*
The children were my biggest concern. It wasn’t fair on them to have to walk past a protest everyday – however friendly the faces of the protestors – and not know what was going on. I needed to explain that whatever the school was planning was in their interests. And so I turned to the locus of any well-run school, the place where we gather as a community. I called a Special Assembly.
Standing at the front of the hall, the children cross-legged in front of me, the teachers, including Red, in a row at the back, I waited for silence.
I looked around at the school. Eighty bright little faces looked back. God, it felt good to be a teacher. You felt such a weight of responsibility, such trust. It was the most rewarding job in the world and although I wasn’t in the classroom as much as I would have liked, my days consumed with the logistics of running a school, I still took great pride in our pupils.
‘Now, to the reason why we’ve called this Special Assembly.’ I smiled at them all and took my time, speaking slowly, to let them hear my words. There was pin-drop hush and I felt like a great actor on the stage, my audience in the palm of my hand. Now, Red could see how together my life was. What a success I was. How good I was at my job.
‘I am sure,’ I said, ‘that many of you are asking questions about the group of people who’ve been standing outside the school all week. Does anyone know what it’s about?’
They were an intelligent bunch and we would be able to have an interesting discussion, I was sure, explaining both sides of the argument and why it was so important that people were allowed to protest in this day and age. And I could explain what we would gain if we were to sell the land. I was feeling pretty confident, as I stood looking down at all the innocent faces, that they would see it from my point of view. Yes, we appreciated the Dalkey Wildlife Defenders point of view, and could even have a week looking at different forms of democratic protest. Projects. Outings. All sorts of things. This could be extremely beneficial to the school. This could be A Learning Experience. But more than anything, selling the land was A Very Good Thing for the school. One girl put up her hand.
‘Yes, Molly?’
‘They had a sign about saving squirrels. But why, what’s going to happen to the squirrels?’
‘Thank you, Molly,’ I smiled indulgently. ‘Yes, that’s what they say, they do want to save squirrels…’
‘Are you killing squirrels?’ Her eyes were wide with horror. ‘I love squirrels. We have some in our garden. We leave nuts out for them.’
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘No Molly. We are definitely not killing squirrels. I love them too. Everyone loves squirrels, don’t they? It’s about where squirrels live. Can anyone tell me where squirrels live?’
Hands shot up.
‘Charlotte?’
‘Houses?’ Some of our pupils had other gifts rather than purely academic ones.
‘No, not quite… well, maybe to them they are houses, so perhaps, technically, you are right, Charlotte, but there’s another word I’m looking for. Trees. We all love trees don’t we.’
‘Are you killing trees as well?’
‘No Molly. There won’t be any tree killing.’ I really hoped this promise did not turn out to be an empty one.
For a moment I looked up and made eye contact with Red. But he gave me nothing, no sense of quite how well or badly this was going, but there was a palpable atmosphere that this special assembly was special for all the wrong reasons as everyone stopped breathing for a moment and waited to hear how I would defend myself from accusations of squirrelicide and tree felling.
‘Well, we are thinking of selling a section of land. The Copse. The overgrown bit, the nettley area full of brambles.
‘The nature area?’ one girl called out.
‘Where we go and watch the butterflies,’ said another.
‘Yeah, we love the Copse,’ said another voice.
‘The adventure area!’
‘What’s that, Abigail?’ I said.
‘It’s the best place in the school,’ said Abigail, who was sitting at the side of the room. ‘We are allowed to play there sometimes and it’s magic. Like anything could happen.’
‘Like what? Do you mean tripping up or having some kind of accident?’ I’d had no idea that the children were even particularly aware of the Copse or that it had become imbued with magical properties but I was definitely aware that my little chat wasn’t going to plan.
‘No. Like you can have an adventure.’
All the girls began nodding and voices began chattering, the sound in the room was filled with happy memories about being in the Copse.
Another hand up. ‘Poppy?’
‘Is it in trouble? Are we going to save it like the people outside?’
‘Not quite… well, yes it’s in trouble and no we are not going to save it… I mean…’
A sea of shocked tiny faces.
‘Whose side are we on?’ said Poppy.
‘It’s not about sides,’ I said. ‘But we’re not on the side of the protestors. You all want computers, don’t you? You all want to be like the children in Willow Grove, isn’t that right? With your own iPads. You would prefer that, wouldn’t you?’ My God, I thought, I’ve transitioned into Cruella De Vil. I used to think of myself as a kindly child-loving teacher. Now, I had become practically evil.
I looked around at all the faces of the children. Some were shaking their heads, and others began to cry. They held each other’s hands for moral and emotional support. Oh dear God. This was not meant to happen. Even Mary, standing at the side door, beside me, had panic on her face. What would happen next? Would social services arrive to drag me away? Red, at the back of the hall, looked completely bemused, as though he was witnessing the breakdown of a previously well-respected figure, like seeing your favourite television presenter suddenly turn on you when you innocently asked for their autograph. And the children would go home and tell their parents that Ms Thomas wanted to kill trees and squirrels.
‘Children, children!’ I was screeching now, rising panic squeezing my vocal chords. ‘Are you saying to me you don’t want computers? But I thought you’d be delighted…’
Poppy managed to raise her hand, her eyes moist with tears. ‘We’d much prefer to have our own squirrel, Ms Thomas. And our own butterfly.’
Alice in Sixth class raised her hand. ‘And an adventure, Miss.’
*
‘Well, that went well.’
Red had joined me as the girls walked out, line by line, some with their shoulders shaking as tears streamed down their faces, arms draped around each other, others looking at me as though I was suddenly not who they had once thought. I had hoped to run to the sanctuary of my office, but Red was probably delighted to see me implode.
‘Well, it wasn’t the unqualified success I had hoped.’ I felt like a politician who has just lost an election. ‘I don’t think I quite communicated my point.’ He thought me a fool, he must do. ‘I think,’ I admitted, realising that there was nowhere to hide, ‘I just might have made everything worse. There’s a bunch of pensioners outside the school who are convinced I am some kind of environmental vandal. Like an Irish, female Donald Trump. And I’ve just made half the school cry.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ he said. ‘If you believe that selling the land is the best thing to do, then you just have to carry on in the face of adversity. Even if your adversaries are children and pensioners. Neither of whom, by the way, should ever be underestimated. Courage in your convictions.’ I had ghosted him. That was the phrase. Where someone just disappears from your life. Doesn’t contact you, they have ghosted you. A horrible, cruel thing to do. Unforgiveable. Yet here he was acting as though he had forgiven me.
‘My daughter is… struggling,’ I said suddenly. He was the first person I had told. I had spent the last few weeks full to the brim with worry for her. And I didn’t know what to do. ‘She’s doing her Leaving Cert.’