Great Granny's Ghost

by Griff Hosker

  Once again he was being labelled this time the phrase of choice appeared to be half-wit. He sat down determined to be as invisible as it was possible. “My name is Mr Lancaster and it has been my misfortune to get you lot dumped on me. I have to try to teach you maths. An impossible task. For those who have never had me I have simple rules. Shut up and get on with your work. You will not need to ask questions as I am the best maths teacher in the world.” Wayne looked around to see if anyone else found this funny. “You boy, eyes front. What is your name?”

  “Er Wayne Johnson.”

  “Oh, the new boy, the Cockney from London. Well I have my eye on you. I don’t want you to think you can bring your yobbish London ways into my classroom. Keep you eyes front next time.”

  The lesson was every bit as painful as Wayne knew it would be. He managed to avoid upsetting Mr Lancaster again, no mean feat as his anger was raised by: students asking for rubbers, students asking for help, students coughing, students yawning, students breathing too heavily and breaking the monastic silence demanded by the overweight and balding teacher who appeared to be spending the time picking horses from the racing pages. When Mrs Harper arrived ten minutes before the end of the lesson Wayne almost kissed her with relief.

  “Yes Mrs Harper?” As Mr Lancaster looked up Wayne was reminded of the hooded stare of a king cobra. The danger and threat in his voice was actually sinister.

  Mrs Harper was prepared for the battle of wills and she smiled her riposte. “I have come for some children to go into lunch early.”

  “But there is ten minutes to go.”

  Sighing Mrs Harper continued, “We always do this Mr Lancaster. The young people who have extra reading at lunchtime go into lunch early.” She paused to play her ace. “Mr Campbell thinks it is a good idea.”

  Snorted with derision Mr Lancaster relented, “Oh very well take your special kids away.” The word special was almost spat out with heavy sarcasm.

  Ignoring the jibe the classroom assistant said, “Wayne, Stephen, Jane and Alice just close your books, get your things and follow me.”

  “Quietly!”

  As they shut the door Mrs Harper mumbled something unintelligible and Wayne thought she was talking to him. “Yes Miss?”

  “Oh nothing Wayne just saying how glad I am to be back and isn’t it wonderful that some things never change.” Glancing back at Mr Lancaster’s door she added, “Not all the teachers are quite as… quite as fierce as Mr Lancaster. I think you will actually like some of them.”

  The school diner was really pleasant with attractive furniture and walls decorated with murals of New York. As soon as he walked in Wayne felt welcome. It was laid out like an American diner and there were different areas with different food. There was the traditional area, meat and two veg, the pizza bar, the sandwich bar, the salad bar and the dessert bar. Mrs Harper leaned over, “Just pick whatever you want, get a tray and we’ll go back to the unit okay?”

  “Yes Miss what can I have?”

  “Well if you want a traditional dinner go there and then get your pudding and if you want pizza do the same. What do you fancy? The stew looks nice. That’s what I’m having.”

  “I’ll have that then Miss.”

  “New boy Mrs Harper?”

  “Yes Shirley, this is Wayne.”

  A huge, florid faced dinner lady with a beaming smile leaned over and said, “I’m Shirley. Welcome to the diner. We’ll soon build you up eh?”

  “Er thank you Miss.”

  “What a lovely little lad.”

  He took his tray and waited with the classroom assistant for the dinner lady to total up the cost. As they walked out Wayne noticed some of the looks he was getting from some of the bigger boys. He dreaded being in the playground with them for their eyes told him they resented his special treatment and they would give him their own special treatment. Luckily Mrs Harper, tiny as she was, ploughed a path through the pupils disgorging from classrooms.

  Lunch was a placid haven after the noisy corridors and Wayne enjoyed his food. He even managed a conversation, not with Stephen who seemed to only speak when spoken to, but Alice and Jane who seemed fascinated by him.

  “Is it right then that you lived in London?”

  “Yes Hackney.”

  “Is that near the Queen?”

  “Have you seen the Queen?”

  “The Queen? No she is miles away from me.”

  “Must be nice being her neighbour though.”

  “She isn’t my neighbour. She lives miles away. London is big you know.”

  “What bigger than Hartlepool?”

  Mrs Harper had been suppressing a smile since the conversation had started, “Hackney, the part of London Wayne comes from, is so big it is bigger than Hartlepool and there are lots of places in London bigger than Hackney.”

  The girls still had a bemused look. The concept of something being bigger than Hartlepool was beyond their imagination. “Is is near Billingham then, if it is further south?”

  “Alice, Billingham is about a few miles away, you can get there on a bus in half an hour or so. London is nearly three hundred miles away and it takes eight hours to get there by bus.”

  The two girls chewed their food ruminating over this piece of information. They turned back to Wayne. “So do you…”

  “I live up here now. I don’t have to get the bus every morning.”

  A look of relief came over their faces, Mrs Harper looked to the heavens and Jane said, “Well I wondered, I mean eight hours on a bus every day.”

  “Right you all finished? Wayne could you give me a hand to take these back to the diner?”

  Much relieved Wayne grabbed the trays and said, “Yes Miss.”

  As they went down Mrs Harper said, “You were quick off the mark there. How did you know what the girls were going to say?”

  “In my last school we had kids like that in our class. A couple of Jamaican girls and they had problems with things that were further away than a couple of streets. I was one of the few white boys in the class and they thought I must come from the north of London.”

  “Clever lad. I can see you being in mainstream very soon.”

  They were just passing the yard and there was a noisy game of chasey going on. Wayne said, “Would that mean I would have to be in the yard at lunch time?”

  “Well yes. Don’t you want that?”

  “No Miss I’ll take the girls and their comments any time. That I can handle.” He pointed out he huge boys lounging by the wall, obviously smoking but trying to remain surreptitiously hidden. “It’s that I can’t handle.”

  Mrs Harper knew then that she would have to tell Miss Tozer of their conversation. Wayne was only being given a week’s grace in the unit. The next week would see him in the yard at break time and lunchtime. He would be a very unhappy child when that happened.

  Chapter 5

  The afternoon’s lessons were not as horrific for Wayne as the morning session had been. He had English with Miss Garth. Whilst she too had the need for silence it was enforced without the barbed, sarcastic comments of Mr Lancaster. It was, however, one of the dullest English lessons he had ever endured. Normally English teachers at least tried to make the lesson interesting; not Miss Garth. The class spent half an hour putting names on files and books whilst creating targets for the rest of the term. Wayne had no idea what she meant until Alice asked what the teacher meant by, targets. Miss Garth, who looked like someone had tried to squeeze a few sacks of potatoes into a top and trousers which were far too small and a face that looked like a water melon with glasses, snorted and then wrote a few suggestions of what the targets might be on the whiteboard. Wayne just picked three or four of them and copied them in his book. This part he quite enjoyed because he could practise his handwriting. The teacher then said, in a voice which to Wayne’s ears, sounded too much like man’s to be real, “In the back of your exercise book write down the titles of all the books you read in the summer.”

  While
most of the class stared at the ceiling or tried to see what others were writing Wayne wrote down the titles of the four books he had read since ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’. Eventually everyone had written something and Miss Garth distributed a book for them to read. It was ‘Treasure Island.’ “Now this term we are doing the theme of treasure and we will begin with this book which is about pirates. I will start to read and then we will go around the class alphabetically.”

  Wayne mentally tried to work out if he would be called. With a surname beginning with J he should be in the middle. He glanced up at the clock. There were twenty minutes left to go. He might just avoid the torture that was reading aloud. The bell sounded at H and Wayne had had a stay of execution.

  The last lesson ended the day on a high for him. It was music, a subject they had not studied in London, but he liked music and he was intrigued about the lesson content. The teacher seemed so young he wondered if she was a student, possible a gifted Y11 but it turned out that, like Wayne, she was new to the school. “Good afternoon Y8. You are the first Y8 class I have had today and you look lovely. I am so looking forward to teaching you. My name is Miss Lennon and when I point at you I want you to tell me your name and something about yourself.” Some of the class smiled when they heard her accent it seemed funny but made the words sound happy.

  Wayne’s heart dropped like a stone, he was certain it was somewhere near the soles of his shoes. Surprisingly the teacher seemed genuinely interested in the children and Wayne thought he might take a chance. She pointed at him. “My name is Wayne Johnson and I have just moved to Hartlepool from London.”

  “How lovely. I have just moved into the area as well. I came from Liverpool. Do you know where Liverpool is?”

  Alice put her hand up and Wayne knew what was coming. “Is it near Billingham Miss?”

  “No er?”

  “Alice miss.”

  “Alice. It is over on the west coast not far from Manchester.”

  She soon accounted for the whole class and then began the lesson. “We will get to use instruments and the like in future but for today we will use the instrument you all have, the one you can practise with every day.” They all looked puzzled. “Your voice.” She took a guitar from its case and touched a key on her computer. Suddenly the whiteboard filled with the words of a song. It was ‘We All Live In A Yellow Submarine’. “Anyone know this song?” A few hands went up. “It’s by a famous Liverpool group, The Beatles. If you notice I have colour coded the lyrics,” seeing a few puzzled looks she added, “the words. I want the boys to sing the red words and the girls the blue words. Now off we go.”

  Perhaps it was the infection in her voice but the whole class joined in and at the end the young teacher put her guitar down and clapped her hands. “Well look at you! Aren’t you the best singers ever?” She picked her guitar up. “This time, this row,” she pointed sings the blue lines and this one the red, this one the blue and this one the red.”

  The lesson flew by. At the end she turned off the computer and put down her guitar. “Now class. Let’s see what you have learned. You will all sing the song together, without the words and without the computer. Do you think you can do it?”

  “Yes Miss!” they chorused loudly.

  “Right then off you go.”

  They were all singing so loudly and having such fun that they didn’t notice the head, Dave Campbell entered the happy classroom. He waited until they had finished and then began to clap too. “Well done Y8 that was superb! I can see that Miss Lennon is going to be a great asset to the school. Well done everyone. Sorry to disturb you I just wanted Wayne for a moment. Wayne, get your things.”

  Wayne wondered what he had done wrong but he picked up his bag and coat. As he got to the door he turned and said, “Thanks Miss that was the best lesson I have had all day.” If he had turned to see her face he would have seen a smile to make the sun shine. She positively beamed.

  As they walked to his office Dave was congratulating himself on a very successful first day for this troubled youngster. “Your gran came early so I thought you might like an early finish. Special treat.”

  Relieved that he wasn’t in trouble he said, “Thank you Sir.” After a pause he said, “I really like Miss Lennon and Miss Tozer. They are lovely teachers and that Mrs Harper too.”

  Nana Thomson also looked relieved when she saw her grandson walking into the entrance hall. “Thanks very much headmaster. How was your first day pet? Did you like it?”

  Dave smiled as they walked out chattering away like a couple of budgerigars. This was one of those moments that made his job worthwhile. The boy might just be saved. Perhaps coming to Hartlepool was the best thing to happen to him.

  “How about the reading? Did you do any?”

  He shook his head, “No the teacher read to us but tomorrow perhaps.”

  “Which was you favourite lesson?”

  This one was easy. “Music! It was so brill. We all sang, we sang the Beatles. She’s a really nice teacher.”

  “Was the school dinner good?”

  “Oh yes, but not as good as yours, Nan. There are some nice people in the school.”

  The emphasis of some set off warning bells. “So some weren’t?”

  “Well they can’t all be like Miss Tozer, Miss Lennon and Mrs Harper, can they? Tomorrow there will be new teachers and I am sure I’ll like some of them.”

  The next morning the lessons followed much the same pattern. The main difference was in the practical subjects; he had technology and Mrs Robinson, the taller of the classroom assistants, was in the lesson. The other difference was his class mates. There were students who had not been in the other sets. There were some of the boys he had seen who had looked at him threateningly. As he was given instructions on how to enter the room and put on the apron he felt uneasy as he sensed the threat evident in their eyes. At first they just accidentally brushed past him but made sure their shoulders connected with him and lurched forward. They muttered a vague sorry but he could see from the looks in their eyes that they had meant it. The teacher Mr Carr was a firm teacher who brooked no misbehaviour but unlike Mr Lancaster he did it with an easy manner and an occasional joke. He explained everything carefully and logically. One of Wayne’s tormentors chose the wrong time to flick a piece of scrap wood at Alice who squeaked when it hit her.

  Michael Roberts! You horrible little boy. What are you doing littering my room with pieces of wood and attempting to put poor Alice’s eye out.”

  Michael put his head down and muttered, “It wasn’t me.”

  It was the wrong thing to say and Mr Carr came very close to Michael. “I saw you. I witnessed you perform the act of disobedience so don’t try to lie to me. Right?”

  “Right Sir. Sorry Sir.”

  “Good now pick that piece of wood up and put it in the scrap bin.” As the boy walked to the bin he stared at Wayne almost as though he had done something wrong.

  The instruction continued and they were sent to their benches to cut the piece of wood and drill the two holes. Once again the experience was a good one. In Ken Livingstone Academy they had used scissors, card and straws in technology and it was not enjoyable. He enjoyed measuring and marking, cutting and sanding. Mrs Robinson kept glancing over to see that he was managing and helped Alice who appeared to have more than the normal number of thumbs.

  Wayne put his hand up and Mr Carr came over. “Yes, it’s Wayne, isn’t it? New boy?”

  “Yes Sir. I think I am ready to drill, Sir.”

  Mr Carr picked up the wood and eyed it critically, turning it over in his hand and feeling the edge. “Good job. Very neatly done.” He looked up at the bench with Michael on and they were all still cutting. “It is a pity everyone can’t do as well.”

  Feeling proud of himself he went to the drilling machine and, with Mr Carr and the technician watching put on the goggles and then turned on the machine. The technician and Mr Carr turned away satisfied that the health and safety regulati
ons were being observed. Wayne put the wood in the jig and then, very carefully, lowered the drill bit. It was just as he was about to drill the hole when he felt his arm nudged and at his elbow was Michael. “Listen you cockney scum. You are in for it. You can’t hide behind teachers for ever and when I get you, you are in for it.”

  “Michael Roberts! Mr Carr has already told you off once. You haven’t even finished cutting your wood.” He stood there looking defiantly at Mrs Robinson. “You wouldn’t want me to phone your mother would you.” With a scowl he scurried away. “He’s just daft is Michael. Don’t let him worry you. Are you all right Wayne?” Nodding his gratitude he went back to his drilling.

  At lunchtime he asked Mrs Harper if he could read his library book instead of playing on the computer. The classroom assistant looked confounded for a moment. Boys never chose books over computer games! “Of course you can. What are you reading?”

  “G P Taylor, it’s about horror and about ghosts and stuff.”

  “Ugh not for me. I like Maeve Binchy, a nice romance.”

  “My nana reads them. She reads tons of books.”

  “You like your nana don’t you?”

  “My nan? She’s the best.” He suddenly looked very serious. “She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  “Well good for her! You enjoy your book son.”

  In the English lesson Miss Garth had decided that they would do some writing. They had to make a treasure map (inwardly Wayne groaned- he was back to the special classes from Ken Livingston Academy) and write a series of instructions to help someone discover the treasure. He spent far longer on the instructions rather than the map, unlike the others who seemed to spend most of the lesson colouring in various bits of their map. Miss Garth, disappointingly, did not look at their books. Wayne was hoping for a favourable comment, encouragement that he had done well. He thought he had done well and was proud of his writing.