Read Online In a Class of His Own by Georgia Hill - Free Book Online Page A

later,
here I was in my flat. I put my ear to the adjoining door, which led
onto the landing of the main house but couldn’t hear a thing. I
slid the bolt quietly into place on my side. I trusted Jack but it
made my feeling of privacy complete.
    He had said a polite
hello to Dad, had helped us move in my few belongings and had then
tactfully disappeared. Perhaps he’d gone out? From my flat I
couldn’t see where he parked his car. Perhaps that was just as
well. The temptation to spy on my new neighbour was becoming
overwhelming.
    The
next day at work was frantic. I welcomed the new member of staff,
Rupert
Lawrence, into his classroom and planned on showing him around at
break time. It was my management day and Jack was at a heads’
meeting at the local authority so I had my hands full.
    Rupert
seemed to be doing well with his new class. I walked past his
classroom a little later to discreetly check on things. It’s never
easy take over someone else’s class, especially part way through
the term but they seemed, so far, to be responding well to him. As he
was partly through his year as a newly qualified teacher – an NQT,
I was to be his mentor. I was looking forward to it as it was
something I hadn’t done before. Rupert was a little younger than me
and had changed career from banking into, to use his words,
“something a little more stimulating.” Well he’d certainly be
stimulated by his Year Six class; they were a handful. He was a
good-looking man I thought, with his longish blonde hair and soulful
brown eyes. He’d come across as confident and enthusiastic at the
interview and had a keen interest in sport so would be taking over
the football club, to Jack’s relief. I wondered how many staff that
would disappoint. No more sightings of Jack in his snug tracksuit.
Poor Janice, but perhaps her hormones might return to normal now.
    A
movement down the corridor caught my attention. Helen in Year Four
was waving at me frantically from the doorway of her classroom.
    “Nicky,
Nicky, have you got a minute? It’s urgent!” she hissed
dramatically.
    As I went towards her I
noticed she was holding a hamster cage. My heart sank. Missing
rodents were not my speciality, especially after spending two hours
after school one day looking for a missing gerbil which, when found,
then proceeded to bite me viciously on the finger in gratitude.
    Helen’s lips trembled;
she was not a teacher who made light of life’s problems. “It’s
Fluffy. Sadie Morris brought her in for ‘Show and Tell’ and she’s
… dead!”
    My heart stopped. I
looked at her in alarm, for a second I thought she meant Sadie. Then
sense prevailed and I realised she meant the unfortunate pet. I was
at a loss as to what to say.
    “What
am I going to tell Sadie? She’s in assembly at the moment but she
wants to do ‘Show and Tell’ this afternoon. What are we going to
do? I didn’t do anything to it, honestly. I just think all the
noise of the children coming in to class this morning frightened it
to death.” Helen was close to hysteria. “It’s the last time I
ever have anything alive in the classroom, it’s just not worth the
stress. What am I going to tell her, Nicky? She only had it for her
birthday last month!”
    I held up my hands
against the barrage of words. I needed some quiet to think. “Look,
I’ll take it into the office. Tell Sadie … tell her that’s it a
quieter place to keep pets and I’ll come up with something!”
    I made
my way back to Jack’s office which I was using as my own for that
day. Mona
came in, immaculate as ever, with a sheaf of papers and thinned her
lips in disapproval when she saw the cage.
    “Well
really Miss Hathaway, I don’t think that ought to be kept in Mr.
Thorpe’s office!”
    I
ignored the comment, I was poring over the cage. It didn’t smell
too pleasant. “Mona,
I’ve got a Fluffy crisis on my hands. How the hell do you give
mouth to mouth to a dead hamster?” I looked up at her in