‘I just wanted to share.’ She shuddered into sobs again.
James strode back from lunch, hovered, gave Claire a dismissive glance, and ushered Lorna into his office. The girl’s back looked pitifully thin in her dirty shirt. Her ragged shoes dragged on the floor. She kept her head down, like an animal led to slaughter. The door closed firmly behind them.
Claire hesitated. Her own class had PE next, led by her enthusiastic teaching assistant, and Claire usually used the time to catch up on paperwork, but she felt, somehow, that she had a responsibility towards the girl. What class was she in? Yes, Miss Brett’s. Newly qualified, utterly humourless, overly strict. Claire felt a wave of fatigue at the thought of talking to Miss Brett, who spoke like a passive-aggressive air stewardess and never met your eyes. But still. Children can get so confused – social norms, even right and wrong, are diffuse concepts to ones so young, and it can’t have been easy growing up with Carl, whose behaviour was still spoken about in hushed tones. And even if she had known it was wrong to take them, well, there was still time to put it right, if the situation was handled delicately. As of that very morning, Lorna was happy, popular, confident – it seemed desperately unfair to have all that altered by one mishap. It might even set her on the wrong path; if you tell a child they’re bad, well, they believe you and revert to type . . . Miss Brett’s class was split into their reading groups; maybe this would be the right time to talk to her.
The corridor outside the classroom smelt of urine. The toilets were here, and the boys in particular weren’t known for their accuracy. A pile of blue paper towels had been put down on the floor to soak up some of the yellow puddles, but no-one had given them a proper scrub in a while. How could Miss Brett let things like that slide? In staff meetings she was a such a stickler for procedure, and washed up the coffee cups with fussy precision. Strange. But then, when Claire had suggested they ask the caretaker to put little sticky targets in each toilet bowl, so boys were less likely to have, well, messy accidents, Miss Brett had hated the idea, had been quite vitriolic about it, as far as Claire remembered. Something about boys taking responsibility for their own learning and development: It’s-not-my-job-to-teach-them-how-to-aim.
Claire knew that she was looked on with amused contempt; she felt the gap between herself and the younger teachers widening day by day. Affection, praise, fun: these were medieval concepts for the younger teachers, who dressed like advertising executives and made brisk notes on their iPhones in staff meetings. And the children weren’t children, they were ‘students’, ‘active learners’ or ‘young people’. Claire, who sometimes made the appalling lapse of calling children ‘kiddies’, was put up with, as though she was an embarrassing throwback. But the children loved her, that was obvious. Flocks of them followed her around the playground, vying for her attention, for the chance to hold her hand. Nobody could take that away from her; her popularity with the pupils was the one weapon in her arsenal.
‘Miss Brett? I was wondering if I could have a very quick word?’ The remedial reading group had been sitting on the carpet, labouring over their ABCs. They noticed Claire and erupted into giggles and smiles. Miss Brett’s brow creased with annoyance.
‘Mrs Jenkins will take you through phonics time now, while I step outside with Miss Penny. And I want you all to put on your listening ears and behave nicely until I come back.’ As they left the classroom, a little girl with a squint gave Claire a cheerful wave, and Claire winked back.
In the chill of the playground, Miss Brett leaned against the pebble-dashed wall and gave Claire’s knees a sceptical look. ‘What is it, Miss Penny?’
Claire smiled at her ‘Oh, Claire, please.’ But Miss Brett just shrugged and looked over Claire’s shoulder.
‘One of your students got into a bit of a pickle today. Lorna Bell?’ Miss Brett raised her sharp little chin a quarter of an inch but said nothing. ‘Well, I happened to see her just afterwards, and she’s really very, very upset. I’m not sure she really understands? And, she is so little, after all—’
‘Didn’t she steal another student’s property?’ Miss Brett frowned at her feet.
‘Yes, but the way she put it to me was that she just wanted to hold them – they were those rubbers all the girls are obsessed with at the moment, the scented ones? Well, it’s a really big thing for them. Fashion. And I think Lorna – I mean she doesn’t have any money, or rather her parents don’t, and so she doesn’t have any of these rubber things – I think she just wanted to sort of hold one and make believe it was hers for a moment . . .’ Miss Brett shifted her milky blue gaze to just above Claire’s hairline ‘. . . and then people thought they were hers and she got a little bit muddled. And then, she wanted to share them with her friends, which is actually rather sweet when you think about it?’
Miss Brett’s raised eyebrows said that she didn’t think it was sweet at all. Her thin, mauve lips pulled themselves into a grimace. ‘Miss Penny, I have to follow the school policy on stealing.’
‘Well, yes, I know that. But what I mean is, can you not be too hard on her?’
‘It’s not in my nature to be too hard, actually. But I have to follow procedure and follow the direction of my immediate manager, who in this case is James.’
‘Look, Emma? Look, obviously this thing has to be dealt with properly, but she’s only five—’
‘She’s six actually.’