“Right. Um. Well. There shall be NO running in the corridor …”
“So again, small amendment,” said Mr Carter. “There shall be ONLY running – and shouting and bumping into each other – in the corridor. I want it to be like a constant rugby match out there. Anyone found walking silently, solemnly and slowly to their next lesson will be put in IMMEDIATE detention.”
This got a very big cheer from the children.
“Next rule, Finchy!”
“Right … well … Strict punishment will apply to any pupil persistently turning round in class, or persistently making unnecessary or stupid noises in class.”
“Thank you. Well. I’m going to open this one up to the room. What do you reckon we should go for here, guys? Let’s have some blue-sky thinking on this.”
“All children should turn round in class as much as possible?” shouted Barry Bennett.
“Out of the box, Barry! That’s a rule. That’s happening. In fact, children will get one praise point per turn. And if anyone manages to spin round as fast as a top while in class, they will earn a bonus ten thousand praise points, which will then be redeemable in the school office for … what do we think?”
“Ten pounds!” shouted Malcolm Bailey.
“Cash. Done. Loving your work, Malc!”
“All children shall make as many unnecessary and stupid noises in class as they can?” said Scarlet.
“Now we’re cooking with gas! Although don’t think – and I can see the staff are worried …”
This was true. Mr Barrington, Mrs Wang and Miss Finch were all looking horrified. Even Miss Gerard looked concerned, and usually in assembly she was fast asleep.
“… that I’m some kind of crazy Lord of Misrule man here. I’m not suggesting that children should be rewarded for just making unnecessary and stupid noises. Heaven forbid.”
“Thank the Lord,” whispered Mr Barrington to Mrs Wang. “He’s come to his senses.”
“No They've got to be funny unnecessary and stupid noises! Like … suggestions, please?”
Lots of hands went up. Mr Carter looked around, then pointed. “Fred?”
Fred blew a raspberry. Big laughs.
“Little bit Route One. But still classic. Anyone else? Alfie Moore?”
Alfie did a loud high-pitched woof. Bigger laughs. “Excellent. Works for me. Hey! Morris! Morris Fawcett! Still here even though your dad’s gone! What’s your poison? Or should I say, funny noise?”
Morris opened his mouth and made a really loud noise, somewhere between a gargle, a scream, a burp and a yodel. It's hard to capture in letters, but it was something like:
There was a short silence following this when a few people looked a bit concerned that Morris might be in terrible pain. But then he smiled, as if pleased with himself, and everyone laughed.
“Amazing. You’ve just landed yourself the ten thousand praise points right there!”
“I thought, Mr Carter, that was for spinning round like a top in class?” said Miss Finch.
“Oh, Finchy, you’re such a stickler!” He turned back to the crowd. “OK! So those are my basic amendments to the rules! There’ll be others as we go along, but that’ll do for today.”
Mr Barrington leant over again to Mrs Wang.
“Thank heavens. Now at least we can get on with the normal school day—”
“It’ll do for now because school –” Mr Carter continued, taking some kind of remote control from his pocket – “is cancelled for the rest of the day!”
A huge cheer went up from the hall. Mr Carter pressed the remote control. Immediately, music started to play. It was “Let’s Marvin Gaye and Get it On” by Charlie Puth, featuring Meghan Trainor.
“Eh?” said Mr Barrington.
“What?” said Mrs Wang.
“Oh good,” said Miss Gerard, who had a bottle of wine still open at home from yesterday.
Mr Carter began dancing, better than you might expect, with some quite cool moves. The children cheered louder than ever. Most of them got up and started dancing too. It was like a Bracket Wood flashmob.
Mr Barrington stood up and tapped Mr Carter on the shoulder.
“Really, Headmaster,” he said, close to Mr Carter’s ear – which was difficult as Mr Carter’s ear kept moving as he danced, which meant Mr Barrington had to dance with him to keep speaking into his ear – “is that wise? Remember we have OFFHEAD coming in a couple of weeks. These new rules are one thing, but just giving the whole school a day off suddenly … It won’t help anyone, pupils or teachers, get ready for the inspection.”
“No, you’re absolutely right, Otto,” said Mr Carter, twirling round and sticking one arm up in the air, knocking Mr Barrington’s glasses off his face.
“Oh!”
“Hey! Everybody!” Mr Carter stopped dancing and pressed the button on his remote control again. The music paused. The children stopped dancing too and looked up. “So Otto has reminded me that we have a situation here – like, an OFFHEAD situation – so because of the impending seriousness of that situation, I’d like everyone to be back at school ready and waiting for lessons tomorrow at nine a.m. sharp! Teachers too.”
There was a collective sigh from the children, a sense that this crazy outburst of fun was just a moment and that soon everything would be back to normal.
“Absolutely,” said Mr Barrington, although it was quite hard to hear him as he was on his hands and knees with his back to the children, looking for his glasses.
“One small WRINKLE,” continued Mr Carter. “I would like all teachers tomorrow –” he turned to the staff sitting behind him – “all of you lot, and you, Mr Bummington—”
“Barrington!”
“Whatevs … to sit in class, at a desk. Basically be one of the pupils. And I’d like your place as teachers, in every class, to be taken by some children, hand-selected by you, Miss Gerard … from Reception!”
There was a pause. Mr Barrington, still on the ground, shut his eyes. Mrs Wang frowned even more deeply than she had so far. And Miss Gerard said, “What?”
But you couldn’t hear any of that because it was drowned out by the sound of every child in assembly cheering.
Well. Every child except one standing at the back. He had stopped groaning, though, and started thinking.
Despite not being very interested in the Tudors, Dionna Baxter was enjoying this particular double-period history lesson.
Normally, Mr Barrington wasn’t able to make the years 1485–1603 all that interesting, but then again Mr Barrington didn’t usually sit on a tiny chair at the front of the class with his legs squashed awkwardly up against the far-too-low-for-him table, looking very uncomfortable indeed.
Nor, normally, did the 6B teacher – today, a four-year-old boy called Caspar – choose to teach the Reformation of the Church and the power struggles in the court of Elizabeth the First while standing on the teacher’s desk and singing “The Wheels on the Bus” over and over again.
And just the verse about the babies, at that.
But this was what was happening. Caspar, who was small even for a Reception child and had very blond hair apparently cut by a blind person, had been singing it on repeat ever since the lesson started. In any other context, it might have been really annoying. But in the history class it was hilarious.
Especially being able to see how much it upset Mr Barrington.
“Caspar! Caspar!” said Mr Barrington.
“… go waah, waah, waah! Waah, waah, waah! Waah, waah, waah!”
“Yes, I’ve got that. I think we’ve all got that.”
“The … wheels on the bus …”
“What about singing about Henry the Eighth’s wives? I’m sure we can do a song about that!”
Dionna laughed. She turned to Ryan, who was sitting next to her. Whom she noticed was not laughing.
“This is so funny, isn’t it? Ryan?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Ha ha ha ha ha.”
Dionna frowned. “Why are you do
ing that?”
“What?”
“That sarcastic laughing. That laughing that people do when they don’t think something is funny.”
She looked at Ryan. There was something weird about him, had been all morning. He’d hardly said anything, even though school was crazy since Mr Carter had come back from hospital. And now, looking at her, his eyes were also weird. Normally, Ryan’s eyes were bright and sparkly and full of fun. Now they looked … somewhere between angry and dead. And, most weirdly, his tie was done up! Right to his top button! Like: OMG?
“Ha ha ha ha ha,” he went. “OK?”
“Please, Caspar,” said Mr Barrington, “perhaps you could at least sing something different?”
Caspar frowned. Then his face cleared and: “Thhhhhhhe … wipers on the bus go whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh …”
The class burst into laughter. But Ryan, Dionna noticed, just looked on, deadpan.
“What’s the matter, Ryan? Is it that Mr Carter doing all these funny rules means you can’t think of a way of pranking him?”
“No, Dionna. It’s not that.”
“Because I quite like him now. He seemed like a terrible bloke before.”
“No doubt,” said Ryan wearily. Which seemed like a particularly odd thing to say.
“Well, what is it, then?”
“Mr Barrington! Mr Barrington!”
“Yes, Caspar?”
“You have do the wipers! Everyone has do the wipers! So you have do the wipers.”
“Do I? Really?”
Caspar frowned again. There was a very long pause.
“Yes,” he said eventually, “because I is your teacher!”
Mr Barrington sighed heavily. “Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh,” he said, slowly pointing up his index fingers and moving them from side to side.
“Well, Dionna,” said Ryan, after she had stopped laughing, “I’d say it’s not actually me who needs to worry about the new head and his crazy rules.”
“Sorry, what now?” said Dionna.
“You may perhaps remember that this school has an OFFHEAD inspection upcoming.”
“No, Ryan. I did not remember that this school had an OFFHEAD inspection upcoming,” said Dionna, doing an impression of his voice, which was still Ryan’s voice but with a strangely pompous element added.
“Well, you should. Because if, as a result of Mr Carter’s –” Ryan’s face grimaced as if he didn’t quite know how to put his next words – “odd change of heart … the school gets rated Inadequate again, there is a strong chance it will be shut down.”
“Oh,” said Dionna. Who hadn’t thought of that at all.
Ryan nodded. “I see you’re starting to understand. Because then you will have to go back to Oakcroft! WON’T YOU?”
He said the last words very loudly. It reminded Dionna, in fact, of the way Mr Carter would suddenly shout words out of nowhere, and how that could be quite frightening.
It was quite frightening for everyone. Even Caspar stopped singing and looked as if he might cry.
With his face still looking like that, he said, “You! Is a naughty boy. You must have bun.”
“Pardon?” said Ryan. “A bun?”
Caspar thought for some time.
“Ishment!” he said. “You must have bun. Ishment! Naughty Step!”
“Right. Thanks,” said Ryan, getting up. “Where would that be? I’m not sure there IS a Naughty Step in Six B.”
This confused Caspar as there definitely was one in Reception. He looked around. Then his face cleared.
“Over there!” said Caspar, pointing. Ryan followed where his finger was pointing.
“You want me to sit … in the bin?”
“Naughty Bin! Naughty Bin! Naughty Bin!”
Something inside Ryan – and when I say something inside Ryan, I mean Mr Carter – sighed.
Because Mr Carter had always been a stickler for the rules whatever those rules were, and Caspar was, at that moment, the teacher, and had told him to go and sit in the bin.
So he did. As his classmates began to clap, laugh and chant, “Naughty Bin!” along with Caspar, Mr Carter-in-Ryan’s-body walked over to the bin and plonked himself down on top of some screwed-up coloured paper and half a crayon. To a huge roar from the class.
At least, he thought to himself, my bottom is a bit smaller than it was, otherwise I’d never have got in.
Actually, not all his classmates were clapping and laughing and roaring. Dionna Baxter was staring, still frightened, at the floor.
This is brilliant! thought Mr Carter (Ryan inside – just checking).
He thought it again and again as he strode through the corridors of Bracket Wood, watching – indeed, dodging – as child after child spun round and round like a top, bumping into other spinning children, while others shouted and screamed whatever came into their minds.
“Poo!” “Bum”! “Willy!” obviously, but some cleverer things as well – he distinctly heard someone shout “Rat-a-tat-touille!” and someone else, “Nicky nacky noodles!” (I say cleverer – not much cleverer.)
Loads of them were wearing funny outfits: some dressed as clowns, some as monkeys, some even as characters from David Walliams’s books! Morris Fawcett had gone for the funny hat option, with a hilarious photo from the internet stuck to it of a cat eating a banana, and Mr Carter was kind enough to turn it round the right way as he passed.
He went round a corner. More crazed children ran past, bumping into him and each other, and shouting. It made him laugh. Most of them disappeared at that point into classrooms. Except for one, who bumped into him. Who wasn’t, in fact, a kid. It was Miss Gerard.
“Oh, sorry, Miss Gerard!” said Mr Carter.
“Thatsh OK, Headmaster,” said Miss Gerard. Well, she didn’t say it. It was more of a slur, really. Her teeth were very black today, Mr Carter noticed.
He also noticed that she didn’t back away. In fact, if anything, she was still bumping into him long after she didn’t have to bump into him any more. Her face was way too close to his.
“I have to shay, Head … Whatsh your firsht name again?”
“Er …” Mr Carter realised he didn’t actually know this. So he guessed, thinking of the first name that came into his head. “Gerard,” he said.
“Yesh, that’s me,” said Miss Gerard. “But whatsh your name?”
“No,” said Mr Carter, thinking that maybe this wasn’t a very good idea, but feeling that it was too late to change it now. “My first name is … Gerard.”
“Oh!” said Miss Gerard. “That’s amayshing!” She looked at him slyly, reaching out a hand and, for some reason that Mr Carter couldn’t fathom, stroking the lapel of his jacket with one finger. “If we were married, you’d be Gerard Gerard.”
Mr Carter didn’t know much about marriage, coming as he – Ryan – did from a broken home himself, but he knew that didn’t sound quite right. He didn’t get a chance to say so, though, because Miss Gerard laughed a lot at this remark, showing her very black teeth as she did so. Mr Carter didn’t know what to do, so he joined in the laughing, feeling a bit uncomfortable.
“Anyway, Gerard,” she said, suddenly looking very serious and frowning, “I just wanted to shay I think it’s amayshing what you’re doing to this school. Shayking it up. Trying someshing new. Itch great. Unushall.”
“Er, thanks.”
The stroking finger had now crept up to his ear. She was tickling his earlobe. It felt really, really weird.
“So. Gerard. If you fanshy going out shumtime to talk about your plansh in a bit more … detail … then jusht …” She mimed making a phone call with her other hand – very, very badly.
“Oh, right. OK.”
“I’m very good with details …” she said. And winked.
“Right,” said Mr Carter. She was very close to him now. Her breath smelt – well, like her teeth looked – like she’d drunk a lot of red wine, perhaps a bit more recently than just the
night before. “Are you … OK, Miss Gerard?”
“Oh yesh! I feel fantastic! Your speech in there – well, it made me want to shelebrate. So I did. I went out and had a tiny shelebration at the pub across the road. It’sh not just the kidz you want being wild and crazshy, ish it?”
Mr Carter frowned. He hadn’t really thought about how his words might have inspired any of the teachers. He had to think about it now, though, as Miss Gerard suddenly started spinning like a top with her arms out and meowing like a cat.
Mr Carter ducked. But not quickly enough to stop Miss Gerard falling on him and laughing hysterically. She ended up squashing his face down on the floor.
“Oh! Mr Carter!” she squealed through her laughter. “I didn’t mean that crazshy!”
He managed to squeeze himself out from under her and she blinked up at him.
“So what do you think, Gerry? Can I call you Gerry? Fanshy going over the detail any time soon?”
“Um …” he said. He could feel himself starting to sweat, a weird feeling, as it involved him starting to smell in ways that he was not used to. And then, thank the Lord – or, rather, his own new rules – he heard a huge roar of noise from a classroom nearby.
“Er … as the head teacher, Miss Gerard, I REALLY need to go and find out what that is! Bye!”
And he rushed towards the door. Miss Gerard remained on the floor. Very slowly, her eyes closed.
The roar that Mr Carter had heard was the roar of 6B enjoying Ryan getting into the bin. By the time he opened the door, though, Caspar seemed to have forgotten Ryan was there, and had begun drawing a series of houses on the board, all of which had a sun that looked a bit like a big spider above them.
“Hey!” said Mr Carter.
Everyone looked round. Behind him, one or two pupils frowned at the sight of Miss Gerard stretched out on the corridor floor, snoring.
“Good morning, Mr Carter!” said the rest of them.
“Hello, my favourite form!” he said. “What’s going on? Oh! I see Caspar’s doing some brill teaching – good on you, Cas!”
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