Dominic then? He OK?’
‘Yes,’ said Max, throwing a suggestive wink over to his brother, ‘he’s fine. Megan, we really oughtn’t to call her The Carter Woman, not before we’ve even met her. She might be perfectly OK. She’s probably very nice.’
‘But she sure ain’t Polly!’ Megan declared in pure New York.
Max fell silent.
‘Better go, Meg. Better keep the line free, just in case.’
8.30 a.m. Mrs Elms, headmistress of stereotypical St Trinian’s proportions, marched into the staff room.
‘Good morning, everybody,’ she cried, her iron-coloured curls and dark burgundy lipstick fixed until home time. ‘Here she is – locum tenens for Polly Fenton – Miss Jennifer Carter!’ and she applauded extravagantly, nudging the stranger into centre stage.
‘Actually,’ the girl replied, shoulders square, ‘it’s Jen and it’s Ms.’
‘Nonsense!’ cajoled Mrs Elms to Jen’s unhidden horror. ‘At BGS, if we’re not Mrs we’re Miss. Unless we’re Mr, of course. Isn’t that right, Bill?’ she declared to the art teacher who nodded in a vague sort of way, as befitting his calling.
‘Mr Hardy!’ Mrs Elms proclaimed proudly, outstretching her hand to the man and thrusting Jen’s into it. ‘Mr Bill Hardy,’ Mrs Elms continued, ‘this is Miss Carter. Jen,’ she enunciated, ‘is that right, dear?’
‘Uh huh,’ said Jen, who looked tired and, Megan discerned with a tiny touch of sympathy, tearful.
Mrs Elms went through the entire staff body in the same manner, grabbing hands and thrusting Jen’s into them. She came to Megan.
‘And this, Miss Carter, this is Miss Megan Reilly. Hands, ladies. Super. There are no hands safer than Miss Reilly’s, my dear. She’ll deliver you to your class and show you the ropes. And the stairs and the corridors, ha!’
With that, Mrs Elms turned on her squat-heeled shoes and left on the double to prepare herself for assembly.
‘She’s not even fifty,’ Megan whispered to Jen, ‘isn’t that frightening?’
‘Sure is. Do I really have to be a Miss?’
‘Well,’ said Megan, thrusting an unrequested coffee into Jen’s hands, ‘that all depends on your pronunciation now, doesn’t it!’ She winked at Jen.
‘Is this decaff?’
‘Dat is right,’ joked Megan, masking sudden irritation with a daft foreign accent, ‘dis is de caff and dat is de tea!’
‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, I am Polly Fenton and I’ll be teaching English this year.’
Who? Us! Ladies and gentlemen – us? Cool!
Ten hands shot into the air and fresh, eager faces implored her to choose me, choose me.
This can’t really be unadulterated enthusiasm, genuine politeness, can it? Surely it must be the start of some horrible jest?
You’re at Hubbardtons now, Polly, you can shake off the wariness that the BGS girls have instilled in you.
The hands still soared heavenward.
‘Er, yes?’ said Polly, marvelling that the room was carpeted. ‘Gentleman with the baseball cap?’
‘Mrs, Miss or Ms, ma’am?’
His face was earnest. After all, he wasn’t sure he’d even met a gentleman before, let alone been referred to as one.
‘Miss,’ confirmed Polly with a relieved smile; he was clearly enthusiastic and polite and not the practical joker type.
A class of ten? Do you know, that’s less than the weekly detention crowd at BGS!
Polly looked about her, nine pairs of hands lay neatly on the tables in front of them. A tenth pair were hidden but heard, tapping away at a lap-top. Polly cleared her throat.
‘You there? With the computer?’
‘Yes, Ma’am?’
‘Miss,’ said Polly. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m just logging “Miss Polly Fenton” into my file, Ma’am.’
‘Miss,’ said Polly.
‘Miss,’ said the girl, closing the lid of the machine and giving Polly her undivided attention, prefixed by a shy smile and then a beaming, glinting grin displaying a mouth with more metal than enamel.
‘Okey dokey,’ said Polly, surprised at her choice of phrase, ‘you now know me, but who on earth are you? Plural!’
The students delivered their names.
Oh that they could wear name badges too! How ever am I to distinguish between AJ and TC? Lauren and Laurel? And two Bens, would you believe, not to mention a Heidi, a Forrest and the two others whose names I’ve completely forgotten?
‘Super!’ Polly declared instead. ‘And could you let me know which of you are the semaphores?’
The class laughed politely and AJ, who turned out to be the boy wearing the baseball cap, corrected her kindly and informed her that he was a sophomore and sixteen years of age, and that TC, Forrest, Lauren and Ed (ah, that was it, Ed!) were as well. Laurel, the girl with the lap-top, explained that she was a freshman and had just turned fifteen. Polly deduced that the remaining freshmen were both Bens, Heidi and the boy with no name, who was rather overweight but wore the sweetest smile Polly had ever seen in a fifteen-year-old.
‘Splendid,’ said Polly and, as she did so, she observed ten pairs of eyes glaze slightly while the smiles stretched at her vocabulary. ‘Let’s crack on. What’s so funny? Lauren?’
‘It’s just, like, your accent’s so neat, I guess we’re gonna have a bunch of fun learning English from an English lady.’
It was the first time Polly had ever been referred to as a lady so she chose to go easy on Lauren’s command of the English language.
‘Thank you, Lauren, but I’d rather you spoke of a bunch of flowers tied with a neat ribbon – and perhaps an accent that is, for example, jolly nice, and English lessons which, I assure you, are to be tremendous fun.’
The class gave her a swift round of applause; Polly bowed graciously, somewhat mystified by her unpremeditated plumminess and her employment of the forbidden adjective, nice.
‘Now,’ she said, rummaging in her large bag, ‘now, have I a treat for you. Where the Dickens—? Ah, here we are. Pumblechook!’ she declared suddenly, fixing a wild smile on Heidi and making her jump. Silence rapt the students. Polly left her table, on which she had been perched, and walked slowly around the semicircle of desks in front of her, distributing books. ‘Snodgrass!’ she whispered to TC; ‘Sergeant
