by Jilly Cooper
‘Wally’s flat out,’ snapped Janna.
Rowan glanced round the office. ‘Yes, I can see. Nice settee. We have to watch the budget now S and C hold the purse strings.’
Slowly, Janna familiarized herself with classrooms, halls, gym and labyrinthine adjoining corridors in the main building, which was known as School House. Fifty yards away, the annexe, known as Appletree because it had been built on the site of an old orchard, housed the labs, music, design and technology and food technology departments.
Then she pored over the children’s personal files, counting the asylum-seekers, Indians, Pakistanis and Afro-Caribbeans – far fewer than at Redfords. She had also noticed lots of BNPs and swastikas amongst the graffiti: she would have to watch out for racist bullying. She was now frantically trying to memorize the names before term began.
‘The ones you have to watch are those going into Year Nine and particularly the Wolf Pack,’ said Wally as he carried in a mini-fridge for milk, butter and orange juice, and put jam, marmalade, coffee, tea bags, lots of biscuits, two packs of Mars and Twix bars and a tin of Quality Street in the cupboard. ‘These won’t last a minute.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Janna, who was gazing down at a photograph of a beautiful black boy with long dark eyelashes and a smile of utter innocence.
Wally glanced over her shoulder. ‘He’s Wolf Pack. Feral Jackson. Comes into school to play football and start fights. Very druggy background; mother’s an addict, off her face all day. Feral went inside at the beginning of the holidays for mugging some women shoppers. His brother Joey was shot to death last year. Uncle Harley, his mum’s boyfriend, is a mega pusher. That’s Feral’s best mate, Paris Alvaston.’
Janna looked at the boy’s ghostly face, the wonderful bone structure, the watchful pale grey eyes of a merle collie.
‘Paris has been in different care homes since he was two,’ added Wally. ‘Goes AWOL from time to time on trains all over the country searching for his mother. Advertised for a home in the local paper last year, but there were no takers. Shame really.’
‘That’s terrible.’ Janna reached out and switched on the kettle. ‘Poor boy.’
‘Looks too spooky. Teachers say he’s very clever, writes wonderful stories one day, then just puts his name at the top of the paper the next. Everything goes inside. He and Feral are joined at the very narrow hip. Give them a detention and they jump out of the window, climb down the wisteria and run away.
‘That’s Griffith Williams, known as “Graffi”.’ Wally pointed to a thickset boy with black curls and wicked sliding dark eyes. ‘Graffi was a Welshman, Graffi was a thief . . . But he’s a good laugh. Don’t stand anywhere near him or he’ll graffiti you. That’s Pearl Smith: she’s got a temper on her, scratch the eyes out of any girl who tries to get off with her boys, particularly Feral. She’s trouble. Cuts herself. Got arms like ladders.’
‘Well, she’s not wearing make-up and having hair that colour in my school,’ said Janna firmly as she broke open a packet and dropped tea bags into two mugs. ‘That one’s pretty.’
‘Kylie Rose. Already had one kid at twelve – wanted something to love. Time she spends on her back, she’ll have another any minute. Anything to avoid SATs. Those five make up the Wolf Pack.’
‘Feral, Paris, Graffi, Pearl and Kylie Rose,’ intoned Janna as she poured boiling water over the tea bags and added milk and two sugars for Wally, who carried on with her lesson.
‘There are three more you want to watch from Year Nine. One’s Rocky; he’s autistic. Attention Deficit Disorder they call it these days,’ he added scornfully,. ‘Nice kid, but violent if he don’t get his Ritalin. More serious are “Satan” Simmons – a racist bully, excluded last term for carrying a gun, overturned on appeal because his father’s a councillor – and “Monster” Norman. Monster’s mixed race’ – Wally stirred his tea thoughtfully – ‘in that his dad, who keeps walking out, is a quarter black, which Monster denies, which makes him even more of a racist bully. He’s also a great snivelling toad, really spiteful, but his mother’s a governor, so you can’t touch him.’
Janna put her hand over the names: Freddie ‘Feral’ Jackson, such a beautiful face; Paris Alvaston: no one could forget him either, he looked so hauntingly sad; Griffith ‘Graffi’ Williams; Pearl; Kylie Rose; ‘Satan’ Simmons; Rocky; ‘Monster’ Norman.’
‘What’s that?’ she demanded, noticing a switch inside the well of her desk.
‘Your panic button,’ said Wally, then, when Janna looked mutinous: ‘You don’t know what you’re up against. Most of our kids come from the Shakespeare Estate. Their parents are crazy people who respect no one. From the beginning of term you’re wearing a radio mike, and if there’s any trouble, you summon back-up. Someone’s always on call on the internal radio link.’
‘I’m not bothering with any of that junk. This is going to be a happy school.’
Before the teachers came back, Wally also gave her a sneak preview of the staffroom.
‘Why do they need a security lock?’ she asked as Wally punched out the code to enter.
‘To keep out violent kids and parents.’
‘And me too, presumably. God, it’s awful! Who’d want to break in here?’
Walls the luminous olive green of a child about to be sick were not enhanced by brown and yellow check curtains. Mock leather chairs in the dingiest browns and beiges huddled dispiritedly round low tables. Staff pigeonholes overflowed, clearly untackled since last term. Three potted plants had baked to death on the window sill. A Hoover, weak from underwork, was slumped against an ancient television set. Health and safety laws and union posters promising significant reductions in workload shared the noticeboard with details of half-price Calvin Klein button-fly boxers and Winnie-the-Pooh character socks. Also pinned up was a letter from Cotchester University announcing that a former pupil Marilyn Finch had attained a second in maths.
‘For those who remember Marilyn,’ Mike Pitts had scribbled across the bottom, ‘all our efforts were worthwhile.’
‘Only graduate Larks ever had,’ volunteered Wally. ‘Pittsy taught her.’
‘I’m going to have to tackle him on the timetable,’ sighed Janna. ‘It’s covered with drink rings and Year Seven A and Year Eight B are having English with the same teacher in the same classroom at the same time on Tuesday morning – and it gets worse. God, look at that.’
On the breakfast bar, untouched since the end-of-term party, sink and draining board were crowded with dirty wine glasses, moth-filled cups and orange-juice cartons. Scrumpy, beer and vegetable-juice cans littered the floor.
Debbie the cleaner, said Wally disapprovingly, would blitz the place before the first staff meeting tomorrow.
‘None of this lot can wash up a cup.’
‘We’d better buy them a dishwasher.’
‘They’d never load it.’
To the right of the door, imperilling entry, hung a dartboard with two scarlet-feathered darts plunged deep into the bull’s eye. Last year’s Christmas decorations had been chucked into a far corner between a ping-pong table with one leg supported by a German dictionary and a billiard table with a badly ripped cloth.
‘Don’t matter,’ said Wally philosophically. ‘Table’s mostly used for late-night nooky.’
‘Anyone I know?’ asked Janna, who’d moved to examine a big picture frame, which contained cigarette-card-sized photographs of all the staff in order of seniority. Heading these were the Dinosaurs who’d been at Larks for ever. To memorize them, Janna had made an acronym – P.U.B.I.C. – out of the first letters of their names. ‘P’ for Pitts, ‘U’ for Uglow (Miss) who taught RE, ‘B’ for Basket (Miss) who taught geography, ‘I’ for Illingworth (Mr) who taught science and ‘C’ for Chalford (Mrs) who taught history.
‘That’s one I haven’t memorized,’ mused Janna, ‘with the piled-up dark hair and operatic make-up. She must be Miss Cambola, head of music.’
Wally, however, had noticed that into Janna’s phot
ograph on the far top left someone had plunged the missing red-feathered dart between the eyes. Hastily Wally whipped it out. Fortunately, Janna had been distracted by the photograph of a good-looking blond man, affectedly cupping his face between long fingers.
‘He’s not bad.’
‘Jason Fenton. Kids call him Goldilocks. Cara Sharpe’s toyboy, so hands off. He wanted her job as head of drama and English, and believes in constantly switching schools to jack up his status and his salary. Claims you go stale if you stay more than a year, which upsets the Dinosaurs, who’ve been here for ever.’
‘And him?’ Janna pointed to a black-eyed, black-browed, bearded man with dishevelled black hair.
‘Robbie Rushton, chief leftie, rabble-rouser and has-bin. Spends his time plotting and telling you what you can’t do. Longs for a strike so he can appear on TV again. He and Jason both have the hots for Gloria, deputy head of PE.’ Wally pointed to a pouting strawberry blonde. ‘Gloria prefers Jason because he’s posher and washes more. “Soon we’ll reach Division One. Premier, Wembley, here we come,”’ sang Wally.
Who the hell had plunged that dart into Janna’s photograph, he wondered? She was such a sweet kid. He was determined to protect her.
‘“P” for Pitts, “U” for Uglow, “B” for Basket, “I” for Illingworth, “C” for Chalford,’ intoned Janna.
4
On 3 September, all the staff came into school for a full day to prepare work and classrooms for the children, whose first day of term was the fourth. New staff were also initiated into school practice: which included what coloured exercise books to use, pupil data files, playground rotas, policy towards parents and bullying, and what was laughingly known as the golden rules of behaviour management.
Janna had decided to break the ice and tradition by scheduling her first staff meeting at five o’clock, rather than first thing. Desperate for it to go well, she had not only memorized names and achievements until her head was bursting, but also ordered in three large quiches and a couple of crates of red and white to jolly things along.
Her day running up to the meeting was frantic: coping with endless requests and demands (mostly, it seemed, not to teach the Wolf Pack), and having a most unpleasant spat with Mike Pitts, who hadn’t taken kindly to criticism of his timetable.
‘Then do it yourself.’
‘No,’ countered Janna bravely, ‘it’s your job to put it right.’
She had fared little better with Sam Spink, the union rep, who had very short hair shaved at the back, a large bottom and an even larger sense of her own importance. Her straining brown leggings stopped at mid-calf leaving a hairy gap above her Winnie-the-Pooh character socks, which seemed to give out signals that she was not all work and no play, and clearly regarded herself as a bit of a card. She proceeded to lecture Janna at great length about not prolonging the school day by a second. Remembering yet again Stew’s instruction about not antagonizing colleagues unnecessarily, Janna just managed to keep her temper.
She then had to welcome two newly qualified teachers – NQTs or Not Quite Togethers, as they were known – pretty, plump, earnest Lydia who taught English, and pale Lance, teaching history. They were so full of hope and trepidation that Janna couldn’t bear them to be bludgeoned by the weary cynicism of the other staff and spent longer than she should discussing Thomas Hardy country and the battlefields, where they had respectively spent their holidays in order to glean fascinating information to relay to their classes. Thus she was still talking and in jeans and a T-shirt when Rowan Merton put her sleek dark bob round the door:
‘Two minutes to kick-off, headmistress.’
‘Why didn’t you warn me?’ screamed Janna.
‘You insisted on not being bothered.’
Janna only had time to sling on a denim jacket and slap on some blusher – God, she looked tired – before belting down the corridor. Across reception, at her instructions, Wally had strung a brightly coloured banner saying: ‘Welcome back all Larks teachers and children’.
‘So demeaning to refer to the students as children,’ grumbled Sam Spink.
The meeting was held in the non-smoking staffroom. Outside, a muttering band of lefties, headed by the black-eyed, wild-haired Robbie Rushton, drew feverishly on last fags. Inside, Debbie the cleaner had pulled a blinder. The place was gleaming. Janna made a mental note to buy Debbie a box of chocolates. Gallant Wally had, in addition, attacked the immediate garden and a smell of mown grass and newly turned earth drifting in through the window gave an illusion of spring and fresh starts.
The Dinosaurs had clearly been emailed by a furious Mike Pitts. Having bagged most of the dingy chairs and chuntering disapprovingly about ‘heads in jeans squandering the budget on drink’, they were getting stuck into the red. Mike Pitts ostentatiously asked for a mineral water. Skunk Illingworth, who taught science, stank of BO and wore socks, sandals and shorts, had just cut himself a huge slice of quiche and filled up a pint mug with white.
‘She’s going to have the students out of uniform and calling us by our Christian names in a trice,’ he grumbled.
Heart thumping, Janna glanced round at the sea of faces: appraising, hostile, suspicious, waiting for someone to make a move. Thank God, Phil Pierce, who’d befriended her at her interview, rushed straight over, kissing her on both cheeks and apologizing profusely for not being in touch.
Like most teachers, he looked fifteen years younger after the summer break. His kind eyes were clear, his hair bleached, his bony face dark tanned. He and his wife had just come back from Kenya, he said. He’d popped in earlier, but Rowan had stressed that Janna was tied up. He hoped she was OK. Then he introduced Miss Cambola of the large bosom, piled-up hair and stage make-up, and Janna scored immediate brownie points by remembering she taught music, was a fine mezzo and sang with the Larkminster Operatic Society.
‘You must join us,’ said Miss Cambola. ‘Wally tells me you have a beautiful voice. We’re doing Don Giovanni in November and have yet to cast Zerlina.’
‘I’m afraid I won’t have time,’ said Janna wistfully.
‘Well anyway, come to supper. Have you met Mags Gablecross? She teaches French part-time.’
‘And has a wedding in the offing,’ said Janna, shaking hands with a sweet-faced woman in her fifties.
‘You are well briefed.’ Mags smiled. ‘Your predecessor hardly recognized his staff.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ stammered Janna, ‘and your husband’s the great detective.’
‘He’d like you to say so. He said to call him if you get any hassle.’ Margaret popped the Chief Inspector’s card into Janna’s jacket pocket. ‘You must come to supper and meet him.’
Vastly cheered, Janna worked the room, enquiring after new babies, congratulating on engagements and new houses, expressing sorrow over deaths and hearing endless complaints about the new Year Nine and the Wolf Pack.
She was aware of Mike Pitts skulking in a corner not meeting her eyes and Cara Sharpe also avoiding her. In a scarlet dress, which clung to her rapacious, elongated body and matched her drooping vermilion mouth, Cara looked far more attractive than she had at Janna’s interview. Her ebony hair seemed softer and curlier, but her face was still as hard as the earth in those poor dead potted plants.
She was also busy upstaging other teachers over their GCSE results. ‘How did Mitzi do in geography?’ she called across to Miss Basket: one of the Dinosaurs who had buck teeth, a pale, wispy fringe and a twitching face shiny enough to check one’s make-up in, and who promptly stepped back into the Christmas decorations with a loud crunch, replying that Mitzi had only got a D.
‘You amaze me, she’s so easy to teach,’ mocked Cara. ‘She got A stars in drama, English and English lit. for me.’
Bitch, thought Janna and promptly told a crestfallen Miss Basket, ‘You did brilliantly with those asylum-seekers, getting C grades in such a short time.’
Miss Basket blushed with passionate gratitude. Cara looked furious. Then Janna spoilt it
by congratulating Basket on a new grandson.
‘I never married,’ squawked Basket.
Everyone suppressed smiles except Cara Sharpe, who laughed openly before turning glittering eyes on Lydia, the NQT who was the most junior member of her department:
‘You’ve got Year Nine E tomorrow, Lydia, you’ll find them a doddle.’
Janna swung round in horror. Year Nine E included the Wolf Pack, Monster and Satan, not to mention autistic, often violent Rocky. They’d eat poor Lydia for the breakfast their parents probably wouldn’t provide.
‘You must look out for Paris Alvaston,’ Janna advised Lydia as Wally topped up their glasses. ‘I hear he writes wonderful stories.’
‘With respect,’ sneered Cara, ‘Paris is a no-hoper, like all the Wolf Pack. You have to tell them five times to do anything, they’re always late or don’t come in at all, and never do their homework. Paris, arrogant little beast, does what he pleases and the others follow suit.’
‘Not a doddle then, as you promised Lydia,’ flared up Janna, quite forgetting about keeping her trap shut. ‘That’s a very negative attitude.’
‘I’m entirely on Cara’s side. The Wolf Pack are beyond control.’ A tall man with blond curls and smooth golden-brown skin had joined the group. ‘Pearl’s a hell-cat and Kylie Rose a nympho. If I’m going to teach them, I want a chastity belt and CCTV in the classroom.’
This must be Jason Fenton, alias Goldilocks. He was certainly pretty, his regular features marred only by rather bulging blue eyes, as though the transformation from frog into Prince Charming had not been absolute.
‘We mustn’t let past behaviour dictate the future,’ Janna said firmly. ‘The Wolf Pack are clearly forceful characters.’
‘You can’t make a difference with that lot,’ drawled Jason, ‘they’re too damaged.’
The room had gone quiet, quivering collectively with expectation.