Head Start Page 12

  At least, I reflected, as I burnt midnight oil marking, I wouldn’t get complaints about burning the school’s.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘Prudence! What is going on in that child’s head?’ Helen demanded as she poured cold water into her mid morning tea. From the expression on her face it was still too hot to drink comfortably. ‘It’s the third time I’ve chased her out of the staff loos. She says they’re nicer than the girls’ and we’re being authoritarian and elitist to reserve them for our use.’

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Tom.

  ‘I asked her whether in the interests of equality we should have gender-free loos too. Mistake. Never do sarcasm with Prudence. She said every school now needed ones for people transitioning. Precocious or what?’

  ‘Or what, I’d say. Except I daren’t say anything. Not to or about Prudence. The boss saved my bacon once: I can’t gamble on that again.’

  ‘Let’s look on the bright side,’ I said, making them both jump. ‘Sorry – I didn’t mean to lurk. We’ve only got Prudence for another eighteen months: her parents have her for life.’

  ‘If she lives that long,’ Helen observed. ‘Jane: do you want to deal with her?’

  ‘It looks a bit over the top if I do. Did you get anything more out of young Robert, by the way?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s strange: he’s always been such a docile, biddable kid. But I found him going through the classroom waste bin the other day. And more worrying, by my desk – and I’d left my laptop open on it.’

  ‘Robert? Robert Bowman? But he’s such a sweetie he could play a sheep in the Nativity without needing any disguise,’ Liz declared. ‘Someone’s pulling his strings, you mark my words. The only question is who.’

  A frantic knocking on the staffroom door prevented any speculation: it was Lucy, one of the tiniest children in year one, with the news that Rosie had fallen in the playground and there was blood. As if to testify to the seriousness of Rosie’s injury, she threw up over Tom’s shoes. ‘999, the playground lady said,’ she added through her mess.

  When I got outside, having got Melanie to make the call and look after Lucy, Rosie was still lying on the playground, presumably where she had fallen. Her head was cradled by Kate Morgan, a solidly reliable woman, who had stripped off her coat to cover the injured child. Rose was crying that her leg hurt, though it was also clear that her arm was badly broken. Liz, who was our first-aider, eased a foil blanket under and round her, but insisted she shouldn’t be moved. The other kids were being shooed away by Fearn, with amazing composure and authority. The quiet was disconcerting – it was as if a hundred breaths were being held, any conversations as muted as at a funeral. Then at last we all heard a siren. The sigh of relief was palpable. Tom, now in trainers, ran into the road to flag down the longed for ambulance. Then there was a gasp of disappointment: all we had was a medic on a motorbike. But at least he was an expert. He praised Kate and Liz, comforted Rosie and got to work. The leg injury, it seemed, was no more than a couple of cuts and a bad case of gravel rash. It was the arm that was the real problem. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to pick up the stress on the word real.

  We marched the children back to their classrooms via the kitchen to prevent further rubber-necking and, of course, the trauma of seeing blood that parents like the Digbys would insist had ruined their kids’ psyches for life. Fearn volunteered to take Liz’s class as long as she needed to be with Rosie. So far, so good. And even better when a proper ambulance arrived.

  No one but me could break to her family the news that Rosie was on her way to hospital. The responsible adult was listed as her grandfather, Richard Morris, the governor who had helped me with the traffic problems. To my relief, he took the news philosophically enough; thanking me for sending Liz in the ambulance with Rosie, he said that it was more important for him to get to A&E than to bother with any questions now. Although I agreed, I offered to involve the police.

  ‘For a playground accident? You’re joking.’

  ‘Some schools do. But I prefer the common sense approach. So thank you.’ Meanwhile I promised that if possible a written report would be waiting in his in-box when he got back home.

  Not that it was going to be easy to write. Or to find out what ought to be in it. Lucy, by now thoroughly hysterical and still throwing up, needed her mother, who was teaching on the far side of the county: it was one thing for Melanie to deal with tears, another to expect her to deal with endless vomit. Kate, who had acted so promptly and calmly, was now in a state of near collapse, blaming herself because she hadn’t actually seen the accident. So who had?

  If only I had more staff to turn to.

  I didn’t. Taking the plastic bucket from Melanie, I said the only thing I could think of. ‘While I empty this, can you find Mr Dawes’s number, please?’

  Dawes brought welcome reinforcements with him: Mrs Walker and Mrs Tibbs, who knew Lucy and sat with her in Melanie’s office.

  ‘This is what I propose, but this is a serious incident and I felt the governors should be involved from the start,’ I said, seating the first two in my office. ‘Firstly, although Richard doesn’t want to call the police to investigate a playground accident, I feel I must offer you the option anyway.’

  Dawes almost spluttered. ‘You can’t be serious. These are children, not criminals.’

  The women nodded.

  ‘Excellent. I’d be very much against it myself, but I’m pleased to have your agreement. An in-house enquiry is best, at this stage at least. Now, I’d like to keep all the children together in the hall – I’ve got some reasonably educational videos that will keep them in one place and take their minds off things. We have, apparently, three witnesses, two girls and a boy, and I feel it would be better to talk to them separately.’ Why was I worried that one of them was Robert?

  Mrs Walker nodded sagely. ‘We don’t want them hysterically imagining details and having their friends corroborate them, do we? Do you need us as childminders or as witnesses?’

  ‘We should question them, surely?’

  ‘No, that would be too intimidating, Brian. I’ll sit in with the girls, shall I, Jane? And Brian with the boy?’

  ‘Excellent idea.’ But Dawes’s smile disappeared as he turned to me. ‘What about the playground supervisor? How could she let such a serious accident happen?’

  ‘I gather Kate was speaking to another child – but I want it put on record that she dealt quite admirably with the accident the moment she became aware of it.’

  ‘Good. But I think we should speak to her all the same, don’t you?’

  Where had I got the idea that the governors were intimidating? Today they were simply helpful professionals.

  Suspiciously, questioned in my office, all three children said almost the same thing. Or the same nothing. Yes, they’d been standing near where Rosie fell, but no, they’d not seen her actually fall.

  ‘Could she have tripped?’ I asked Robert.

  ‘Suppose so. All these kids running round – it’s obvious someone’s going to fall on the ice, isn’t it?’

  Robert, making an adult observation like that?

  ‘How many children have you seen falling on the ice?’

  ‘A few. Before we learnt how to slide. And grown-ups. Because they don’t know about sliding.’

  I could hear Terry, the oil delivery driver’s words: But you know what they say: ‘Did you fall or were you pushed?’ And I recalled my own headlong tumble. Surely nothing to do with Robert – Robert, who was ideal casting for a gentle sheep. ‘Could she have been tripped?’

  ‘I didn’t see anyone trip her,’ he said flat-voiced, as if he’d been coached. ‘Someone should have stopped children running around if it wasn’t safe.’

  ‘Didn’t someone tell all you children not to run around?’ I asked. I might be keen on getting at the truth but I couldn’t bargain on Dawes remaining amicable. ‘During assembly? Every morning? No?’

  A mutter eventually su
ggested that he might have heard me speak a few words on the subject.

  The girls, both in Tom’s top-year class, were both inclined to surliness, the sort of thing I usually associate with hormonal adolescents. They shared Robert’s inclination to blame people supposedly in charge.

  I smelt blood. My own.

  Fortunately Felicity Walker didn’t buy their theory. She told first one, then the other, that Ms Morgan was an excellent supervisor. And then she asked, firing the question I’d been longing to put, ‘If you didn’t actually see Rosie fall, why do you say you’re a witness?’

  The first child, Emma Hamilton, hedged; she was a girl so beautiful and so aware of her gifts that she looked as if later in life she could have a latter-day Nelson at her feet. She was very bright, too; already her teachers were predicting Oxbridge for her. She said she’d just happened to be the first on the spot after Robert. Ten minutes later, in the same scenario, Sophia (never Sophie), who happened to be the daughter of Toby Wells, one of our governors, said much the same.

  ‘In short,’ I said, when the last child had returned to the hall, ‘no one had actually seen a perpetrator, and all complained that they weren’t supervised properly. Moreover, they all came forward as witnesses. Why?’

  ‘Do you think there could actually be a problem with Kate Morgan?’ Dawes asked. ‘I know you said she did everything she could, but she wasn’t actually on hand when the accident happened.’

  ‘This is the first time I’ve ever heard any sort of complaint against her.’ I brought up her confidential file. ‘No, there’s nothing here on the computer – Mrs Gough wrote her a glowing testimonial when she thought of training to become a classroom assistant.’ I turned the screen so they could see it.

  Mrs Tibbs – Alison – read it infuriatingly slowly. At last she looked up. ‘I’ve occasionally watched her from my bedroom window.’ Was it she who lived in Old School House? Who accidentally or deliberately hijacked my oil delivery? ‘It may seem to some like spying –’ I suspected her eyes slid in my direction – ‘but the governors’ duty is to the school.’ Including checking on how I was increasing the school’s fuel bills, no doubt. ‘I’ve never seen anything to suggest she’s not doing her best. Of course, all the children want to talk to her, but she stands tall and looks around even while she’s holding their hands.’

  I had a sudden vision of Kate as a meerkat. I suppressed it firmly. ‘Mr Dawes?’

  ‘All three singing from the same hymn sheet. That’s what I thought,’ he snorted. ‘Robert’s a big lad – he could easily have tripped the poor little child.’

  ‘Robert? Do anything unkind? To be honest, I don’t think he’s got the brains,’ Felicity said. ‘Jane – you’re keeping very quiet.’

  ‘I don’t actually know these children as well you do, of course. But I do know children in general. And like you, Chair, I think those stories, or lack of them, sound rehearsed. Organised.’ And I could only think of one child with the brains and personality to organise it. ‘But before I say anything more I really think we should see if Kate’s able to talk to us.’

  She was. She was more green than pale, and still visibly shaking. Tears kept welling into her eyes.

  ‘If I don’t blame myself, who can I blame?’ she demanded, as Felicity tried to assure her that no one suspected her of any wrongdoing. ‘It happened on my watch!’

  ‘But you can’t be everywhere and you can’t have eyes in the back of your head,’ Felicity said. ‘And you certainly weren’t responsible for the effect of gravity on a falling object.’ She pushed the plate of biscuits across. ‘Please – sugar’s supposed to be good for a shock. Or have they decided it’s bad these days? You look as if you need a stiff brandy.’

  Dawes looked at me. ‘I don’t suppose—?’

  ‘Not on school premises,’ I assured him. ‘But I could organise some coffee – or a cup of tea? Excuse me a moment.’

  Lucy’s mother had apparently just taken her still ailing daughter away. Despite the cold, Melanie had thrown open all the windows. She’d obviously been liberal with the air-freshener too, but nothing could eradicate the smell of vomit. She looked as if she herself was ready to throw up too.

  ‘Go home and shower and change,’ I said. ‘Wash your hair, too. Then you’ll feel much better.’ I held up a hand as she began to argue: ‘Use some of that time off in lieu I mentioned. Off you go. And, Melanie, bring us some fresh milk and a supply of biscuits on your way back – that should ease your conscience if nothing else will.’

  I got the impression that the governors had used my absence to try to put Kate at ease: her colour was better, and her hand, taking the mug, was steadier.

  All three looked at me expectantly.

  ‘I’m not in the blame game where children on the loose are concerned. I know they ignore instructions – they take no notice of No Entry signs, are selectively deaf when instructions are given and often make me think there’s something in the doctrine of original sin. All I want to hear – all we all want to hear – is what happened in your area of the playground. Any tantrums? Any tears? Any exciting little secrets whispered in your ear?’

  ‘Tash lost a glove; Ian found it. Connor and Dale started kicking snow; some flew in the direction of Angelica, you know, the Turners’ youngest, who set up a howl. All pretty normal. Prudence found a scrunchie, which she handed to me. She speculated whose it might be. I told her I’d look after it and lodge it with Melanie as lost property, but she said she’d go and ask every girl with long hair if she’d lost it.’ She stopped, frowning.

  ‘Did she? Go and ask the other girls?’

  ‘No. She didn’t. She kept messing with her own hair – I almost thought she wanted me to hand over the scrunchie to her. Then I heard the scream. The rest you know. There was a lot of blood.’

  I caught her eye, and mouthed, ‘Make sure I have the cleaning bill for your coat. Right?’

  Dawes had been writing, and now looked up. ‘So you didn’t see anything of the accident?’

  ‘I was so distracted by the scrunchie business. But Robert was very close to Rosie, very close indeed. You should ask him.’

  ‘Emma and Sophia?’

  ‘Miles away. OK, yards – except I should call them metres. Looking at something in Sophia’s hand.’

  ‘Not at the accident?’

  ‘No. In fact they were probably the only kids in the playground who didn’t turn round and start running towards Rosie.’

  Felicity and I exchanged glances; we all did.

  ‘As a matter of interest, what do you make of these kids – Robert, for example?’ Felicity asked.

  ‘He’s never going to win Mastermind, is he, poor lad? Generally nice. Always waves to me if we meet in the village.’

  ‘The girls?’

  ‘Ten going on thirty. That’s Sophia and Emma. As for Prudence – do you know, I get the feeling that she thinks I’m beneath her. Snooty little madam. But she doesn’t mix very well. Doesn’t do girly giggles with the others. She’s – she’s a watcher, not a joiner in.’

  ‘She’s wasted in the playground,’ Alison declared, as Kate closed the door behind her. ‘What a pity she didn’t go in for that retraining.’

  ‘I wonder what stopped her. I’ll make sure I speak to her about it – try to persuade her to have another shot.’ I made a note. If I wasn’t careful it would get lost in all the other notes. ‘Lord, is that the time! The kids should be breaking for lunch in three minutes. I’m quite sure my colleagues have everything in hand but I would just like to check.’ And to see if Melanie was back, of course. And to remind everyone that there had to be a staff meeting this afternoon, albeit one with a different item dominating the agenda.

  Alison and Felicity exchanged a glance. ‘I’m quite sure that between us we could organise a light lunch,’ Alison said. ‘There is clearly work still to be done here, and though we could adjourn to my house, I am quite sure that you would rather stay here, Jane. So the picnic will come to you. Bria
n – is that acceptable to you?’

  ‘I could do with stretching my legs. I’ll come and be your native porter.’

  Did they want to talk about me behind my back? Just at the moment I hardly cared. I had a school to run, and that meant the speediest possible return to normality.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  As long as Fearn was prepared to stand in for Liz, with Tom combining his class and mine in the hall, we could have fairly normal afternoon lessons. But nothing else felt normal. A sandwich lunch with the governors, complete with china plates and linen napkins brought in an old-fashioned wicker picnic basket, didn’t feel normal. Neither did the offer of wine, which all three of us women declined, leaving Dawes to sip claret on his own. From a crystal glass, of course. The subject that taxed us most was whether we should question Prudence, and if so, how.

  ‘Let me lay my cards on the table,’ I said, wondering whether to keep one or two up my sleeve anyway. ‘Mr Dawes and I had a measure of disagreement over the way I dealt with a previous issue involving Prudence. You’ve seen copies of my correspondence with the parents, and my account of our meeting. For obvious reasons, I don’t wish to be seen in any way as pursuing a vendetta against the child. We are aware that the parents wouldn’t hesitate to involve their legal adviser again if they thought I was. But she does, on occasion, behave quite inappropriately, challenging teachers’ authority. She’s now insisting on using the staff loo, for instance.’

  ‘Have you spoken to her parents?’ Alison asked.

  ‘I decided that this was a matter for her class teacher to deal with. The lower key the better.’ I risked a glance at Dawes. His face was completely impassive.