‘You are always in trouble. You attract misfortune like a human magnet. Last week, it was running down the corridor and nearly knocking the caretaker off his ladder.’
‘Yes, miss,’ said the boy quietly.
‘The week before you let the dog into school, and it wasn’t that long ago that you let the hamster out of the cage and we spent the whole day trying to get it from under the floorboards.’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Then there was the incident with the fire extinguisher only a day after you managed to pull all the tins off the top shelf in Mrs Farringdon’s storeroom, covering the teacher in powder paint.’
The boy remained silent but shuffled his feet nervously.
‘You’re a real nuisance, Stevie Simcox,’ snapped Mrs Gardiner. ‘A pest, an irritation, a very, very naughty boy.’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘And you know that I am leaving next week, at the end of the term, to go to another school?’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Well, I will tell you this, Stevie, I shall miss a great deal about Crompton Primary School but there is one person I shall not miss at all and that is you. I feel sorry for the new headteacher having such a troublesome little boy to deal with every week.’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘And what is it now?’ demanded the headteacher. ‘Why are you outside my door yet again?’
The boy held up an envelope.
‘What’s this?’ asked the headteacher, snatching it from his hands.
‘It’s a leaving card, miss,’ the child told her. ‘I got it you to wish you good luck in your new school.’
38
SIMONE & WILLIAM
LEARN TO SPEAK PROPER
I was spending the morning in a primary school set high up in the dales, and was looking at the work of the six-and seven-year-olds. As I looked through one little boy’s book, a red-cheeked lass nearby piped up, ‘Miss, I can’t find mi readin’ book. I don’t know weer I’ve gone an’ putten it.’
‘I cannot find my reading book,’ the teacher repeated slowly and precisely, ‘because I do not know where I have put it.’
‘That’s wor I just said, miss. I’ve gorran putten it down someweer an’ I don’t know weer I’ve putten it.’
‘I have put it down somewhere, Simone,’ corrected the teacher, ‘but I do not know where I have put it.’
‘Have ya, miss?’ the child asked innocently. ‘Did you ’ave mi book, then?’
‘No, you have put it down,’ the teacher said, drawing a deep exasperated breath.
‘I know, miss, that’s wor I just said,’ the girl answered, screwing up her nose.
‘There is no such word, Simone, as “putten”,’ the teacher explained. ‘The word is “put”. “I have put down my book” and not “I have putten down my book.” ’
‘Miss!’ another child piped up. ‘She’s gone an’ putten it on my desk. It’s ’ere.’
‘Put, William, put,’ the teacher corrected sharply. The teacher sighed dramatically. ‘You know, Mr Phinn,’ she said, ‘sometimes I really ask myself why I bother.’ I asked myself the self-same question. ‘I think I am fighting a losing battle,’ she continued, ‘trying to get the children to speak properly.’ I was certain she was right in that as well.
Just before morning break, the teacher wrote a sentence in large white letters on the blackboard: ‘I have putten my book on the teacher’s desk.’
‘Now, children,’ she said, facing the class. ‘Look this way, please. On the blackboard I have written a sentence. Who can tell me what is wrong with it?’
Young William waved his hand backwards and forwards in the air like a lupin in a strong wind. ‘I know, miss!’ he shouted out.
‘Yes, William, what is wrong with the sentence, “I have putten my book on the teacher’s desk”?’
‘Miss,’ the boy replied, ‘tha’s gone and putten “putten” when tha should ’ave putten “put”.’
39
MATTHEW
AND THE DINOSAURS
By the window a grubby but bright-eyed little boy was splashing paint onto a large piece of sugar paper.
‘Hullo, what are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Paintin’!’ came the blunt reply.
‘It looks very good.’
‘We dunt paint much,’ the child said. ‘Only we are today. We’ve got an important visitor coming.’ There had been no thought in the boy’s mind that the important visitor might be me.
And what are you painting?’ I asked.
‘It’s a jungle,’ came the reply. ‘Prehistoric.’
‘What’s that creature?’
‘Brontosaurus.’
‘And that?’
‘Triceratops. They ’ad three ’orns on their ’eads, tha knows. Did tha’ know that?’
‘Yes.’
‘This one’s a pterodactyl and over ’ere’s a pteranadon. A lot of people don’t know t’difference, tha knows. Do you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, a lot of people don’t.’
‘What’s this one?’ I asked, pointing to a round, fat, smiling creature.
‘Stegosaurus. They had three brains, tha knows.’
‘Really?’
‘One in their ’ead, one in their tail and one in their bum. It din’t do ’em any good though.’ The boy had pointed to a vicious-looking monster with spikes along its back and great sharp teeth like vicious tank traps. ‘He ate ’em all – Tyrannosaurus rex. He were reight nasty, he was.’
‘You know a lot about these creatures,’ I said.
‘I know.’ The little boy put down his brush. ‘I luv ’em. They’re great. I draw ’em all t’time.’
‘And are there any around today?’
‘Course not! They’re all dead. They’re hextinct.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Dead. Wiped aaht.’
‘And why do you think that is?’ I asked.
The little boy had thought for a moment. ‘Well, mister,’ he said, ‘that’s one of life’s gret mysteries, in’t it?’
40
USING YOUR IMAGINATION
On Monday, Miss Cawthorne
Said we could paint a picture
And all use our imaginations.
I drew a dragon
In a dark and dripping cave,
With yellow scaly skin
And slithery, snake-like tail,
Blue fins and bone-white horns,
Red-eyed and breathing purple flames.
But Miss Cawthorne, when she saw it, sighed and said,
‘Dominic, dear, dragons are not yellow.
They are green!’
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars Page 6