Over Hill And Dale Part 17

"Well, I've changed my mind. You're not having it!"

"But that's not fair."

"Tough luck!"

"I'll blow my pipe then."

"You can blow your pipe until you burst, pal, you're not having any money and that's that!"

"Give me my money!"

"No!"

"You said you would."

"Well, you're not having it!"

"I want my money!"

"Clear off!" boomed the Mayor.

"Well, you can stuff your thousand guilders!" roared the Pied Piper. "You're a tight-fisted old b.u.g.g.e.r!"

I did not need to say "Freeze!" Everyone in the hall had already fallen into a stunned, frozen silence. Monsignor Leonard, Sister Brendan, the supply teacher and Miss Fen-oughty were like a tableau at the back. None of them moved a muscle.

Then, into the deathly silence, the small boy with the large gla.s.ses and a smile like a Ches.h.i.+re cat, piped up. "Is that better, Mr. Phinn?" he asked.

Lateras I said my farewells in the school hall, I attempted to direct the conversation away from the morning's drama but without success. Miss Fenoughty was determined to discuss proceedings.

"Drama is like singing, isn't it, Mr. Flynn? It gives the children a chance to express themselves through their voices. I did enjoy this morning. I do so love that poem. I thought the little ones did very well, didn't you?"

"I did," I replied, smiling weakly.

"And that little boy who played the part of the Pied Piper, he was a natural little actor. My goodness he really did sound the part, didn't you think?"

"I did," I replied again.

"Fancy remembering that word."

"Word?" I repeated.

"The word he asked you about."

"I'm sorry, Miss Fenoughty .. ."

'"Burgher". He remembered the word "burgher". Don't you recall at the end, didn't he shout at the Mayor, "Give me my money, you mean old burgher"?"

I heard Monsignor Leonard splutter beside me, hastily plucking a handkerchief from his pocket and burying his face in it. Even Sister Brendan had to suppress a smile. Their obvious enjoyment, however, was very short lived.

"You know, Sister," exclaimed Miss Fenoughty, with a wild gleam in her eye, "I've been thinking. I've got the score somewhere for the musical version of "The Pied Piper". Wouldn't it be a good idea to perform it for the parents? I would, of course, be pleased to act as musical director and perhaps Mr. Flynn here could deal with the acting. What do you all think?"

We were as motionless as the statue of St. Bartholmew of Whitby, who looked down upon us sympathetically from his plinth at the front of the hall. It was the same St. Bartholomew, the hermit, who betook himself to the Fame Islands in the twelfth century to escape the strident noises of the world and to spend his life in complete peace and quiet meditation. I surmise we all envied him at that moment.

Harold and Sidney were in animated conversation when I walked into the office one mild, misty morning a week before the end of the Spring term. They were facing each other across Sidney's desk like aggressive chess players.

"I'm afraid not, Harold," Sidney was saying. "I have got more than enough work to keep me fully occupied for the rest of the year without taking all that on." He paused to wish me "Good morning' before continuing in a loud and combative voice, "There's the inspections, three courses to direct, the "Arts in School Project", the Fe-Fo exhibition of children's art to organise, adjudicating that wretched Art Compet.i.tion at Fettlesham Show yet again. I could go on and on."

"You are going on and on," replied Harold, quietly. He gave me a toothy smile and wished me "Good morning' before returning to Sidney. "Now look, Sidney, we all have to take on extra responsibilities from time to time." He opened his large hands like the Pope about to give a blessing. "Gervase and David have the core subjects to deal with. It would be unfair to ask them. Without denigrating your curriculum area, I am sure you will agree that mathematics and English do take up far more time than art and design." "I would be absolutely hopeless," retorted Sidney, shaking his head vigorously. "I'd be about as successful as a garlic salesman at a vampires' convention. I am temperamentally unsuited and I have no intention whatsoever of agreeing."

"What is it you are asking him to do, Harold?" I enquired, hanging up my coat.

"To completely redefine my role, that's what!" cried Sidney. "Well, I'm not doing it."

"What nonsense, Sidney!" said Harold. "I am merely asking you to take on a little extra work."

"A little extra work? A little extra work? Is that how you would describe it? You are asking me to pick up all the hot potatoes on the curriculum, all the complex, vexatious, troublesome, tricky and controversial subjects of which I have no experience and in which I have no expertise. There is simply no question of-'

"I wish one of you would tell me what it is Sidney has been asked to do," I said.

"Harold," Sidney told me, scowling in the direction of the Senior Inspector, 'has asked me, in addition to creative and visual arts and all the other multifarious jobs I have to do, to be responsible for s.e.x education, drugs awareness and anti-bullying." I was unable to suppress a smile. "I am sure you find this highly amusing, Gervase, but'

"Look, Sidney," interrupted Harold, rubbing his heavy bulldog jaw, "I can't waste any more time arguing with you. I'm seeing Dr. Gore at half-past eight and I need to sort out the briefing papers. Someone has got to do it and you are best placed."

"Best placed!" exclaimed Sidney. "Oh, I am best placed all right. With my head beneath the guillotine, you mean? Up against a wall facing a firing squad? On the scaffold waiting for the trap to open? Sitting on a b.l.o.o.d.y land-mine!"

"You would think I was asking him to sell his soul," said Harold wearily, turning in my direction. He stood up to go and peered at Sidney with his large pale eyes. "The fact is, Sidney, there is no one else."

"Why can't our new colleague, the multi-talented and ma.s.sively qualified Dr. Mullarkey, take it on? I am sure she knows far more than I do about s.e.x, drugs and violence."

At that very moment a head appeared around the door. "Did I hear my name mentioned?"

Dr. Mullarkey was due to take up her post as County Inspector for Science in early June and Harold had organised some school visits before she started so she could get a feel for things and meet a few people. At present, she was a lecturer in education and had asked if this preliminary visit could be before the end of the Spring term rather than early next term when she would be frantically busy preparing her students for their end-of-year examinations.

That morning it was my turn to accompany Gerry, and I had arranged to take her into three primary schools to observe some design and technology work.

"You'll get used to Sidney," I said as we walked towards the car park. "He's a sort of extravagant, larger-than-life character, but a marvelous colleague. Everything is a drama with Sidney. The one thing about our office is that it's never dull."

"I'm really looking forward to starting," said Gerry, as we skirted the grey exterior of County Hall and headed across the narrow gravel path through the formal gardens. I gave her a quizzical look. "Really," she said, laughing. "Of course, I've got to find somewhere to live, so could do with a bit of advice about location and houses."

"I'm the last one to ask. I began searching for a place when I started eighteen months ago but am still in my rented bachelor flat on the High Street. I just don't seem to have found the time for house hunting."

"So you're not married?"

"No."

"I'll probably do that at the outset," she said. "Rent a flat or a little cottage, I mean. I suppose a place in Fettlesham is the most convenient?"

"Yes, it's pretty central." We walked in silence for a while. "So, you've no family?"

A smile came to the delicately boned face. "No, just me. Footloose and fancy free."

"Really?" I said.

The clock on the County Hall tower struck eight o'clock as I drove down Fettlesham High Street which was just becoming busy with early morning traffic. I was soon on a twisting, empty road, bordered by craggy grey limestone walls and verges fringed by last year's dead, murky-brown bracken and tussocky gra.s.s. Beyond the walls was an austere, still scene, a vast undulating world of dark fields covered in a light, fleecy mist, empty save for the small cl.u.s.ter of barns and square farmhouses, and the occasional twisted hawthorn tree. The shadowy green foreground lay ahead of us, backed in the distance by the sombre, pale blue peaks. Bars of purple cloud stretched across the sky. Gerry didn't speak until the pale sun, s.h.i.+ning through the clouds with an almost luminous warmth, made the whole landscape before us glisten with the splendour of a gemstone.

"It's magnificent," she said quietly.

"It is, isn't it? I can never get used to it."

The small stone primary school we were to visit first was nestled in the very heart of the village of TarnclifTe. It was sandwiched between the post office-c.u.m-general store and the squat, grey Primitive Methodist chapel and looked like a private dwelling at first glance. From the pavement the door opened directly into the one large cla.s.sroom and pa.s.sers-by could peer through the leaded windows to see the pupils at work. We were given a warm welcome by the Headteacher, Miss Drayton, and her a.s.sistant, Mrs. Standish, who both shook our hands vigorously and ushered us into the cla.s.sroom.

Gerry and I started with the junior-aged children who were behind a large part.i.tion, working industriously on various models and construction work. In the corner of the amazingly cluttered and busy cla.s.sroom were two girls of about ten or eleven, their school clothes shrouded by large men's s.h.i.+rts. They explained to us that they had been asked to design and produce a labour-saving device for use in the home. They had come up with the idea for a gadget which would tell the milkman the number of pints required each day. Their first, not very novel idea had been to design a clock face with numbers from one to eight around the rim and a hand which could be adjusted to point to the number of pints needed that particular day.

"But then," explained one of the girls enthusiastically, 'what if you wanted some cream as well as milk?"

"Or orange juice?" added the other.

"Or eggs or yoghurt?"

"And some milkmen sell potatoes as well."

"So the problem has become very complicated," observed Gerry, looking at their plans. "Have you managed to resolve it?"

"One solution would be to have six different faces, each one for a different thing milk, cream, eggs, orange juice, yoghurt and potatoes but Mrs. Standish said our design has to be simple, clear, easy to use and cheap to produce."

"This is a real problem, isn't it?" said Gerry. "Have you found the solution?"

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed one of the girls. "Tessa had a brain wave She plucked a piece of paper from her folder and pushed it in Gerry's direction with a triumphant look on her face. Gerry examined the sketch, smiled, nodded and observed, "Ingenious' before pa.s.sing it to me. The design was for a small square of thin plywood on which was written in bright capital letters: "MILKMAN! SEE NOTE IN bottle; In another corner of the room a large boy was humming quietly and contentedly to himself, his body moving backwards and forwards in time to the tune as he filed away at a long piece of wood.

"And what are you doing?" asked Gerry cheerfully.

He looked up for a moment. "Oh, I'm just raspin', miss," he replied simply, before returning to his work.

I left Gerry with the 'rasper' and moved into the infant section of the cla.s.sroom.

"Would you like me to read to you?" asked a small girl, with wide, cornflower-blue eyes and a ma.s.s of blonde hair which was gathered in two large candy floss bunches.

"Yes," I replied, "I would like that very much."

"I'm a very good reader, you know," she confided in me, while she searched in her bag for her book.

"Are you?"

"I read with expression."

"Do you?"

"And I can do different voices."

"Really? I expect you use dramatic pauses as well," I said mischievously.

She looked up for a moment and then added seriously, "I don't know what they are, but I probably can."

She was indeed a very accomplished little reader and sailed through her book confidently and fluently. "I am good, aren't I?" she announced when she had completed three pages.

"Very good," I said.

"I'm good at writing as well."

"I imagined you would be."

"Would you like to see my writing?"

"I'd love to."

"Poetry or prose?"

"Poetry, please."

"I keep my poems in a portfolio."

"I guessed you would," I said, smiling.

Her writing was neat, imaginative and accurate. "I am good at writing, aren't I?"

"Very good," I agreed.

"I'm good at talking as well."

"I can tell that. I think your mummy's got a little chatterbox at home."

"Oh, no!" exclaimed the child. "My granny has asthma and I'm not allowed to keep pets."

"I see," I said chuckling. I couldn't imagine what sort of animal she thought 'a little chatterbox' was.

"My granny calls me her "bright little b.u.t.ton"."

"That's a lovely name," I told her. "They're very special are grannies and we must really look after them."

"My granny wobbles, you know," the little chatterbox continued.

"Does she?"

"She has a special disease which makes her wobble and forget things."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yes," said the little girl, nodding sagely. "It's called "Old Timers' Disease"."