patch. Come along dear, I’ll show you.’ Mrs Potts glanced at her watch, her pace never faltering. ‘We are rather pushed for time as the children are waiting to interview you, they’ve been preparing all week.’
Lucy frowned, this all seemed rather over the top for a temporary post, in fact it was exactly what she expected in an interview for a permanent position. It seemed that the school took its staffing very seriously indeed. Mrs Potts had picked up speed, marching across the playground with Lucy running to keep up, to where a small patch of rather worn grass was fenced off, with what had to be a wooden chicken coop inside. ‘We do have computers in the classroom plugged in,’ she gave Lucy a stern look which suggested she didn’t approve, ‘for teaching purposes, but they can’t learn about responsibility by looking at those, can they? Now if the monitors for the day forget to shut the hens up at night, they won’t repeat that mistake again, will they?’
‘Won’t they?’ Lucy stared at the small wooden building, and a rather scraggy chicken gave her a beady once-over then proceeded to peck at the dirt.
‘Of course not.’ Mrs Potts looked at her as though she was a simpleton. ‘The fox will get them, won’t it?’ She made a cut throat gesture that looked slightly sinister, as she headed back across the playground and Lucy scurried after her.
‘It will?’ The sense that she’d entered some kind of tranquil backwater where life was idyllic started to disperse.
The drive up the M6 motorway had left her frustrated and tense (sure that she would be late, and she was never late), and then she’d lost her way twice which had left her with sweating palms and the start of a headache, but the moment she’d entered the village the stress had started to ebb away and as her shoulders had relaxed she’d eased back on the accelerator and started to appreciate the pretty flower strewn hedgerows.
By the time she’d reached the well-kept village green with its swathes of bright dancing daffodils the pounding in her temples had stopped. Momentarily.
Until she’d taken an unwanted tumble back to her childhood, before being unceremoniously tossed to the curb by a very big man. With a firm grip, tousled hair and gorgeous eyes. Oh hell, now all she needed was for him to be one of the parents and word would soon get round that she was up for a grope with any passing strangers. Not that she’d actually kissed him. Luckily. But she had rubbed herself against him. And wriggled against his crotch.
What the hell was she was letting herself in for?
‘It certainly will. Foxes can be relied on.’ They ground to a halt, and Lucy nearly cannoned into her. ‘Believe me, the children only make that mistake once. And we have the vegetable patch of course.’ Mrs Potts was on the move again. Of course. At Lucy’s previous school they’d settled for egg shell men with cress hair, and a sunflower growing competition. And her sweet peas. Something caught in her throat at the thought of the seeds in their packets waiting to delight her class who had very little colour in their lives – apart from Pokemon and Marvel heroes.
‘Picking their own beans is far more rewarding than a gold star on a chart, and if the slugs or rabbits eat their lettuces well there’s a lesson or two to be learned, isn’t there? Oh now would you look at the time! Come on, chop, chop, we’ve got a lot to fit in today.’
It was no wonder the staff were happy to be treated to an extra portion of biscuits, working here would burn more calories than a double dose of Zumba followed by a Spin class.
‘We don’t normally take on temporary staff, but we’re in rather a difficult situation, and you do seem ideal for the job. We need somebody who will fit in, and I’m sure I speak for everybody else when I say I think you’ll slot right into life at Langtry Meadows Primary School.’ Timothy Parry, the head teacher looked round the table for confirmation.
A bearded governor leant forward – his forearms on the desk and an earnest expression on his face – then suddenly smiled, showing a chipped tooth. ‘The children loved you. Always a good sign, that is.’
Lucy wasn’t sure ‘loved’ was the right word. Her second worst nightmare scenario (after being sacked) had to be a lesson where a child turned out his pocket to reveal an astoundingly large amount of soil and worms. The child in question, a chubby farmer’s son called Ted with bright blue eyes and a pudding-bowl haircut had then tried to present her with the longest worm he had, ‘to match her long hair.’ He’d stretched it out so that it dangled ever closer to her head. Assuring him that the other applicants would be devastated if she accepted, she’d persuaded him to deposit the wriggling but rapidly drying out creature into a jar, for release into the wild at break-time.
‘I’m Jim Stafford. I’ve seen more interviews than you’ve had hot dinners my dear, and I’m telling you, you’re spot on.’ The governor leaned forward even further and tapped the back of her hand, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial level. ‘Ted Wright’s father used to be the Head of Governors and he takes it very much to heart does our Edward if anybody upsets his little Teddy.’
Ahh, so that explained that one. Diplomatic relationships with parents was an essential part of the job that unfortunately had been barely touched on during her teacher training, and she’d had to learn fast.
Timothy coughed, politely regaining control. ‘Edward would normally be here himself, but I’m afraid he had other commitments.’
‘Sheep.’ Jim tapped the side of his nose knowingly.
‘Sheep?’
‘Lambing time love.’ He nodded wisely. ‘Busy time is spring.’
‘A masterstroke to slip in the animal welfare implications, as well as showing such equanimity to your fellow applicants.’ A thin, well-dressed woman with her hair scraped back into a severe bun chipped in, steering them back onto the matter at hand. Lucy had a vague idea that she’d been introduced as the former deputy-head, ‘now retired, but very active in the community’. ‘One of our interviewees abandoned his post after Daisy produced a frog from her pocket.’ There was a disapproving tut lurking just behind the thin lips. ‘What does he expect in the countryside? Honestly!’
The nearest to wildlife Lucy had seen in the classroom at her previous school had been head lice, at least frogs didn’t make her want to scratch her head in sympathy – which the sight of nits always had.
The interview with the school council, the pupils, had been the most astounding part of this whole process. At all her previous interviews, the children had asked well-thought out (and no doubt prompted) questions about positive reinforcement and community spirit – the children at this school had been more interested in her reaction to frogs, whether she agreed with Alice’s dad that ‘those buggers sat behind desks had no right to tell him when he could cut the sodding hedges’, and what she thought about the country pong in the air following the liberal slurry spraying over the weekend.
It had taken all of Lucy’s self-control to stay in her seat, and to resist putting a peg on her nose. She was not a country girl; she didn’t like mess, unpleasant smells, or any kind of large livestock in the immediate vicinity. She really had never ever considered when hedges were cut (but maybe the ‘buggers’ had the bird’s welfare at heart?) and she really did wonder what she was letting herself in for. But now that she’d got over the initial shock of being cast back to her childhood, and been able to rationalise that it wasn’t the same after all, she’d been able to admit to herself
