More Than Just Mom

by Rebecca Smith

  By the time the bell rings, order has been restored. The class gets to their feet and Vincent sticks his foot out, tripping Wayne up as he walks down the aisle. Wayne starts shrieking at him, telling anyone who will listen that he’s going to punch Vincent in the face at lunchtime and then Brody wades in to break it up (or cause more trouble) and I end up threatening a week’s worth of detentions if they don’t all leave my sight this instant.

  They tumble out of the room, bags hanging from shoulders and voices raised in the excitement of a potential fight. And I know that I should probably keep Wayne and Vincent behind and warn them of the consequences of any further altercations but I’m just so pleased that the earlier incident appears to have been forgotten and they’re both as bad as each other, really. Besides, I’ve seen these boys in action and honestly, it’s like watching kittens playing rough-house. If it was one of the girls threatening to get physical then I’d be worried, but Vincent and Wayne aren’t capable of walking the walk.

  Plus there’s always the hope that they’ll either knock some sense into each other or get excluded.

  *

  It is the first proper sunny day of the year. From down below, the sound of approximately eight hundred and ninety-six teenagers enjoying the freedom of lunchtime wafts in through the open windows. Here in the staffroom, the entirety of the teaching staff is huddled on chairs and perched on tables while Miriam lectures us on the upcoming lesson observations.

  ‘They’re nothing to worry about!’ she trills, shuffling through a file of papers. ‘Don’t think of it as being judged – we’re observing you purely in the capacity of offering professional support.’

  ‘Last time they did observations they started poor old Kurt on incompetence proceedings,’ Peter mutters to me.

  We both look across the room at where Kurt Jenkins, one of the Maths teachers, is staring in confusion at a box of teabags as if he’s unsure about what to do with them.

  ‘To be fair, he is a teeny little bit incompetent,’ I whisper back. ‘I can’t remember the last time that anyone in his class actually passed Maths. Lovely man though. Very avid cyclist, apparently.’

  Kurt shakes his head at the box and puts it down, reaching instead for the coffee.

  ‘So we’ll be seeing each of you over the next month,’ continues Miriam. ‘Apologies if you end up having to wait for a few weeks, but we’ve decided that in the spirit of true professional development, it would be beneficial to sit in on a whole lesson and there’s a lot of you to get through.’

  She looks at the Head, who is slumped in a corner of the room playing Candy Crush on his phone. He used to be fairly dynamic before Miriam was appointed as his deputy. I think she’s worn him down with her relentless enthusiasm. It won’t surprise any of us if he’s gone by the end of the year.

  There’s a pause while her words sink in.

  And then there is uproar.

  ‘You’re observing us for an entire hour?’ howls Danny. ‘That’s totally unfair!’

  Adele stands up and starts pacing around the crowded room. ‘I can’t keep Year Nine together for six minutes, never mind sixty,’ she says. ‘You can’t watch me teaching them – you just can’t.’

  I am going to lose my job. Miriam has probably orchestrated this entire situation just so that she can get rid of me. Everyone else is just collateral damage – it’s me that she’s after.

  Cassie grins at me from across the table. ‘I’d have thought you would have had them under control by now, Adele?’ she calls out. ‘What happened to calming the savage beast through the medium of interpretive dance and mindfulness techniques?’

  ‘Year Nine would make a savage beast look like a pussy cat,’ snaps back Adele. ‘I’m considering banning the entire year group from the Drama department – you should see what they did to my props cupboard last week.’

  Isobel stands up and I look at her in surprise. Since she started here in September she’s barely spoken when the whole staff is gathered together. She taps on the table to get everyone’s attention.

  ‘Just so you all know, I am the new union representative now that Kurt is – well, ermm, you know.’ She falters and looks anxiously at Kurt, who has finally managed to make his drink and is leaning against the fridge looking relaxed.

  ‘Now that Kurt is pursuing pastures new,’ he calls, helping her out.

  There’s a smattering of applause and Kurt smiles at us all. ‘From September, I will be the new manager at Pizza Parade,’ he says. ‘I’m ready to move on now really, but I don’t want to let the kids down, so I’ll be here until the end of term.’

  There are murmurs of ‘good of you,’ and ‘so dedicated’. I join in while making a mental note to talk to Nick about whether we can afford that Maths tutor for Scarlet, just for a few weeks until the exams are done.

  ‘Anyway.’ Isobel clears her throat. ‘I’m the union rep and so if any of you feel that this observation violates your teacher rights in any way, you know where I am.’

  She sits down and there is silence. Beside me, Peter’s shoulders shake and I can tell that he’s struggling not to lose it. The very idea of anyone giving the slightest consideration to our rights is cause for amusement.

  ‘That’s very sweet of you, Isobel.’ Miriam does not sound like she thinks there is anything remotely sweet about Isobel’s announcement. ‘However, I think everyone will agree that observations and appraisals are a positive and beneficial part of the school year, yes?’

  She looks around the room. Nobody speaks. Miriam is undeterred.

  ‘In fact, only the other day I was reading about a school who schedule weekly peer-to-peer observations.’ She turns to the Head. ‘I was going to talk to you about it, actually. It’s a really innovative process, using peer coaching to identify areas of strength and weakness. For example, Danny from Physics would watch Peter from English and give him feedback about his teaching strategies and methods, providing him with a list of areas for improvement. And then Peter would return the favour the following week. What do you think?’

  Nobody gets to find out what the Head thinks about this terrible plan, because before any of us can even blink, Peter is out of his seat.

  ‘There’s no need for any silly union talk,’ he tells Isobel, who sinks back into her chair looking embarrassed. ‘We’re teachers. Having our rights violated is part of the job! Not even Amnesty International is interested in us!’

  His empty laugh echoes around the room.

  ‘So you’re coming in to watch us for an hour, you say?’ He bares his teeth at Miriam in an approximation of a smile. ‘Where do we sign up?’

  *

  The meeting ends, finally, and people start to drift out of the room.

  ‘Tell me that Brandon Hopkins threw a desk at my head and put me in a coma,’ groans Peter, his head slumped into his hands. ‘Please tell me that I’m currently lying in Intensive Care, hooked up to a life support machine, and I’m having the weirdest and worst dream ever imaginable?’

  ‘Sorry.’ I pat his hand. ‘It is a sad fact of reality that you just supported Miriam in a staff meeting and volunteered to go first in the lesson observations.’

  ‘It was worth it though.’ Peter shudders. ‘The very thought of that twerpish boy giving me feedback on my lessons when he’s been in teaching for all of two minutes is enough to make me consider early retirement.’

  ‘I still think it’s a violation of the educational code of conduct,’ complains Isobel. ‘They can’t just demand to come into our classrooms and stay for as long as they like. It’s distracting and off-putting.’

  ‘They can,’ I tell her. ‘They can do whatever they want. Didn’t you read your contract?’

  Isobel flushes and shakes her head. ‘They said on my teaching course that we’d only ever be watched for twenty minutes at a time. I can cope for twenty minutes, but an hour? I’ve never had a lesson that’s good for the whole time.’

  ‘None of us have,’ says Peter, reassuringly. ‘It i
sn’t possible.’

  ‘He’s right,’ adds Danny, coming across to our side of the room. ‘They’ve done studies on it and the evidence was totally conclusive. Nobody can be expected to teach a lesson to a room full of teenagers and not have at least three disasters. That’s the average rate, by the way. One disaster every twenty minutes.’

  I think about the English lesson that I’ve just taught to Year Nine, Class C.

  ‘I’d say that’s quite a conservative estimate, to be honest,’ I tell Danny. ‘Are you sure the research didn’t say that the average was twenty disasters every three minutes?’

  There’s a pause while we all consider the implications of being observed for an entire hour. Over by the fridge, Kurt unwraps a bar of chocolate and takes a loud bite.

  ‘There may well be vacancies going at Pizza Parade,’ he says. ‘But I won’t have room for you all. I can only employ the most skilled.’ He scrunches up the wrapper. ‘And it’s minimum wage, obviously.’

  The bell rings and I pick up my bag. On the outside I hope I am still managing to fake the look of a calm, professional teacher, but inside, my stomach is churning and my brain is whirring. I have got to do something about this situation. If Miriam observes me teaching a whole lesson then I’ll probably be fired instantly. And I can’t afford to work for Kurt at Pizza Parade – not that I could even be assured of a position by the sound of it. I’m not exactly an expert at making dough.

  The time has come to stick my courage to whatever place it is that you’re supposed to stick it to. I will stick it to anyone who doubts me. I will stick it to The Man. I will write my book and somehow figure out how to get it published.

  And then I will start practising my dough-kneading techniques.

  Chapter 17

  I am woken by a terrible screeching noise. Swinging my legs out of bed, I hit the ground running and race out of the room only a step behind Nick.

  We sprint across the landing and barge into Benji’s room, where I scan the surroundings to see exactly what or who is causing our youngest child to scream like he’s being tortured.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ pants Nick, running over to Benji who is yelling his head off in the middle of his bed, entangled in his duvet. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Benji pauses and looks up at us with a stricken expression on his face. ‘It’s Fluffy Rocket,’ he gulps. ‘Look!’

  My stomach lurches as I turn. Bloody hell – this is not the start to the brilliant first day of writing that I was anticipating. We only bought the stupid hamster because I read in some middle-class, wannabe-liberal newspaper that keeping small pets is an excellent way to introduce your child to the circle of life, to show them that death is natural and can be a calm, painless experience.

  What the article did not make clear is that small pets have not been given the memo explaining their role in this whole thing. Our goldfish jumped out of its tank and was found on the living room carpet, gasping pathetically for breath. Our gerbil swelled up to three times its usual size and then sat in its cage looking at us pathetically over the Easter weekend, until I could bear it no longer and rushed it to the emergency vet. When the invoice arrived in the post, it showed that we owed one pound for the euthanasia of a small animal and forty-nine pounds and ninety-nine pence for an appointment on a bank holiday, which made Nick mutter dark comments such as ‘never again’ and ‘bucket of water’. We have had furry pets and wet pets and stick-type pets that never seemed to be alive in the first place and what every single one of them has had in common is that they have died horribly, and I have had to deal with them.

  So as I turn towards the cage, I am steeling myself for the sight of Fluffy Rocket lying on his back with his little hamster legs in the air. I am preparing myself to murmur calming and reassuring words to Benji about lives well lived and hamster heaven, while reminding myself that I must absolutely not, under any circumstances, agree to him getting another pet.

  ‘He’s escaped!’ howls Benji, pointing towards the table in the corner of the room. ‘Fluffy Rocket has run away!’

  I see now what I failed to notice when I carried out my initial risk assessment. The door to the hamster cage is wide open and Fluffy Rocket is nowhere to be seen.

  I instantly drop to my knees and start crawling across the floor, gingerly lifting up stray socks and discarded school uniform. ‘Here, Fluffy Rocket,’ I call gently. ‘Where are you, boy?’

  Nick crouches down next to me and starts peering under Benji’s bed. ‘It’s a hamster, not a dog. It’s not exactly got good recall, Hannah.’

  ‘But it’s not deaf, either, is it?’ I snap back. ‘And you don’t know what’s going through its little hamster mind. It’s all alone in a strange environment and it’s probably terrified. It might recognise its name and follow my voice to safety.’

  ‘I don’t want Fluffy Rocket to be terrified,’ sobs Benji. ‘Or lonely.’

  Nick sits next to Benji on the bed. ‘I don’t think hamsters get lonely,’ he tells him. ‘They’re solitary creatures. They don’t really like company.’

  ‘But he likes me,’ wails Benji. ‘And now he’s gone forever!’

  ‘We’ll find him,’ I say, dropping onto my elbows, commando-style, to look under the wardrobe. ‘He can’t have gone too far.’

  ‘Do you think that you might have left the cage door open last night?’ Nick’s voice is gentle and non-accusatory, but his words unleash a fresh peal of sobbing from Benji.

  ‘Nooooo! I always close the door.’

  I look up. ‘He’s right,’ I say. ‘I remember checking last night and it was definitely shut.’

  I check the cage every night, as part of my tucking-in routine. I haven’t trusted that bloody hamster since the day we got him. I had a hunch that he was bad news.

  ‘So the hamster let himself out, then?’ Nick looks dubious, but I ignore him. He knows nothing about the twisted minds of small rodents. They’ll do whatever it takes to make your life a misery. Fluffy Rocket has probably been planning this little escapade for weeks, biding his time and just waiting for the most opportune moment.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Dylan appears in the doorway, followed seconds later by Scarlet. Their arrival prompts another bout of pitiful wailing and soon all four of us are crawling around the floor in our pyjamas, taking directions from the dictator perched on his bed, as he loudly informs us of all the places that we haven’t yet looked.

  ‘I’ve found something!’ Dylan’s announcement makes the rest of us pause. ‘And it looks like hamster poo.’

  I hurry across to where Dylan is kneeling by the bedroom door, and stare at the object in question.

  ‘That is definitely hamster poo,’ I confirm.

  ‘That’s gross.’ Scarlet jumps onto the bed next to Benji. ‘I’m not walking around here if I’m going to be treading in rodent faeces.’

  ‘There’s another one here, just outside the door.’ I walk with my head down, eyes scanning the carpet for clues. ‘And another.’

  Nick and the boys join me and then there’s a thud as Scarlet launches herself off the bed and out of the room, making little squawking noises as she attempts to avoid the horrors of Benji’s bedroom floor. Slowly, we proceed along the landing, following the barely perceptible line of evidence that Fluffy Rocket has so helpfully left for us.

  ‘It’s like Hansel and Gretel,’ says Benji excitedly. ‘Only instead of a gingerbread house, we’re going to find my hamster!’

  ‘Lucky us, to have a shit trail instead of a breadcrumb trail,’ points out Dylan. ‘I’m not sure that even the Brothers Grimm would have gone that far.’

  I am too engrossed in my search to admonish him for having a potty mouth but I mentally log the moment, to address at a later date.

  The poo leads us towards the bathroom and for a brief moment I am optimistic. There is nowhere to hide in the bathroom. I walk through the door, fully expecting to find Fluffy Rocket sitting in the middle of the linoleum, waving a white flag.

&nb
sp; I am clearly deluded; the freaking hamster is obviously cleverer than the lot of us. The trail leads towards a teeny, tiny gap between the bath and the wall and then disappears. I glance at Nick, who grimaces at me and shrugs slightly before looking at his watch and raising his eyebrows. I know what that means. It is going to be left to me to deal with a missing-presumed-dead hamster and a ten-year-old who is going to be devastated.

  I turn to face the kids, speedily working out how I’m going to play this. My choices, as far as I can see them, are tragedy, comedy, history or farce.

  ‘So.’ I turn to Benji and give him a big grin. ‘It looks like Fluffy Rocket has been kidnapped! We’re just going to have to wait for the ransom note and then see if you have enough pocket money to get him back! And in the meantime, we’ve all got to get dressed and have some breakfast and go to school. Okay?’

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realise that I’ve got it wrong. Comedy was clearly a mistake. I should have gone with tragedy and given everyone the day off. Even Scarlet looks appalled at my lack of compassion.

  ‘But I can’t go to school and just leave him!’ Benji’s face is anguished. ‘How am I supposed to concentrate on work when Fluffy Rocket is missing? And we’ve got a SPaG test today and I’m too upset to remember the difference between subordinating conjunctions and coordinating conjunctions.’

  ‘God. Like primary school tests even matter.’ Scarlet’s voice is dripping with disdain. ‘Nobody cares what results you get, Benji. They’re not important.’

  ‘They are important!’ screams Benji, already over the edge. ‘Miss Brown said that every test we do is important. They’re just as important as your GCSEs and Dylan’s A Levels.’ He turns to me. ‘Aren’t they, Mum?’