Dan and the Teacher Ghost

by David Churchill

  Now we are safe and Dan is safe and I am never, never, never going to do anything like that again. And one thing that is even more certain is that I am going to put these boards back and forget all about what’s under our desk. In fact I’ll find a way of moving us to another desk tomorrow. It’s all beginning to feel very weird, very unnatural, and I wouldn’t go down there again for a million pounds. I wouldn’t even go down if they said I could play for England. That’s how bad I’m feeling because the more I think about it, the weirder it gets.

  “Come on Dan,” I say, “let’s tidy up.” Let’s shut it away, nail it down, I’m thinking.

  He starts to protest, “But that lady – ” and then he stops dead with his mouth still open.

  Something’s happening and we’re both feeling it. There’s a change in the air, a pressure. I can’t see anything but I know – I just know – that something’s going on below where my legs are dangling. Even as I begin to draw them up I feel something.

  It’s like a rising wave coming lightly up out of the darkness and passing over me or through me. For an instant I’m suffocating, as if spider webs are streaming over my mouth and eyes. And now, as quickly as it came, it’s gone and I wipe my hand over my face. The air that I breathe is scented and I recognise the smell. It’s lavender, like I always buy my Gran for Christmas because she says it helps her sleep. But my skin is prickling with the most shivery goose bumps I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m freezing cold and sweating, all at the same time.

  Dan is staring down at me, his lips pushed out, puzzled. He must have felt some of that too. Then he sniffs and grins as if the scent has reached him and he likes it.

  With sweat trickling down my back I’m on my feet now, dragging at the boards, stamping them into place, grabbing Dan again and making for the door. I unlock it and I’m not even looking to see if anyone’s about as I push Dan out, relock it with shaky fingers and pelt off down the path, out by the hedge and away up the road.

  Dan’s got the idea, panting along at a great speed, finding it all funny, trying to laugh and run at the same time.

  At last we stop by the Rec, where kids are kicking footballs about in the mud, and he hasn’t got the breath to speak.

  I look at him as he stands there, with his face as red as a tomato, trying to get his wind back, and I feel so pleased that he’s above ground, safe and all right.

  “Come on, Dan the Man,” I say, “let’s play football.”

  Eleven

  It’s Monday morning and I’m hunched under the duvet. For once, I don’t want to go to school. I had a horrid dream last night about Dan being trapped in a coal mine and when I tried to pull the lumps of coal aside to let him out they all turned into sticky blobs of glue and he was choking in it. Then I tried to shout for help and my mouth filled up with white cobwebbs.

  For a moment when I woke up, with a nasty dry throat, I hoped that the whole thing had been a dream anyway and that we never had gone underground. But I knew it was real enough in a way and I still can’t make any sense of it. Dan liked it – he likes everything except being shouted at – and he just accepted it. He wanted to go out into the open, get stuck in and help the woman in the weird clothes. The problem is, I’m thinking, it couldn’t have been in the open.

  As often as I go over it I always come back to the point that we definitely were underground. Well underground. And there isn’t any sunshine underground. What’s more, I realize with a shock, it was summer down there. Flowers. Leaves on the trees. I stop and check if I’m being stupid, but no, it’s definitely February here, not long since Christmas when Dan got his watch. That’s weirder than ever. And something truly scary did happen in the classroom when we got back there. Something I’m not going to think about in case I feel it all again. Which I’m doing anyway.

  Even when we were kicking the ball around with the other kids Dan kept on about helping the woman. It had made a big impression on him but I was still scared. I told him to shut up in the end. He was really upset and went home by himself without speaking to me. I was sorry about that, but I hope he’ll have forgotten about it by today.

  Mum stops me from going over it all yet again when she comes in and pulls off the duvet and grumbles me out of bed. I eat a weetabix and drink some orange then I trudge off down the road to pick up Dan.

  He’s outside his house, just standing there. When he sees me he gives me that grin.

  “Yo Tony,” he says. “I kept the secret. Are we going to help that lady today?”

  Was I hoping he would have forgotten?

  “What lady?” I ask.

  He looks perplexed now.

  “That…that…lady, you know Tony.”

  “Where?” I ask.

  “That lady…under our desk – ”

  I stop him dead there, by pretending to fall about laughing.

  “Under our desk?” I splutter. What an actor I am. “There’s a lady under our desk? Don’t go telling people that or they’ll think you’ve gone crackers!” and although I feel as mean as hell when I see how confused he looks, I do the big laughing act again.

  “But…” he starts, “that lady…” and he tails off, really troubled now.

  I feel sorry for him. It’s more than he can handle and I’m being rotten. But I can’t handle it myself so it’s better that we just forget all about it, that’s my opinion.

  “Come on, Dan the Man,” I say, “you’ve been dreaming. Let’s go and do some sums.”

  “Sums,” he says, and trundles off obediently, just behind me, but still not happy.

  I don’t fancy the classroom and as soon as I’m inside it my eyes go straight to our desk and the floor underneath. Everything looks OK though. My spirits rise and I think perhaps it was some trick of the torchlight yesterday, and we just imagined it all. But of course I know we didn’t, we both saw it and it was weird. Something happened and I’ve got no idea what.

  One thing I do know is that I’m not going down there again to find out. At least all the mines round here are long closed down and the slag heaps over the road are planted with grass and trees, so no one’s going to make me be a coal miner. I shouldn’t think I’ll ever be a potholer either. Above ground is definitely best! I’ll stick to football from now on.

  There’s a big surprise though which cheers me up quite a lot when I take in who’s standing at the front of the class. A new teacher. She’s got long black curly hair and a bright red sweater and big dangly earrings and a long black skirt with red flowers all over it and I’m in love! Definitely in love.

  So’s Dan. He’s standing there with his mouth open. She’s taking a bunch of yellow flowers out of a plastic bag and she reaches down an empty vase that stands by the owl and before I can offer to help she’s given it to Dan and asked him ever so nicely if he would fill it with water for her. I’m dead jealous and I go with him anyway, just to help him, of course!

  As we go into the pongy loos I’m thinking, Great, another lady to take his mind off “that lady” whoever or wherever she was.

  When we come back in she smiles at us and the crumbling old classroom lights up. We sit down and the others come in and we all sit there gaping at her.

  Now she’s looking serious. “I’m sorry to tell you that Mr Piggott isn’t very well,” she says. She’s got a voice like a film star, I’m thinking. She goes on, “I’m Jenny Johnson - that’s Miss Johnson to you. I’m a supply teacher for the time being and it looks as if I shall be your teacher for the rest of this term. Well, that means until Easter when you will be moving into the main school and, so I’m told, this little building will finally close. We must have a party to see it off with, don’t you agree?”

  We all agree loudly, but we’d agree to anything she said, wouldn’t we! Nobody even thinks to ask about Mr Piggott, which is a bit mean really, when you come to think about it.

  She opens the register and we all croak out our names and she nods and smiles when Dan tells her his, as if she knows about him already. Then s
he comes round, smelling much nicer than ever the Pig did, and gives us a sheet of paper each, with a special one for Dan.

  She starts to put some adding up and multiplying sums on the old blackboard and stops and pulls a funny face when it wobbles and makes her do a nought like a six.

  The board wobbled because the screws that hold it to the wall are loose where there are cracks across the plaster, just like on the ceiling. My Mum says, it will be a miracle if it all stays up long enough to see us through to the end. She says she’s always sweeping up bits of plaster.

  I’m just copying the first sum on to my paper when I think I am getting a whiff of that scent again. Lavender. I stop writing and look around, suspiciously, feeling a bit of a shiver, like I did before. All I see is a shaft of sunlight, for a change, streaming through the high window across the teacher’s table. I sniff carefully but the smell’s gone now.

  Miss sees me looking around and asks, “Problems, Tony?” She’s quick on names, I notice.

  “No…no Miss,” I say quickly. And because I’m embarrassed I gabble, “I was just wondering where you came from, Miss.”

  “Well, I’ve just come back from studying in America,” she says nicely. That accounts for the film star sound, I think. “But I was born in this very village and I actually came to this little school for a while when I was an infant, until my parents went to work in the States. My Granny was living here until a couple of years ago. She used to tell me stories that her Granny told her, about life in the village years and years ago. I’ll tell you some, when we get to know each other better.”

  She’s nice to listen to but I’m not happy. It isn’t just the funny smell – which has gone now, and I’m sure I’m looking for trouble – but there does seem to be a pressure, like a voice in my head, and it feels like it’s echoing Dan…and the word that I seem to keep hearing is “Help”.

  I tell myself that it’s just Dan, keeping on, that has got my brain stuck on this track. I glance at him and see him gazing around the room with a sort of contented grin on his face. He catches my eye and beams and is about to say something. I don’t want to hear it. “Get on with your sums,” I hiss.

  Just then Miss comes down the gangway and gives him a bit of help. He goes pink and turns his beam on her.

  I look back towards the blackboard and a movement catches my eye. For a moment I can’t track it down. Then I focus in and see a puff of chalk dust waft from the end of the groove under the board where the board rubber sits. It’s just a little cloud that separates and disappears before it reaches the floor. There’s always loads of chalk dust in the groove from the rubber and from writing on the board.

  It happens again as I watch, and then again, just as if someone is blowing along the groove. We do it ourselves sometimes to shower the girls as they go by. I sit without moving, staring, as the dust puffs up and then drifts down towards the floor.

  Miss leaves Dan to go back to her table and I watch to see if she notices the dust. But as soon as she’s going that way it stops. Now she’s looking through some papers.

  I turn my eyes up again, trying to keep my head down at the same time, so she won’t notice. The chalk has stopped. It must have been a draught, there’s enough gaps round the windows, after all. But now something else is happening, and it’s worse.

  More movement. The lamp hanging just behind her over the blackboard is sort of shivering as if someone is giving it little nudges. It starts to swing gently, from side to side, a few inches at a time. I’m staring at it like it’s going to hypnotise me. She turns to check something on the board and at once the swinging stops.

  I’m looking for trouble now. I’m thinking, is the building about to fall down or is there something in the room that’s doing things? Or am I going crackers?

  Miss comes down the gangway to help Dan again, and I have an anxious look round while she’s focussed on Dan.

  I see another thing then. It’s natural enough, but nothing feels natural to me at the minute.

  It’s just a petal that I see, falling from one of the yellow flowers that Miss has in the vase on her desk. I actually see the moment when it detaches from the flower and floats down on to the papers. You don’t often see that, do you. OK, I can handle that, but immediately another follows it, as if it’s been plucked off deliberately. And then another. And another follows that one and then another, quicker and quicker. And it’s just not natural – it isn’t.

  I can’t help snorting, a bit like the Pig.

  Miss looks up from Dan’s paper.

  “What’s up Tony?” she asks kindly. “Are you stuck?”

  “No…no…” I manage to say, “it’s just…your flower Miss.”

  She follows my stare towards her table and sees the heap of golden petals on her papers. There’s no movement at all now.

  “Oh dear,” she says, “what a shame. I expect I squashed it on my way here. The rest look all right.”

  She goes to the table and picks up the sheet of paper with the petals on and tips them into the bin. Then she gives the others a little shake and says, “Yes, I think they are all right,” and she sits down and picks up her pen to make a note of something.

  The flowers may be all right, but I’m definitely not! I’ve got the creeps. I’m seeing things. Something weird happened yesterday underground and then again when we came back up into the classroom. Now there’s been the chalk dust, the lampshade, the flower. I have the nasty thought that each thing is a bit stronger than the one before it, as if something is practising, building up its strength. I wish I hadn’t thought of that!

  I don’t think that the others have seen anything. Only me. I feel as if it’s being directed at me personally. I can sense that pressure, that word “Help”. I’m hot now, sweaty, and when I try to shut it all out by getting some sums done I just can’t cope with numbers, my brain is jumbling them up so that I hardly know which number is which, let alone what two of them add up to. I even start using my fingers which I grew out of ages ago.

  I’ve got my feet off the floor, on the iron legs of the old desk, and perhaps that’s why I feel a sort of shudder go through them. I’ve felt that before and I know it’s just the rotten old building settling on its foundations – if it’s got any. Looking up I fancy that there’s a new crack by the blackboard. Not the one like a witch’s nose but one that looks like a fork of lightning.

  Miss catches my eye and says, “You’re restless Tony. Is everything all right?”

  It’s not! It’s not! Nothing’s all right! But I can’t tell her that. I can’t say I’ve got the creeps. There’s something weird under the floor and there’s queer things happening in the classroom. I can’t say any of that because then I’d have to tell her what we did yesterday and then my Mum would get to hear that I took Dan underground and she wouldn’t be proud of me any more and in fact she’d probably kill me. And I’d deserve it!

  “Uh…uh…” I burble, “I think that’s a new crack in the wall, Miss.” And I gabble on. “Is the school going to fall down?”

  It was just so stupid and they are all laughing now, except for Miss. She says, “Not yet, I don’t think, Tony. I expect it will get us to the end of term all right.”

  Now Jason’s making crashing noises, with his hands over his head and Trevor’s pretending to shelter under his desk (which is more than I’d do!).

  Miss hushes them up and says nicely, “I can see why this school is going to close though, it is getting a bit creaky isn’t it. It reminds me of the stories my Grandma used to tell me - stories that her Granny had told her – going back more than a hundred years when this was just a little mining village. There was one that she said was always supposed to be kept secret, about a coal mine disaster and a school that vanished into the ground. I used to lie in bed, trying to imagine it and then having nightmares about what happened to the teacher and the children.”

  “Did it really happen Miss?” Susan asks.

  “I don’t know,” Miss says. “It could have,
and I expect the owners of the mine wouldn’t want people outside to know in case they shut the mine down. Of course it would only have been a little cottage school…what they called a Dame’s school…”

  She’s still chatting away, perched on her table now, telling another story, but I’m not hearing a word. I’m trying to cope with all the thoughts roaring around in my head, and the feeling of pressure that is mounting, urging me to do something – something I’m not even going to think about, especially after what she’s just said and all the horrible thoughts I’m having.

  I look at Dan and he’s sitting there, eyes fixed on Miss and loving every minute of it. He even nods at me as if to say, “It’s good, isn’t it Tony.” But I don’t get it. I don’t get anything!

  Miss stops her story telling and we’re supposed to go on with the sums. I look down at my desk, at the half-done sum I was trying to concentrate on, wanting to think about something other than schools falling underground and the kids and the teacher. But it doesn’t help. Suddenly I’m breathing in traces of lavender again and the sheet of paper in front of me is taking on a life of its own. As I’m staring at it, not touching it, it moves. One edge curls as if invisible fingers are lifting it and the sheet slides sideways, along the desk to the edge, where it flicks right off and flutters down to the floor. I dive to catch it and it swerves round my fingers. No sooner have I picked it up and put it back on the desk, with my hand flat on top, than my pencil rolls quite slowly out of the groove at the top of the desk, up over the back and clatters down past my feet.

  In a panic I lean into the gangway and reach round to snatch it up, only to see that the point is broken. As I straighten, the paper comes floating down again, round my ears. I brush it off with a panicky wave of my hand. Miss has heard the pencil fall and she says, “You are a fidget, Tony, aren’t you. Is it broken? Here, have a fresh one.”