Head Kid

by David Baddiel

  So he went to bed. Mr Carter had been ill quite a lot when he was a child, but it still felt strange, as a grown man, to go to bed at 6pm, particularly under a duvet with pirates on it (a duvet, in fact, that Ryan-in-Ryan’s-body had been telling Tina for some time that he’d grown out of).

  But then Tina came in and asked him if he was OK. And Ryan said he still felt a bit sick, but not too bad. So she put a hand on his forehead and kissed him on the cheek, and then tucked him in and told him not to worry – she was sure he’d feel better soon.

  And that didn’t feel strange. That felt nice. Really nice.

  Standing outside Mrs Carter’s room, waiting to be let inside by the nurse, Mr Carter, feeling very much like who he really was – Ryan – wondered why he’d come.

  In Mr Carter’s flat, having heard the message, he’d suddenly felt he should. In the forefront of his mind, it was just that he felt sorry for Mr Carter’s mum – he didn’t think that she should have to be on her own in hospital just because he and her son had switched bodies. (He realised after thinking this that the word “just” was a bit odd in this sentence.)

  But in the back of his mind he knew it was because he’d wanted to talk to his mum – and Mrs Carter, at this moment, kind of was his mum.

  It was a funny sort of hospital, St Winifred’s. Mr Carter had got there easily – he’d passed it many times (as Ryan) on the way to and from school – but he’d never been inside before. It didn’t have a big reception area, like most hospitals, with lots of people queuing and babies crying and the odd man with a bleeding head shouting at his wife about how he hadn’t been drinking, well not that much, anyway. It was very quiet and carpeted and calm, more like the bed and breakfast in Dorset to which his mum took him and Holly for their summer holidays. And instead of having to spend ages with a harassed-looking person in front of a computer trying to work out which ward the patient he was trying to visit was in, Zadie the nurse just met him at the door and led him across the hallway to Mrs Carter’s room.

  “I don’t know if she’s awake,” said Zadie in a very hushed voice. “She’s been sleeping a lot.”

  “OK,” said Mr Carter.

  “But I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see you. If she wakes up.”

  Mr Carter nodded. But, inside, Ryan was nervous. Mrs Carter sounded sicker than he’d realised. Plus, the idea of anyone being pleased to see Mr Carter seemed weird to him. In fact, the idea of Mr Carter having a mum – of any teacher having a mum or dad – had never really occurred to him before. But there it was, a sign on the outside of the door: GRACE CARTER.

  Quietly, Zadie opened the door. Inside was a pleasant room, all painted in white, with a view of a garden through the window. At the far end of the room stood a bed. In it, propped up a little by pillows, was an old lady, asleep. She had white hair and a sweet face. You wouldn’t have known she was ill, except for a tube that went from a machine at the side of the bed into her nose.

  “I’ll leave you. Just call if you need anything,” said Zadie, shutting the door.

  Don’t, Mr Carter wanted to say. Don’t leave. But he was stuck being an adult – being more of an adult than he’d had to be so far – and so he just nodded.

  He went over to the bed. Grace Carter was breathing in a shallow way. As he sat down on the chair next to the bed, her eyes half opened. She smiled and frowned at the same time, as if the smiling caused her some pain.

  “Michael …” she said. “How nice of you to come.”

  Michael? thought Mr Carter. Who’s Michael?

  Then he realised. Oh. It’s me. Well, Mr Carter.

  “Er … that’s OK,” he said uncertainly. Then more uncertainly, “How are you?”

  She smiled again, and frowned again. “You know. I’ve been better. But mustn’t complain.”

  “Well. You could.”

  She opened her eyes a bit more. “Pardon?”

  “I’m just saying. If I were you, I’d be complaining a lot. I always complain when I’m ill. My—” He was about to say “mum says” and then remembered that would sound strange.

  Grace shook her head, but continued to smile. “Not really, Michael. You were always very stoic.”

  “Stow-ick?”

  “Yes. When you were ill, which was quite a lot when you were little, you would always just sit there and hardly ask for anything. It was all I could do to get you to stay off school.”

  “Oh. Right. Yeah. I forgot.”

  Grace carried on looking at him. Then she said, “You know, darling … now that we’re talking about all that, about things in the past, I don’t want to leave too many things unsaid.”

  “Right,” he said, not really understanding what this meant.

  “I think that happens a lot. You know. At times like these. When there maybe isn’t much time left … and then people – they regret it. They regret what they didn’t say.”

  “Right.”

  “And I think Dad, when he was alive, maybe encouraged you to be a little … you know … stiff upper lip and all that. To not really say how you feel because he wasn’t very comfy, was he, with feelings? And I wouldn’t want you to be like that. To think you couldn’t say how you feel.”

  “OK.”

  “Because even though you are like your father in many ways, in some other ways – like when I look at you now – I see the little boy inside you. The little boy you once were. He’s still there, I think, even though he’s forced to wear this big stern grown-up suit-of-armour of a body the whole time.”

  She reached out and he took her hand in his. It was thin and light, but warm. She was looking at him more closely now. “Michael. Are you crying?”

  “Am I?” He realised he was.

  “Oh dear. I’m sorry. You never cry.”

  He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, the one that wasn’t holding hers, and sniffed. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s OK, Michael. Really. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” She paused, still smiling, but a tear, just one, dropped slowly from her right eye, shining down her cheek. “I’m glad. Really.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Hello,” said Zadie, coming softly into the room. “Sorry, Grace – Michael – but it’s time for Grace to have some of her pain-killing medication.”

  Mr Carter looked round. Grace let go of his hand. She nodded.

  “You’d better go, darling. Thank you so much for coming. I know you have a lot of work to do.”

  He nodded, and got up. Zadie went round the other side of Grace and started preparing a syringe.

  “Especially with the new school. How’s it going?”

  “Um …” said Mr Carter, putting his coat back on. “Well, actually, it might get closed down. If we fail the inspection which is in … six days’ time.” Suddenly, and with a sharp pang, he thought of Dionna.

  “You think you can turn it round?” she asked.

  “Um …” he said again. This was a tough one. But all at once it came to him – to Ryan Ward, inside the body of Michael Carter, the head teacher of Bracket Wood School; he knew exactly what to say. “Listen. Mum. Don’t you worry about that. That’s my problem.”

  And he walked out of the door.

  “OK, Bracket Wood! Quiet down! Come on!” Mr Barrington was saying. Mr Carter had called an emergency assembly. “Good morning, Bracket Wood!”

  “Good morning, Mr Bummington!” said most of the school. Unfortunately for Mr Bummington – sorry, Barrington – the spirit of Mr Carter, or rather of Ryan-as-Mr Carter, had taken root at Bracket Wood. Those who were not shouting this rude version of his name back at him were making faces, laughing, blowing raspberries, eating sweets, jumping up and down or simply not listening.

  “Oh dear. Dear, dear, dear,” said Mr Barrington.

  “Shush!” cried Mrs Wang.

  “Stop it!” cried Miss Finch.

  “Oh, my head!” cried Miss Gerard.

  “What are we going to do?” said Mr Barrington to the other teachers in desperatio
n over the noise. “OFFHEAD are coming back! We’re all going to lose our jobs!”

  “Where’s the head?” asked Mrs Wang.

  “I don’t know! He’s vanished! He’s turned the school into this! And then just disappear—”

  PHWEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

  The very loud, very high sound pierced the noise in the assembly hall. Everyone looked round to see Mr Carter standing at the door, whistle in hand.

  “Right!” he said. “We have work to do!”

  “We do?” said Mr Barrington.

  “That’s right, Mr Barrington,” he said, striding on to the stage. “Good morning, Bracket Wood!”

  “Good morning, Mr Carter!” said the school. Except for one person.

  “Who said Farter?”

  Barry Bennett put his hand up.

  “OK, Barry. Very funny. It does rhyme with my name. But don’t do it again. It’s not respectful.”

  “But I though—”

  “I don’t care what you thought. Don’t do it again.”

  Barry, a bit abashed, put his hand down.

  “So. Look. Guys. We have a problem. As some of you may remember, two grown-ups turned up yesterday out of nowhere at lunchtime. Turns out they were OFFHEAD. Yeah!”

  “What’s OFFHEAD?” said Scarlet.

  “Is it like Apple? Or Microsoft?” asked Stirling.

  “They’re inspectors. Government inspectors. And basically they can shut the school down.”

  “HOORAY!” shouted Morris Fawcett, grinning.

  “No, not hooray. And it should be clear to all of you that it’s not-hooray by the fact that Morris decided to shout that.”

  Morris stopped grinning.

  “Look, I know it might sound great, the school being shut down. But at the end of the day, we – I mean you – do all have to go to school somewhere. And if it wasn’t here it would probably be somewhere worse. And, y’know, it’s not that bad here.”

  “What about the toilets?”

  “Yes, all right, Ellie, the toilets are terrible. And some of the teachers, of course, but apart from that—”

  Mr Barrington, Miss Gerard, Miss Finch and Mrs Wang all looked at each other deadpan.

  “—it’s all right. I mean this is where we get to spend time with our friends. Our …”

  And here Mr Carter searched out a face. Yes. There she was, sitting at the back of the room. Dionna.

  “… best friends.”

  There was a hubbub following this, and a murmur. Voices could be heard saying, “He’s got a point,” and, “I don’t know if I’d like to go anywhere else,” and, “We could clean the toilets ourselves,” and in Morris Fawcett’s case, “Should I have said ‘hip-hip’?” But Mr Carter didn’t pay any attention to that. He kept on looking at Dionna. Whose face, eventually, broke into a smile.

  “OK!” Mr Carter said to the gathered pupils. “So. What are we gonna do? We’ve got a week. Just under.”

  “Well,” said Mr Barrington, “we could … I mean if you don’t mind, Headmaster … you know … drop some of those rules you made on your first day. The ones about running in the corridor and turning round in class.”

  “Yes. OK.”

  A groan went up from the hall.

  “But I haven’t even got my praise points for that yet!” shouted Isla Fawcett. “And I turned round three hundred times in English alone!”

  “Does this mean I needn’t have come to school in this?” said Alfie Moore.

  Everyone looked over. Alfie was wearing a top hat with a picture of Mr Barrington on it, except instead of his face under the hat there was a cartoon of a monkey’s very pink bum.

  “Sorry … but yes. Breaks my heart,” said Mr Carter.

  Sadly Alfie took it off.

  “And,” said L’Shaniqua, who had wandered in from the dining hall, “we’re going back to normal food? Because we’ve made a strawberry-jelly pie with chips for lunch.”

  “Potato chips?”

  “No, chocolate. But in the shape of chips.”

  “HOOR—”

  “No, Morris. Sorry. Yes. Normal food again. Oliver-approved.”

  Another groan.

  “Although maybe keep the chocolate chips for dessert.”

  The groan stopped.

  “This is all very well,” said a voice, “but it’s not going to be enough.”

  It was Ryan. He’d got up from his cross-legged position and was now standing near the front of the assembly-hall stage.

  “None of that is going to save the school,” he said.

  “How do you mean?” said Mr Carter.

  “Well …” said Ryan, getting on the stage and going towards the lectern. “This school was already under threat. OFFHEAD have been unhappy with it for a while. Getting it back to how it was before isn’t going to get it any more than another Inadequate. Which will still mean closure.”

  “It will?”

  “It will.”

  Mr Carter frowned. His shoulders slumped.

  “So what shall we do?”

  If any of the pupils or teachers at Bracket Wood thought it was a little odd at this point for the head teacher to be asking the naughtiest boy in the school what they should do, they didn’t show it. Possibly because things had been a little weird at the school for a while now.

  “I think,” said Ryan, “that what’s needed is an idea. An event. Something that could be put on here for the benefit of the OFFHEAD inspectors that makes the school seem BETTER than it normally is.”

  “Like what?”

  Ryan laughed somewhat scornfully. It didn’t sound like his normal laugh. “Well, Mr Carter. I think that very much needs to come from you. Seeing as you’re the head teacher. Aren’t you?”

  Mr Carter looked at him. He took a deep breath.

  “Yes. Yes. I am. And so I have an idea.”

  “Oh,” said Ryan, nodding. “Great. Looking forward to hearing this. What is it?”

  “It’s …”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s …”

  “Yes?” Ryan stuck his hands behind his ears, pushing them forward. “Really. I’m all ears.”

  “It’s …” Mr Carter looked out towards the full assembly hall. “To throw it open to the floor. To the school. To the kids! And then choose the best idea!”

  “Right,” said Ryan. “Great. That’s gonna work.”

  “Anyone?”

  “We build a swimming pool in the playground and fill it with custard! And then have custard swimming races.”

  “OK, thanks, Caspar. Maybe something easier than that?”

  “Calling Barrington Bummington! Except we all do it at once!”

  “Yes, you see, Morris, we’ve stopped doing that We’ve stopped … just doing naughty stuff.”

  “Have we? When?”

  “It’s going well, Mr Carter, isn’t it?” said Ryan.

  “Debate!” shouted a girl’s voice.

  Dionna’s voice.

  “Sorry?” said Ryan.

  “We kind of are,” said Mr Carter. “In a way. Aren’t we.” He pointed at Ryan. “Me and him. Debating.”

  “No, you’re not,” she said. “That’s not debating. In a proper debate there are two teams, with, like, two people on them. They’re called Houses. And you have a motion, something serious and clever, like ‘This House Believes that the Best Things in Life are Free’ or ‘This House Believes that Freedom of Speech is the Basis of a Just Society’. That’s called the motion. And then one House argues for the motion and one against it. And then some judges decide who wins. Which could be the OFFHEAD inspectors.”

  A murmur went round the assembly hall in response to this.

  Mr Carter looked at Ryan. He raised an eyebrow.

  Ryan put his hand on his chin, stroking it. Not for the first time since he’d been transformed into her best friend, the head teacher inside Ryan thought, That Dionna Baxter is really quite impressive.

  “You know what?” he said. “That isn’t a terrible idea.” />
  “It’s a brilliant idea! Well done, Dionna!” Mr Carter grinned.

  “But,” continued Ryan, “if we really want to stage something that will impress the OFFHEAD inspectors, I don’t think a debate just between two teams made up of Bracket Wood pupils is going to do it. I think we need to show them this school can compete with other schools. I think we need to put on a debate where Bracket Wood takes on, and beats, another school – one that’s been ranked GOOD or even OUTSTANDING.”

  “Yes!” said Mr Carter.

  “Yes!” said Mr Barrington, getting caught up in it all.

  “YEEESSS!” said the children in the hall.

  “Yaay …” said Miss Gerard with a yawn, slumping against the back wall.

  “So! Which school are you thinking of?” said Mr Carter.

  “I’m thinking, Head Teacher, of the only school in the area with a ranking of OUTSTANDING. Oakcroft.”

  Everyone immediately went quiet. They all glanced at each other. The teachers frowned.

  Mr Carter gulped and said, “Oakcroft?”

  Ryan nodded.

  “The really posh school that has loads of money and brilliant results and whose debating team I believe also won the National Debating Challenge three years running?” asked Mr Carter.

  Ryan nodded again.

  “But … what if we lose? Which, you know … is really possible? Won’t that make it worse? In front of the inspectors?”

  Ryan nodded for the third time.

  “I think that may just be the risk we have to take,” he said.

  Mr Carter turned and looked with some fear towards Dionna, who was still standing at the back of the hall, her face a blank mask.

  But then, gradually, that blank mask turned into a face that was fierce, that was confident, that was defiant.

  “Bring. It. On!” she shouted.

  It was all hands on deck at Bracket Wood that week. All the mad rules that Mr Carter had made since coming back from hospital were reversed. A new healthy lunch menu that actually did get approved by Jamie Oliver – Scarlet and Stirling sent it to him on Instagram – was brought in to replace the crazy sweet stuff (which meant that they had loads of cake mix left over). The tortoises were spruced up and any human underwear removed from them. Even the toilets were finally cleaned and a plumber brought in to unblock the three that had been blocked since 1999.