see how clever so she can give her the best possible opportunities in her education. I know you think she’ll make Rosie stand out, but maybe she won’t. You haven’t given her a chance to talk it through. You’re not giving her a chance to do her job.”
He swiped his empty coffee mug from the table and crossed to the machine on the counter, pouring a fresh cup.
“How many people come in here and try to tell you how hair works? How many people with completely white hair have told you they want to be a dark brunette? Or a dark brunette that wants to be platinum blonde? How many times have you had to have the conversation about shades and explain how hair works?”
“Hundreds,” she admitted.
“And you’re the expert. People come in with no idea, and we complain about how they don’t trust us, the experts. Miss Spencer, she’s the expert. You’re Rosie’s mum, and your job is to love her, protect her, and give her everything she needs. Miss Spencer, she’s her teacher. Let her do that job. At the very least, speak to Rosie. She’s wiser than any of us. Let her decide. Maybe she’d rather learn about nuclear physics than have any friends. It’s her choice, Han.”
Hannah wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. All her denials dried up in her throat.