Visions (7 page)

12

Despite agreeing that telling Morgan about my vision was not a good idea, it was really difficult not to be overtly curious about the mysterious Raheem. We seemed to talk a lot about my love life, but not at all about hers. At dinner one day, Hazel was talking about how happy she was with Dean. I took the opportunity to try and lead Morgan into a conversation about marriage. “When did you get married, Hazel?” I asked.

              “It was just before you started, in the summer. It was the most beautiful day, wasn’t it, Morgan? I’ll have to bring in pictures so you can see,” she gushed.

              “Definitely do that. What was your dress like?”

Hazel described a beautiful ivory strapless dress and I could picture it clearly. “I love everything about weddings!” I exclaimed.

              “I do too,” said Hazel. “I spent ages choosing a cake and then changed my mind twice. I even liked organising the seating plan at the reception; it was a Maths teacher’s dream. I’m lucky really because Dean let me make all the big decisions, but he was genuinely interested in all the little things like the flowers and the table decorations!”

              “I’d love a man like that, wouldn’t you, Morgan?” I asked, hoping she would admit that she already had one.

              “How do you know that our delectable Dr Arnold isn’t like that?” she teased.

              “Do you want to get married one day?” I inquired, deflecting the spotlight

back onto Morgan.

              “One day, certainly. If the right man was to ask me I wouldn’t say no, but I’ll have to wait and see. We can’t all be as lucky as Hazel with Dean and you with Dr Arnold!” She giggled, got up, and wandered off towards the kitchen area, leaving me to listen to Hazel’s tales of colour coordination nightmares. 

              After school had finished, Morgan and I stood watching the students leave, monitoring the corridor for any annoying stragglers. “Do you fancy doing something this weekend?” I asked.

              “Ach,” Morgan groaned in response. “I would love to, but I have company.”

              “Oh? A boyfriend?” I asked, hoping this was my chance on to the topic.

              “No such luck. I’m not seeing anyone at the moment. That’s not to say I don’t have my eye on someone, though. Come on, Terry! We can’t get you in school and now you don’t want to leave!” she shouted, jokingly at a year eleven who smiled in return and dawdled even more dramatically. “In terms of men, though, let me know if you have any of those dreams!”

              “About someone tall, dark, and handsome?” I teased.

              “That old cliché! Could you not come up with anything better? Not that there’s anything wrong with tall, dark, and handsome, of course. I mean, I wouldn’t complain! Hurry it up, Susan! The school building closes at five, you know!”

              I persisted, “So, company this weekend?”

              “Oh, my sister, Bronwyn, is coming to stay. It’s fair to say that we’ve never been close. In fact, we don’t get on. We never have. At New Year, we had a party at our parents’ place. Mum started going on and on about getting older and wanting to know that we’d take care of each other when she was gone. She can be quite morbid when she wants to be.

“Barry, grab your stuff and leave! What was I saying? About Bronwyn, we’ve always been quite competitive with everything really. She’s doing an MA but I’ve got the teaching career. The only time she ever contacts me is when she buys a new car or something else that she can brag about. On New Year, Mum made us both promise to keep in touch. We were drunk so we agreed, and we both made the resolution to become closer. I keep my end of the bargain by emailing her, but she had to take it a step further and ring me, didn’t she?” Morgan looked up and down the corridor. “Think we’re all clear, Gill. Let’s sashay down to the staff room where it’s more comfortable.”

We arrived in the staff room, made hot drinks and sat down. The room was deserted apart from us. It was amazing how much like home the place had become to me.

Morgan picked up where she’d left on. “So, I was saying about Bronwyn. She phoned me. It was awkward. She wants to stay. I don’t want her to, but don’t feel like I can say no and now I’m in this hideous situation where she’s coming for the weekend. God knows why!”

              “Well, you did make the resolution,” I reminded her.

              “For our mum’s sake! That’s it. I fully expected us both to do the absolute minimum to appease our poor, old mum, but she has to take it one step further, doesn’t she? Anyway, I’ll just have to force myself to pretend I like her for the weekend. I’m going to take her to the cinema so we don’t have to actually speak to each other! Hey! Do you want to come with us? It would make it far less awkward! I can feed her some story about how your new boyfriend has had to cancel a date because he was called in to deal with some emergency at the hospital or something. What do you think?”

              “Sounds like it will be…interesting!” At my words, Morgan jumped up and

hugged me.

              “I knew as soon as I saw you that we’d be best friends!”

Darren finally turned up to an English lesson on Thursday. I tried to be welcoming, thinking about my training, and even asked how his hand was. His response was to smirk at me before sitting down as close to his actual seat as he could without my accusing him of deliberately being awkward. Drawing as much attention to himself as possible, he pulled out his assigned laptop.

“Can we all work on laptops, Miss?” Ally asked.

              “No, because this piece has to be handwritten,” I explained, trying to block out Darren’s frantic tapping of the mouse.

              “What about Darren’s story, then?” she asked.

              “Unfortunately, Darren will have to write his story up by hand when he has his cast removed.”

              “I don’t think so,” Darren muttered under his breath.

Tactical ignoring seemed to be the best response to this, so I went over to see how some of the quieter pupils were getting on. Naively, I didn’t question the peace that seemed to be reigning over the classroom until I walked around the perimeter to make sure that nobody was struggling. Darren was on Facebook. Determined not to earn him the attention from his classmates that he seemed to crave, I went over and switched the wireless connection off with the button on the desktop.

              “Darren, this is for your exam. I’m sure you have lots of stories to tell, so let’s get on with it, ok?”

              Within minutes I knew that he had reset the wireless and was back on the internet. He was clicking the arrow keys repeatedly, which was a bit of a giveaway that he was on a game of some sort. Trying not to lose my temper, I crouched beside him and calmly said, “Darren, if you can’t be trusted to stay off the internet with a laptop then you’ll have to try writing with your left hand.”

To my surprise, he laughed at this. “It’s all right, Miss,” he sneered. “I’ll start typing.” I didn’t trust him and I was right not to. By the time I reached the front of the classroom, Billy, one of the well-behaved pupils who had the misfortune to sit near Darren was looking at me and then at Darren’s screen.

              “Ok, Darren, that’s enough. We’ll try writing with your left hand.”

              “I don’t think so!” he snapped.

              “Switch the laptop off, thank you,” I commanded, trying to sound confidently assertive when really I was desperate to avoid a repeat of our last confrontation.

              “It’s your fucking fault I’ve got a broken hand in the first place,” he grumbled. This time I knew I could not pretend to have not heard. All the students in the class were looking at me, expecting me to take control of the situation.

              “How is it Miss’s fault, Darren? You’re the idiot who punched the wall!” Ally snapped at him.

              “Thank you, Ally, but I’ll handle this,” I said, genuinely grateful for her comment.

              “It’s her fault, Ally, because she pissed me off!” he shouted, getting to his feet, thrusting the desk away from him and sending the laptop flying backwards in the process. I didn’t need to look. The noise alone was enough to tell me that it was broken.

              “Go outside, Darren. Now!” I was furious. Now I would have to write another statement to account for the broken laptop. This child was more trouble than he was worth.

Darren stomped out of the classroom and made towards the front doors of the school. Before I could catch him up, I saw he’d been stopped by Carrie who was just on her way out herself. Instead, she corralled him into a meeting room. Again, back in the classroom, I couldn’t not notice how much more pleasant the class was without Darren in attendance.

              Corinne brought Darren to me this time for his detention. I received a superficial apology without any eye contact, and then Darren was sent to sit outside Mr Brigg’s office for the remainder of his hour long detention.

“I’ve tried to discuss what the issues in English are with him this afternoon,” Corinne explained. “Of course there are problems in other classes, too, but he does seem to be behaving the worst in English. I’m not suggesting that it’s anything to do with your ability in the classroom. In fact, I’m more inclined to believe that it might be a juvenile crush and Darren being Darren has no idea how to handle feelings like that.”

              I felt slightly nauseous at the thought. It seemed unlikely, especially since I took such care over my school wardrobe to ensure it wasn’t revealing or suggestive in any way. “I don’t think so, Corinne. I think I’d have picked up on something if it was like that. This is personal challenging and aggressive behaviour. I almost feel as though his aim is to intimidate me.”

Corinne nodded, taking my views on board. “In that case, I think we can agree that Darren should be removed from English for a set period of time. Mr Briggs is going to give him a fixed term exclusion, so he won’t be back in until next Thursday anyway, and then we’ll have him in with my class for a week. They’re top set and really hard-working, so they won’t be the slightest bit interested in any of his tomfoolery!”

My first reaction was relief. For two weeks, I wouldn’t have to worry about Darren Pierce and his foul temper. When he did come back into class, it would be

nearly half term so I would be able to focus on looking forward to that.

              The day’s problems didn’t, unfortunately, stop there. Amelia Carr was back to her original dishevelled state by now. Her uniform was filthy, her cheekbones hollow, and her eyes dark with bags underneath. Despite her apparent fatigue, she always had a weak smile for me. This made it harder to look at her. If she had been one of those children who didn’t interact with adults or was deliberately rude, it would have been easier not to feel crippled with sympathy. Today, she looked worse than usual. Her dank, lank hair seemed to be moving. I stood behind her to get a closer look when she’d taken her seat and was unsurprised to see that her entire head was alive with lice. Not wanting to embarrass her, I wrote a note to Carrie, asking her to withdraw Amelia from class as soon as possible, put it in a sealed envelope and asked George, who I knew wouldn’t even think to open the envelope, to take it to Carrie’s office. Just as I’d hoped, Carrie arrived to the classroom along with George. She immediately left with Amelia, who gave me a despairing glance as she was led away from the class. I taught the rest of the lesson, distracted by thoughts of Amelia and how she must be feeling now.

              After the school day had ended, I went to tell Morgan what had happened with Amelia, but she already knew by then. Carrie had been so annoyed after the phone call home that she’d gone straight to Morgan for a rant. Ms Carr had basically inferred that if the problem was affecting Amelia at school, then school should sort it out. Carrie had informed Ms Carr firmly that Amelia would be sent home and would not be able to return to Logford until the problem was taken care of. “I can’t believe how little she cares for the girl and yet she’s such a lovely little thing. You’d think after the running away, she would be making an extra special effort to make Amelia feel valued, especially with social services now being involved. The poor little mite didn’t even seem to have the energy to look bothered by what her mother was saying.”

              “Are we any more aware of what happened when Amelia ran away?” I asked, thinking about how much better care I would take of her if she was my daughter.

              “She opened up somewhat to Carrie, but it didn’t make complete sense. If I tell you…”

              “I know. It won’t go any further. Promise.”

              “The man she stayed with wasn’t a relative. He has been interviewed by the police, but they can’t really charge him with anything because she went to him willingly and they both claim there was nothing sexual in it. Amelia said she met him in the park, but he’s in his early twenties. She said that he ran her a hot bath as soon as she arrived, lay some clothes outside the door for her, and then cooked her a hot meal while she washed and dressed. The thing is that he said exactly the same to the police. As wholesome as it all sounds though, it has to raise questions of paedophilia. The police will be watching him for stepping out of line now.  If she’d run to a woman, , this fuss wouldn’t be being made at all. If a good-natured little waif like Amelia turned up on my doorstep in her school uniform and slippers, I’d be tempted to take exactly the same steps, I must admit.”