Saving Miss Mirabelle. Anne Fine

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      Mrs Spicer was livid. She was so furious she got the title of the song mixed up. She was so furious she lost her place twice during the notices. She was so furious she stumbled on her clumpy shoes on her way out of the hall, leaving a scuff mark on her precious floor.

      Miss Mirabelle smiled. Then she turned sweetly to her class.

      ‘Come along, then,’ she said. ‘I think the show is over. Time to start on the work now.’

      And that was another thing – the work. Work with Miss Mirabelle was different, too. Sometimes, when they were all doing something together, Miss Mirabelle would suddenly sigh, and complain:

      ‘This is so boring. I am very bored.’

      Often the class agreed. Someone would ask:

      ‘Why do we do it, then?’

      Miss Mirabelle would roll her eyes, and shrug.

      ‘If you don’t, you might grow up ignorant. I suppose being ignorant is even more boring than doing this.’

      Sometimes they argued with her.

      ‘This isn’t boring.’

      ‘It’s not boring at all.’

      ‘I’m really interested.’

      ‘I could do this all day.’

      Miss Mirabelle never minded them arguing. (That was another thing that made her different.) Sometimes she’d sit back and listen to what they had to say. Sometimes she’d look amazed, as if they were a pack of lunatics. Sometimes she’d simply lose interest, cup her head on her hands, and stare out of the window while the discussion turned into a riot around her.

      Oh, she took some getting used to, did Miss Mirabelle. Admittedly she was nowhere near as terrifying as Mr Rushman, or as boring as Mrs Maloney, or as fond of her own voice as Mr Hubert. But she could certainly make them all jump.

      For one thing, she’d lied to them right at the start. She’d said she could stand practically anything in the world except sniffers, but it just wasn’t true. There were a million things she couldn’t stand. Hardly a day went by when Lance did not lean over the fence on his way home from school and, patting Flossie till the dust flew up in clouds, tell her:

      ‘Miss Mirabelle can’t stand people who lick their fingers before they turn over the pages of a book.’

      Or:

      ‘Miss Mirabelle can’t stand people who snigger when someone says they have to go to the lavatory.’

      Or:

      ‘Miss Mirabelle can’t stand people who fuss when a wasp flies in the classroom.’

      Whatever it was Miss Mirabelle couldn’t stand, Flossie would look as concerned as usual. Pushing her great head closer, she’d almost butt poor Lance off the fence.

      ‘She hasn’t much patience,’ Lance confessed. ‘She shouldn’t really be a teacher. She’s not quite right for the job. She went berserk when I forgot my gym shoes. She went mad when Deborah bent down the corner of her page, to mark her place. She took a fit when Sundeep dropped pencil sharpenings on the floor.’

      He scratched Flossie’s ears as hard as he could, to please her. Her hide was so tough that it was hard work.

      ‘I’m not sure she’ll keep the job,’ he said sadly. ‘Not if she doesn’t change her attitude . . .’

      The idea of Miss Mirabelle leaving filled him with gloom. He’d suffered Mr Rushman, and Mrs Maloney, and Mr Hubert. He knew what school could be like.

      It was as if Flossie wanted to shake him out of his black mood. She tossed her head, throwing poor Lance off balance once again.

      ‘Really,’ Lance insisted. ‘Mrs Spicer has been suspicious of Miss Mirabelle ever since that business of the high-heeled shoes. She watches her terribly closely. Miss Mirabelle is in danger.’

      He patted Flossie’s flank and, not for the first time, wished with all his heart that Flossie had been born, not a cow, but a horse. Lance longed for a horse. He longed for adventure. He longed for unknown countries he could ride across, and dragons he could fight, and damsels in distress he could rescue. Oh, Lance loved Flossie. Of course he did. He’d loved her since he first saw her, twenty minutes old, lying in deep straw, steaming, with damp and curly hair, and the farmer had said: ‘Choose a name,’ and Lance had called out: ‘Flossie!’