Head Kid

by David Baddiel

  “No!”

  “Which, frankly, neither am I.”

  “What?”

  “I’m frightened,” she said. “I just looked out and I know I faced them down when we were in Mrs Valentine-Fine—”

  “OBE,” said Mr Carter and Ryan together.

  “Whatevs … When we were in her office, but that girl Belinda – she was the worst.”

  “The worst what?”

  “The worst bully! To me! When I was there. And turns out her and that posh boy Toby are Oakcroft’s debating team!”

  “OK … well—”

  “It’s not OK. Just looking out there and seeing them smirking – it’s making me really nervous! I don’t know if I can do it, Ryan!”

  “Yes, well, don’t ask me to help,” said Ryan. “As you know, I have my own issues.”

  “I think she’s talking to me,” said Mr Carter.

  “Oh. Right,” said Ryan. Dionna had retreated into the corner and was sobbing gently. Mr Carter looked over at her helplessly.

  “Well …” said Ryan, coming close to him, and speaking quietly, “you know the thing you said about us turning into each other?”

  Mr Carter nodded.

  “I hope – for both our sakes – it isn’t happening. But! If it turns out that you have indeed picked up a tiny bit of maturity – a tiny bit of head actual teacherishness from me –” he glanced behind him at Dionna – “you should be able to deal with this situation.”

  With that, he moved out of the way. Mr Carter looked at Dionna, still sobbing. He gulped and went over to her.

  “Listen … Dee. You can do this. I know you can.”

  “How do you know?” she asked through a constricted throat.

  “Because I know you. I know you had a terrible time at Oakcroft, but the fact that you left there doesn’t mean they won. And you can show them that now, today. Because I know you’re really brave.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yeah. You’ve always been my right-hand girl. Whatever the prank. Remember when we put the bucket of frogs over the classroom door? It was up to you to make a lot of noise so that Barrington came barrelling in without looking up. And you gave it everything!”

  Dionna laughed at this, even though she was still crying.

  “Or that time we went to the library and asked for books with funny names. You went straight up there and asked the librarian for Big Pants by Hugh Jass!”

  Dionna laughed more.

  “And you asked for Fifty Yards to the Toilet by Willy Makit!” she said.

  “I did!”

  “And Mr Chumley spent ages looking for it in his cards!”

  “Um …” said Ryan, coming over, “I’m not sure this is what I meant by … maturity.”

  Mr Carter and Dionna looked at each other.

  “Well, it’s done the trick!” she said. “Let’s get out there and smash it!”

  “Yeah!” said Mr Carter. And they were just about to go out on to the stage of the assembly hall when there was a bleeping noise.

  “What’s that?” said Mr Carter.

  “It’s my phone,” said Ryan.

  “Is it?”

  “Yes.”

  Mr Carter started patting his suit.

  “Where is it?”

  “My inside pocket. That’s where I always keep it.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  Mr Carter reached into his inside pocket and took out the phone. At which point, Ryan grabbed it.

  “Hey!” said Mr Carter.

  “It’s my phone!”

  Mr Carter looked at it in Ryan’s hand. It was a very sensible one, only just a smartphone, with not even a cool cover or anything.

  “Yes, it clearly is,” he said. But Ryan didn’t say anything. He was reading a text. When he looked up, his face did not look pleased.

  “You went to St Winifred’s?” he said sharply.

  “Um. Yes. How do you—”

  “Because this is a message saying that –” he checked it again – “my mother hopes I will come and visit her again soon. Because she is getting weaker all the time.”

  “Oh,” said Mr Carter, “I’m really sorry.”

  “It also says …” and here Ryan frowned hard at the screen, “that the last visit from me … by which it means you, of course … was really special, and it meant more to her than …” – he paused, reading the words slowly – “any … other … visit … before.” Ryan seemed to take a while to absorb these last words. Then he looked up. His face had gone very hard. “Well. There we are,” he said, talking, it seemed, to himself.

  “Listen, Mr C,” said Mr Carter. “I …” But then he realised he didn’t really know what to say. There was a very awkward silence.

  Then, finally, Ryan spoke, through very tight lips. “Why did you do that? Go and visit her? She’s my mother.”

  Mr Carter looked down. He did have some reasons, but he didn’t know whether or not they would make any difference to Ryan’s anger. Which was scaring him. He might have the bigger body, but at the moment he was shrinking inside it.

  Mr Carter just shrugged and continued to look down. A person watching from afar might have thought it odd that the head teacher, the grown-up in the suit, was acting like a told-off kid, while the boy in the school uniform was doing the telling-off.

  “WHEN OH WHEN OH WHEN IS THIS SO-CALLED DEBATE GOING TO BEGIN?” came a loud and OBE-garlanded voice from inside the assembly hall.

  “Well, we could just assume that the lateness of the Bracket Wood team is point one of our argument, couldn’t we, Toby?” came another.

  “Yuh, too right, Belinda. Cool idea.”

  “Come on!” hissed Dionna, walking over to the two of them. “Let’s get out there!”

  She walked on to the stage. Mr Carter finally looked up, to see Ryan still staring at him.

  “You’ll be sorry for this, Ryan Ward. You’ll be so, so sorry,” he said, and then walked out after Dionna.

  “To sum up, this House’s argument is clear. This school, Jacket Food Comprehensive, is – one – a school that has continually scored poorly on its –” and at this point Belinda, who had been proposing the motion for some time, curtsied towards Mr Mann and Miss Malik – “OFFHEAD reports. And – two – is not getting any better. Recently, the school has just been in a terrible state. There have been stories of chaos in classrooms and corridors, of confectionery – confectionery! – being doled out at lunchtime, of homework being cancelled and of teacher shortages, with classes having to be taught by Reception children!”

  Mr Carter wanted to raise his hand here, and say Point of order! That wasn’t because of a teacher shortage! I just did it because I thought it’d be funny! Which it was! but there was no point in him doing so as he was sitting in the audience, and not actually on the debating team. And also it wouldn’t have helped very much. So he just had to sit and watch as Belinda strode confidently forward to the front of the stage.

  In the hall, the Bracket Wood pupils sat – the older ones on chairs, the younger ones in front, cross-legged. Lining the walls, though, were the visiting boys and girls from Oakcroft. Onstage, six seats had been set out opposite each other.

  The left-hand side was Team Oakcroft. Belinda, until she had begun her speech, had been sitting there with Toby. On the right-hand side, presently looking a bit glum, sat Dionna and Ryan. In between were Mr Mann and Miss Malik. Above them hung the banner. The phrase seemed to gleam more strongly with every word that came out of Belinda’s mouth.

  “And – three … well,” she said, moving her face slowly from side to side and doing the smirk that seemed to be her default expression, “just look around you. I don’t wish to be rude …”

  Don’t you? thought Mr Carter (that’s Ryan inside Mr Carter, btw).

  “… but really.”

  In the hall, the Bracket Wood children did what she asked. Barry Bennett looked at his friends Jake, Lukas and Taj, and then to Ellie Stone, who was looking
at her brother Fred, who looked beyond her at Malcolm Bailey, who was looking over at Sam Green, who was frowning at Alfie Moore, who was glancing at Stirling and Scarlet, who were looking at each other, although sitting in between them was a Year Five boy called Prajit who smelt slightly of Whiskas, and he was looking at Isla Fawcett, who was looking at her brother Morris, who had his eyes shut because he was asleep.

  They all (apart from Morris, obviously) had an expression on their face that said, Oh. Maybe she’s right.

  “And then,” Belinda continued, “look at us. Myself and Toby, the representatives of Oakcroft School.” She said Oakcroft with special reverence as if she was saying the word royal. She gestured with both hands towards herself as if opening a pair of invisible curtains just in front of her. “Look at our clothes. Our bearing. Our natural confidence, intelligence and class.” She went and smirked next to Toby, who stood up with her. “This is what schoolchildren should look like. Should simply, in fact, be. We are what a school that is definitely not rubbish breeds – a superior race …”

  In the audience, Mrs Valentine-Fine OBE made a tiny gesture with her index finger, a gesture that meant Not that, Belinda – bit too far.

  “Sorry, scratch that,” said Belinda, hardly pausing for breath. “A superior model of pupil. A model pupil, if you will. As opposed to –” she looked across to where the Bracket Wood team was sitting and fixed her eye particularly on Dionna – “a rubbish pupil.” Remarkably, as she said this, her smirk broke into a full smile. She turned back, still smiling, to the audience.

  “Standing before you, I thus commend this motion to the gracious OFFHEAD judges. Thank you very much.”

  There was a small silence, followed by a burst of loud applause from where Mrs Valentine-Fine OBE was sitting.

  “BRAVO! BRAVO! ENCORE! HEAR HEAR!” At which point, the Oakcroft group round the walls joined in, clapping and shouting, “Yes! Great job, Belly! Well done! You go, girl!” and suchlike.

  Belinda sat down with a very strong sense of sorted. Miss Finch leant over from behind Mr Carter and said quietly, “Well, that was very irritating. But delivered supremely confidently. Which probably counts for quite a lot …?”

  “Maybe,” replied Mr Carter, looking over at Miss Malik, who was scribbling furiously in her notebook. “But Dionna’s great.” He wanted to say, And Ryan’s actually forty-three years old, so that’ll help. But managed to suppress the urge. “Plus, the posh boy has to do his speech first. And I don’t think he’ll be as good as Belinda.”

  “Thank you very much, Belinda, the captain of Oakcroft’s team,” said Miss Malik. “And now, Toby, to second the motion, please.”

  Toby stood up, his long shaggy hair falling across his eyes. He put his hands in his pockets and ambled forward.

  “Yuh. Well. What Bells said. Literally. I mean, this school, like, is clearly so basic. It’s just dregs, and us Oaky boys and girls – we’re clearly, like, on fleek. So you know – vote for us.” And with that he smiled, clicked his tongue, winked and pointed with both index fingers at the audience.

  “You see?” whispered Mr Carter, looking back at Miss Finch. “That won’t have got Oakcroft many poi—”

  But then he stopped whispering. Because he noticed that Miss Finch wasn’t listening. She was just looking dreamily at Toby, who was still standing in his pose, smiling his very white-toothed smile.

  Then he looked around and saw that every single girl and female teacher – and quite a few of the boys and men – were staring in more or less the same way at Toby.

  Another big round of applause broke out all over the hall, during which Mr Carter noticed that joining in with the applause, and very much also doing the dreamy stare, was OFFHEAD inspector and debating judge Miss Malik.

  “Miss Malik?” said Mr Mann after the applause finished.

  “Hm?” she said, still staring at Toby.

  “Time to do the next bit?”

  “What? Oh. Yes …” she said, still smiling at Toby. “Well, it’s been great so far. Spellbinding, really.” She turned to look at team Bracket Wood. Dionna and Ryan were waiting. Neither of them seemed confident – Dionna looked nervous and Ryan sulky.

  “So,” said Miss Malik, “now it’s the turn of Bracket Wood. And the first speaker is – Dionna Baxter!”

  She applauded, every so often glancing at Toby, who had finally broken his pose and gone to sit down. There was a little bit of applause and some uncertain cheers from the home crowd in the hall.

  Dionna stood up. In her right hand, she held some notes written on a series of cards. She coughed nervously, bringing that hand to her mouth quickly, which meant all those cards collided with her face and then spilt on to the floor.

  “Oh!” she said. “Sorry.”

  There were some laughs from the Oakcroft pupils in the hall, and two, very pointedly, from the Oakcroft area of the stage.

  Dionna began to pick up the cards, but they were made of the sort of paper that sticks easily to a surface, and after trying to get one up for nearly ten seconds she sighed, shook her head and gave up.

  “Oh, never mind,” she said. “I know what I want to say anyway.”

  She faced forward and moved to the front of the stage.

  “They’re right in some ways, aren’t they?” she said, addressing the hall, but gesturing towards Belinda and Toby. “Pupils at this school will probably never be as well-spoken and beautifully put together as … Belly and Tobes.”

  A ripple of laughter went through the crowd at the way Dionna said the posh nicknames. Belinda sniffed and looked away as if hardly listening. Toby flicked his hair out of his eyes. Again.

  “And probably, if your only mark of whether this is a good primary school is how many children make it into a posh secondary school – well, again, I suppose Oakcroft is going to win every time.”

  At the front of the audience, Mrs Valentine-Fine OBE nodded enthusiastically.

  “SHE’S DOING WELL. FOR US!” she said in the nearest thing she could to a whisper, which was more like a very breathy shout.

  “But there are other things,” continued Dionna, “that make a school a good school. Number one, I would say, is happiness. Maybe Mrs Valentine-Fine—”

  “OBE!”

  “—wouldn’t put that very high on the list, but, you see, I have a unique – for those of you in Reception and Years One and Two, that means I’m the only one – viewpoint as regards this debate. Because even though the debate isn’t about whether Oakcroft is a better school than Bracket Wood, Belinda, and to a lesser extent, Toby, have made it about that. Bracket Wood, they’re saying, is clearly rubbish because Oakcroft is so much better. But my unique position is that I’ve been a pupil at both schools. I went to Oakcroft and now I’m here. And I can’t even begin to tell you how much happier I am here.”

  A murmur went round the hall – of excitement, of surprise, of the tables being turned.

  “My parents – and I – were very excited when I got into Oakcroft. It is supposed to be the best school in the area, and kids like me aren’t meant to go to places like that. But the trouble was – that’s how I was made to feel all the time. Like someone who wasn’t meant to be there. By some of the staff, even, from time to time. But all the time by some of the pupils …”

  She looked over meaningfully at Belinda. Who tried to sniff and look away again, but since she’d been looking away to begin with, that meant she had to look away even more. Which was a bad idea, as it involved swinging her face almost completely behind her.

  “Ow!” said Belinda.

  “What is it, Bells?” asked Toby.

  “I’ve cricked my neck!”

  “But,” said Dionna, “let’s not even go there. I don’t want to win this debate by asking for your pity. Or by going on about what happened in the past at that school. I want to talk about how much I like it now, here, at this school. Because, let’s be honest, everybody. School. It’s boring. It’s not meant to be fun. Bits of it can be, though. It ca
n be because if it’s a place where you feel safe and there are no bullies, then in between the boring bits you can have fun.”

  And here she looked directly at Mr Carter, sitting there willing her to win and to carry on speaking so well.

  “Fun with your friends. I love this school and I think it is a good school because it’s friendly. I have made good, real, lovely friends here. And that’s why I’d rather be here than stupid old Oakcroft any day!”

  Dionna went and sat down. Mr Carter watched her. For the second time that month, a person who’d known the head teacher for a while might have been surprised to see a tear appear in his eye and roll down his cheek. But the tear was accompanied, this time, by a big smile and an equally big thumbs-up in her direction.

  She saw it and smiled back.

  At which point, the hall broke out into thunderous applause. There was clapping and cheering and stamping of feet. From the Bracket Wood children (and staff), of course, although Toby joined in until Belinda slapped him.

  “Oh, right. Soz,” he said.

  “Well,” said Mr Mann, getting up from his central chair. “That was a very impressive speech from the Bracket Wood captain, I must say. Which has made the match rather closer than perhaps we all thought it would be … and means that everything, I think, is resting on the final speech, which will be coming from Bracket Wood’s seconder – Ryan Ward!”

  A hush descended on the hall. All eyes went to the second chair on the Bracket Wood side. And then Ryan, who had been looking down for most of Dionna’s speech, looked up.

  As Ryan got up to speak, Mr Barrington turned to Mr Carter and whispered, “Er … Headmaster … Ryan Ward? Really?”

  Miss Finch leant over and added, “Yes. Are we sure about this?”

  And Mrs Wang said, “Oh no. Not him.”

  Even Miss Gerard, who’d turned up late and seemed to have had her eyes shut for most of the debate, murmured, “Well, that’s that, then.”

  “No!” said Mr Carter to all of them. “It’s going to be fine! You’ll see. You may not have noticed … but Ryan’s, well –” and here he smiled confidently – “he’s acquired a certain maturity recently.” Still smiling, he looked back to the stage and folded his arms. “I think, members of staff, that you are about to see that maturity in action. Right now.”