Bed of Roses. Daisy Waugh

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      Fanny sits, for the moment, swinging her feet over the edge of the school hall’s tiny stage and feeling a mite peculiar. The children, all thirty-seven of them, all cross-legged on the linoleum before her, gaze up, placidly expectant, each one entrusting their fate to her as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if she had a clue what she was really meant to be doing with it.

      This is her first assembly and, although there will be complaints about it later, she has decided on the spur of that moment to tell the students of the shadow which hangs over their school’s future. It seems only fair, she thinks, that they should know as much as she does. ‘So you see,’ she says emphatically, ‘I don’t think we’ve got all that much time. And unless we can totally and completely –’ in her zeal her shoulders, her entire body, give an unconscious leap of enthusiasm, and the children chortle, they like her; children always do, ‘transform this place, work some kind of miracle and somehow improve every single thing about it, well then—’

      The door is kicked open by a gangly boy in loose-fitting Nike nylon. He stands facing her, arms crossed and legs apart. He can’t be more than eleven or he wouldn’t still be at the school, but he’s tall for his age.

      ‘O’right, miss?’ he says. His voice is breaking.

      ‘Thank you. I’m OK,’ she says brightly. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’

      ‘Eh?’

      ‘“Eh?”…I said why don’t you—’

      ‘Yeah, I know. But what if I don’t want to?’

      Fanny looks at him briefly and shrugs. She turns back to the other children, leaving him standing there, bewildered, brimming with thwarted urges. ‘So the thing is,’ she continues, ‘unless we all decide to make a massive effort—’

      ‘And my mum says it’s disgusting as well, because I know what your name is, and it’s disgusting. Your name’s Fanny.’

      Fanny smiles. ‘And what’s your name?’ she asks. There is something vaguely familiar about him.

      ‘Never mind what my name is. I tell you it ain’t John Thomas! At least I ain’t called penis!’

      A wave of uncertain laughter.

      ‘That’s very fanny,’ she nods. More laughter. ‘You are a fanny boy. Well done.’ She’s made a similar joke at every school she’s ever worked at. ‘We were talking about how a lot of influential people think this school is utterly useless and that unless we can prove them wrong, it may one day have to be closed down,’ Fanny continues. ‘Aren’t you interested in that? Wouldn’t you like to see the school close down for ever?’

      ‘Of course I would.’

      ‘Well, if you sit down and shut up you might get a few hints on how to bring it about.’

      Fanny doesn’t show her astonishment when he sits. She’s good at that. Instead she leans forward. ‘Basically,’ she says conspiratorially, and without missing a beat, ‘for those of us who want it not to close, this is the plan…’

      They wait.

      ‘John Thomas, you should pay attention of course, because you’ll be wanting to do the opposite…’

      That first morning goes well, she thinks. In spite of the local radio reporter who pitched up at break demanding to speak to her, claiming Jo Maxwell McDonald had assured him it would be OK. (Fanny finally agreed. She dispatched him with a harmless little interview, and managed, or so she believed, to make herself sound relatively professional. Incredibly professional actually, since every time the reporter had referred to Fiddleford’s ‘head teacher’, she’d had to pause for a millisecond to work out who the hell he was talking about.) In any case the interview went out live, so she didn’t have to suffer the discomfort of listening to it.

      Her children, all seventeen who made up her class (and what a luxury СКАЧАТЬ