The Playgroup

by Janey Fraser

  There was the sound of the door next to his slamming shut, and some footsteps running down the stairs. His new landlady had said she rented out two other rooms, only one of which was occupied. She’d wondered if he knew anyone else who might want the third and he’d promised to give it some thought, although he didn’t like to say that at his age, most of his friends had at least one house of their own.

  Maybe, thought Joe, he’d unpack a few bits and pieces and then go for a walk through town. It was at this point that his right pocket began to vibrate. Probably Mike or Lynette checking up that he really had done the sensible thing and rented somewhere nearer school.

  ‘Hello,’ he answered.

  ‘Joe?’

  The shock of hearing the voice almost made him drop his mobile.

  ‘Hello,’ the voice said urgently. ‘Please don’t hang up, Joe. It’s me. Ed.’

  IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR ALL PARENTS AND CARERS!

  You’ll be glad to know that rehearsals for the end-of-term concert/nativity play are going well. Thank you so much for practising the songs at home – it’s been a big help. Below is another rhyme we have added to our repertoire. If possible, could you please have a go at this one too! Maybe you could do it at bathtime and before meals!

  THE PUDDLEDUCKS WASH

  YOUR-HANDS SONG

  We are the little Puddleducks

  We always wash our hands

  To keep those nasty germs away

  That come from Baddy Land!

  Chapter 15

  SOMETIMES, THOUGHT GEMMA, looking around the room wondering where to start, it was just as well that the parents weren’t here during Puddleducks working hours to see what was going on. This morning it looked less like a pre-school and more like a cross between a zoo and a jelly factory. The washing-up bowls containing green jelly had been Bella’s idea, and certainly fitted the Early Years Goals by providing children with texture, measurement ideas, colour and – although they weren’t meant to eat it – taste!

  Why was it that everything nowadays had to be classified into goals and objectives? What was wrong, as her grandmother used to say, with good old-fashioned play? Still, at least she was managing to include that as well. At the moment they were working on a project called Significant People, all about well-known figures in history. Joe Balls had actually liked that idea and agreed to her suggestion that they held a joint assembly where the Puddleducks would dress up (providing the parents got their costume act together) and they’d all troop off to Reception, who would be similarly dressed up.

  ‘The staff do it too,’ she had warned Joe. It had been worth making this up just to see his face.

  ‘What should I go as?’ he blurted out, clearly thrown by her suggestion.

  Henry VIII, she felt like saying. Or the Black Death? No, that wasn’t fair, especially as he had found her precious necklace for her. In fact, she owed him one. If it had been anyone else, she would have offered to take him out for a drink to thank him for spotting her chain but then again, she didn’t want him thinking she was making a pass. Even with her limited experience, Gemma couldn’t help feeling that Joe was just the kind of good-looking, single and slightly arrogant man who thought every woman in the office (or school) was after him.

  ‘I’m going to be Queen Elizabeth I,’ she volunteered. ‘I’m sure you’ll come up with something.’

  Now, as she walked around checking everyone was doing roughly what they were meant to be doing, she regretted the Elizabeth I bit. The only possible outfit was the dress at the back of her wardrobe, which she had sworn never to wear again. Yet somehow she had never been able to throw it away, just like the silver chain which she still wore every day for a reason she couldn’t explain, even to herself.

  ‘Mrs Merryfield, Mrs Merryfield!’

  ‘Yes, Mikey?’ said Gemma, noting that he didn’t have a pinny (lost again?).

  A pair of bright blue eyes stared up at her mournfully. ‘It’s my go on the cornflakes modelling table but Billy won’t let me.’

  What were they going to do about Billy? The doctor had apparently suggested that his mother cut out additives to see if that helped.

  ‘Let him try keeping Billy out of the kitchen cupboards,’ his mother had snorted. ‘That child can sniff an E number from miles away!’

  Meanwhile, Billy had started jumping up and down. Oh no! Now he was shoving Mikey’s head into a model of a cornflake dinosaur. Where was Bella, or Jean, who combined her role as helper with that of nursery manager, sorting out fees with those mothers who wanted more hours than the nursery vouchers provided?

  ‘Billy, don’t do that!’ She pulled the offender away from the victim, who was spluttering madly. ‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’ Now what was Billy doing? Jumping up and down on the cornflakes, crunching them into the ground. Yet at times, this was the boy who screamed violently if anyone moved his possessions because they had to be exactly as he placed them on the table.

  At last here was Bella returning from the loo again, muttering something about ‘this time of the month’, which added up to at least three periods every twenty-eight days. Clearly it was her way of having a quick break from the masses. Well, the girl could jolly well take poor Mikey to the green-jelly pit while she had a word with the cornflakes aggressor.

  ‘Billy, you really can’t behave like this,’ she began. And then stopped. Because somehow Danny and Lily had got there first. Lily, who had hardly said a word since she’d started, was holding Billy’s hand while Danny was quietly speaking to him. Gemma tried to listen without being obvious. ‘Don’t do that to people,’ the boy with those lovely long fair lashes was saying solemnly. ‘It’s not nice.’

  How sweet! Maybe this was what his mother said to him when he did something wrong.

  ‘Danny’s right, you know,’ said Gemma firmly but kindly. ‘You could hurt someone. Now how about saying sorry to Mikey?’

  Billy scrunched up his face. She knew from past experience that pushing for an apology could make you look weak if you didn’t get one. ‘Tell you what,’ smiled Gemma. ‘Supposing you make Mikey a cornflake model now with Bella, and give it to him as a sorry present.’

  There was a quiet groan from Bella’s direction at the thought of model-making with Billy. ‘Look,’ he was saying now. ‘You’ve dropped something.’

  Flushing, Bella tried to pick up the packet that had fallen out of her pocket, but Mikey had got there first. Unfortunately for her, he was one of their best readers. ‘C . . . a . . . n . . .’ he began. He beamed up at her. ‘Are those sweeties?’

  Bella was getting redder. ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘It’s something called Canny Sten. It’s a sort of tooth-paste.’

  She shot a challenging look at Gemma.

  ‘May I suggest you keep your . . . er . . . toothpaste out of reach in the staff lockers, Bella?’ Gemma said.

  ‘Whatever.’

  Oh dear, thought Gemma, heading towards the Adopt a Word corner. Now she’d have a sulky Bella to deal with on top of the terrible three, as Jean called them. ‘Terrible’ was a bit strong, but they were definitely a concern. There was Lily, who hardly spoke and spent most of her time covering anything from tables to toys with her soft pink comfort blanket. During her training, Gemma had come across a theory, which suggested that children who did this were often attempting to make things safe, because they needed to feel safe themselves. Was that how Lily felt? She’d have to keep an eye on that.

  Then there was Billy, who was either jumping about, thumping people for touching his things or taking everything very literally: he’d got very excited recently when she’d said it was raining cats and dogs. And of course Danny, who’d really come out of his shell now and had had to be reprimanded gently the other day for jumping up on one of the tables and pretending he could fly, before curling up on the beanbag in the sleepy corner and having a nap.

  Yet the three of them seemed to have formed a rather sweet trio. How funny it was, the way children chose each other as frien
ds. Rather like she had teamed up with Kitty at university as well as . . .

  No. She wouldn’t think about that now. ‘Right, everyone,’ she beamed at the group of children who were sitting round the wall display waiting for her to start. ‘Which word are we going to adopt this week?’

  It had been an idea she’d got from one of the weekend newspaper supplements. Apparently there was a trend now for the expensive nursery schools in Britain to pay money to a charity in order to adopt a word. They would then use that word as often as they could in order to increase their vocabulary. Gemma had adapted the idea so that they did the same, but without asking parents to fork out. Although there were some families, like Danny’s and Sienna’s, with plenty of cash, judging from the four-by-fours and Harrods labels, there were also children like Billy, who came from the council estate round the corner and wore the same cherry-red anorak winter in and summer out.

  ‘Here we are!’ Gemma handed round a bag of words that she’d spent the previous night writing on card, which she’d then laminated before cutting the words out. ‘Whose turn is it to choose one today?’ She pretended to think. ‘I know. It’s Lucy, isn’t it?’

  Lucy was one of those children who did nothing wrong. If they were all like her, thought Gemma as she watched the girl with the blonde plaits dipping her hand into the word bag, life would be very easy. On the other hand, that was not why she had entered this profession.

  ‘Magic!’ beamed Lucy, having pulled out the word.

  Sienna pouted. ‘Why? Why does magic happen?’

  Over to you, said Bella’s rolling eyes.

  ‘Good question! Actually, some people believe in magic and others don’t, because no one really knows how it works.’

  Cop-out, she could hear Bella muttering. Ignoring her, Gemma clapped her hands. ‘Let’s write our new Adopt a Word on the whiteboard, shall we, for everyone to learn. Can you see how it’s spelt? M . . . a . . .’

  ‘Mrs Merryfield, Mrs Merryfield!’

  Darren, who was more than ready for Big School now, was jumping up and tugging at her shoulder, almost catching her silver chain.

  ‘Darren, don’t do that. You might hurt someone.’

  ‘But Mrs Merryfield, Mrs Merryfield, I want to say something.’ Darren’s face had a serious look on it that wasn’t normally there, and something caught in Gemma’s throat. Suddenly she had a bad feeling about what he did want to say. ‘Can I choose a word too?’

  Gemma bit her lip. ‘That depends on what it is, sweetheart.’

  He nodded. ‘Can we have Div Orse? Cos that’s what my mum and dad are going to do when I get big.’ His face crumpled. ‘How do you spell that, Mrs Merryfield?’

  It always happened, of course. Statistically, it was bound to do so. Every year, if not every term, there was at least one parent who would come up with a worried look on their face, asking if he or she could have a word. And Gemma, whose own parents had somehow rumbled along together, despite her father’s moods, and seemed reasonably happy, possibly because they had produced five children, always floundered for the right thing to say.

  It was all very well reading books on the subject, or talking to Brian, who had always been very kind but equally ignorant of the messy lives people could lead since his own marriage had been perfectly content until poor Mavis’s death, but there were no easy answers. And somehow, Gemma got the feeling that it wasn’t worth asking advice from the tough Joe Balls.

  In the meantime, she sat Darren down quietly, wondering if this was why he’d been clingy at the start of term, and read a book with him about a boy whose parents lived in separate houses but who each loved their son very much. Then, when Darren’s mother arrived to collect him at the end of the day, asking if she could have a private chat with Gemma, she was able to explain that she did know about the situation on account of the Adopt a Word table.

  Chapter 16

  THE WEEK CONTINUED much as it had begun. On Tuesday, there was an outbreak of nits, which meant Gemma had had to run up to Corrybank’s office at lunchtime to print out a ‘Please check your child’s head’ letter to go out at the end of the day.

  On Wednesday, four-year-old Megan, who had Down’s syndrome and was as bright as a button, came up, tugging her arm and leading her to the hamster cage, explaining earnestly that she thought Hammie, who had been curled up in a corner since yesterday apparently, was ‘poorly’.

  This meant a visit to the vet’s after school. Had someone given him something to eat that they shouldn’t have? asked the vet. Gemma thought of all the children at Puddleducks who were always poking their fingers through Hammie’s bars, and of all the different snack boxes that came in and out, containing anything from processed cheese and jam sandwiches to smoked salmon with fromage frais.

  She couldn’t be certain, she admitted. In that case, suggested the vet, it might be a plan for Gemma to take Hammie home with her for a few days, just to keep an eye on him.

  And then on Thursday, there was a rather nasty scrap between a pair of so-called best friends who fell out over their mobile phones. Mobiles weren’t allowed at Puddleducks – not for the children, anyway – but somehow these two had smuggled theirs into their shoebags and then had a big row over whose was ‘better’.

  Ridiculous, as Bella said during their quick lunch hour, when they munched sandwiches in the kitchen while the cleaner crashed her way round the hall to clean before the afternoon intake. ‘Remember that craze over sparkly shoes last year?’

  They nodded, recalling the group of girls who had excluded a newcomer because she hadn’t had the same shoes as them; the ones with the sparkly heels that flashed as they walked.

  Children could be so cruel! And yet, thought Gemma, remembering how Lily and Danny and Billy looked after each other, they could also restore your faith in humanity. What would we do without them?

  Gemma had planned to visit Brian on Thursday evening, but had felt so exhausted by toddler politics that she decided to put it off until Friday or maybe the weekend. It wasn’t, after all, as though she had told him she was coming, although she’d written ‘I’ll be round soon’ on his get-well card. Amazing, really, that he had survived when everyone had said it was unlikely.

  It was also strange, she thought, as she walked back to Joyce’s house and made her way up the stairs to her room, how she had got used to comfortable old Brian, with his penchant for maroon jumpers and biscuits, not being there. It wasn’t that she was slowly warming to Joe, his replacement; it was difficult to do that in view of his critical manner.

  But she could also see, rather reluctantly, that he was much more efficient at his job than poor Brian had been. And when she’d popped into Reception the other day, she’d been really impressed by the maths games involving pictures of iPhones and computer screens which were still on the whiteboard from a previous lesson. If they’d taught maths like that in her day, she might be better at it now herself!

  ‘Hello, Hammie,’ she said, coming into her room and closing the door behind her. ‘How are you doing then?’

  On the mend, or so it seemed. The creature sat happily in the palm of her hand, gazing up at her with bright beady eyes as if it knew exactly what she was thinking. Gemma hoped not. Despite the nit alert and the mobile phone drama, not to mention the divorce chat, she hadn’t been able to squash some of the private thoughts which kept coming into her head during the week. No prizes for guessing why. It would be half-term before long, and then it would only be another two and a half months to go.

  ‘What are you going to do then?’ Kitty had asked when she’d rung up to talk about the Britain’s Best Talent event at school tomorrow.

  ‘Not sure.’ Gemma’s voice had sounded hesitant, even to her.

  ‘We’ll discuss it when I come round,’ Kitty had said reassuringly. ‘By the way, it is all right if I stay on your floor, isn’t it? Just for the night. It will save me having to go back up to town that night and besides, we can have a good old girly chat. Catch up, just like the old
times!’

  Gemma couldn’t wait, and Hammie seemed to sense her excitement from the way he jumped off her hand and on to the bed. Quickly she managed to scoop him up in her palm and pop him back in his cage.

  At the same time, she heard the door next to her bang. Joyce, who had gone away for the week to visit her daughter, had left her a note to say that she’d let the room next door, without giving details of the new incumbent. Whoever it was must leave very early and come back late, because she hadn’t seen him or her. In fact, this was the first night she had even heard the door go.

  Maybe she’d give him or her a knock and suggest coffee? It would, after all, be only friendly. Checking her reflection in the mirror – slightly smudged mascara but on the whole not too bad – Gemma opened her own door and, as she did so, spotted a very beautiful, glamorous redhead gliding up the stairs, wearing a stylishly cut black silk skirt and short boxy scarlet jacket. Kitty, who was also auburn, was the only redhead she had ever known until now who could get away with wearing scarlet, but this woman made even Kitty look like an amateur when it came to style.

  Gemma was about to ask if she was looking for someone, but the woman with long ten-denier legs up to her armpits merely nodded in her direction, and then knocked on the door next to hers. Gosh! That perfume, which she could smell from here, was definitely of the expensive variety!

  The door opened and Gemma went back into her room, otherwise it would have looked nosy. ‘Darling,’ she heard the woman purr. ‘How are you, darling?’

  ‘Very well, Ed.’ The voice, dark and deep, jolted Gemma so that she almost fell against the hamster cage. ‘And I can see that you are too. You’d better come in.’

  Surely not? Gemma didn’t know whether to laugh or drill a hole through to next door just to make sure. Unless she was very much mistaken, the other voice belonged to Joe Balls. Her new neighbour. And immediate boss.