A Song in the Night (64 page)

She shrugged. “Teaching? No, not really. Why d’you ask?”

“I think you’d be very good at it. You’re certainly very committed. You give a hundred and ten per cent to those kids. I hardly seem to see you these days.”

She glanced at him, not sure if the last comment had been a dig. But his face was calm, without the slightest trace of sarcasm or complaint. His comment had been nothing more than an objective observation, and it stung her. How she wished he’d missed her. How she wished her absence had distressed him. She fell into silence. How she wished she had her own car.

Sports day was coming up. As the nice weather continued, a date was fixed for the last week in June. Helen Walker was determined to drum up some enthusiasm. “We’re going to have a couple of practices up on the field to make sure we’re really good on the day. Our mums and dads will be coming to watch so we want to do our best, don’t we?”

As the children chorused in affirmation, Rosie looked over at Molly. She hoped that last remark hadn’t upset her. She thought back to her own school sports days. There had never been a dad there to watch
her
. Her mother had even missed on a couple of occasions. Rosie had hated every minute of the things. But Molly didn’t appear to have noticed Helen’s words. She was staring out of the window, seemingly in a world of her own.

The first practice fell later that week. The children changed into PE kits and filed out onto the school field, buzzing with excitement at the prospect of missing proper lessons. Molly was quiet. She stuck close to Rosie as they followed on behind the rest of the class. Rosie bent down to talk to her. “You okay?”

Molly shook her head. “I don’t feel well. I don’t want to run.” Her voice sounded small and unhappy. Rosie nodded slowly. The stomach aches had started again, and in the last few days Molly had spoken little. Perhaps, Rosie imagined, it was the thought of having to perform in front of so many strangers. As the practice races commenced, she tried to encourage Molly. “Just do your best, that’s the main thing. It doesn’t matter if you don’t win.”

It was just as well. As Molly’s group stood at the starting line for their race, Rosie couldn’t help noticing how thin the child was. Poking out of her baggy blue shorts like two sticks, her legs looked hardly capable of supporting her body. When the whistle went, each child set off from their position with as much effort as they could muster. Molly did too; but in terms of ground coverage, her effort was pitifully unrewarded. Watching Molly race was like watching someone trying to run through treacle. Her skinny arms wheeled in the air as she tried to keep up with her classmates, but it was hopeless. By the time Molly made the finish line, the candidates for the next race were drumming their feet ready to start. Rosie grimaced. Whoever had invented sports day needed a good slap.

Later, as they walked back into school, Rosie noticed that the little girl was hobbling slightly. “Have you hurt your foot?”

Molly shook her head.

“You’re walking a bit funny, that’s all,” Rosie pressed. “I just wondered if you’d twisted your ankle or something.”

Molly sniffed. “Tummy ache,” she said pathetically before looking away.

Rosie squeezed her shoulder gently. Kids like Molly shouldn’t be put through this kind of ordeal.

That afternoon Mrs Guest arrived to pick the child up from school. She bubbled with excitement when she spotted Rosie. “I’ve just found out I can get sports day off.” Turning towards her daughter, she smiled broadly. “That means I’ll be able to come and watch you, sweetie.”

Rosie hoped she hadn’t been banking on a positive response. Molly hardly flinched at the news. She was kicking an invisible pebble around with the toe of her sandal. Her mother might as well have been invisible too.

The day before sports day the weather broke. The forecast for the following day was heavy rain.

“I think we’re going to have to cancel,” Bev Carradine conceded gloomily. “No point parents taking a day out of work just to sit in the school hall.”

Helen Walker managed to shrug off the disappointment pretty quickly. “Between you and me, Rosie, I hate sports day. Always scared stiff one of them might do themselves an injury.” She thought for a moment. “We’ll have a film afternoon instead.”

After dinner she put the proposition to the class, suggesting that one of them might bring in a favourite DVD for the class to watch. She handed out small scraps of paper. “Right. Put your name and the name of your favourite DVD on your piece of paper. We’ll put them all in a hat and Miss Maconochie can pick one out. If we think it’s suitable the winning child can bring their DVD into school tomorrow. How does that sound?”

The idea went down well. Later, the rain stopped for a brief spell. While the children were outside for afternoon break, Helen and Rosie quickly went through the submissions.

“You can’t be too careful, Rosie,” Helen commented knowingly. “You’d be amazed at what some parents will let their children watch.” After removing a couple of dubious entries from the pile, she hurriedly threw the scraps of paper into an old dressing up hat and handed the whole lot to Rosie. “Here. You can do the honours.”

Five minutes later, when the children had come back into class, Rosie plunged her hand theatrically into the hat. “And the winner is …”

A hush of excitement fell over the whole room.

“Jake Rawlinson with …
Monsters, Inc
.!”

The two women exchanged glances and Rosie saw the faintest twinkle in Helen’s eye.

“Right, Jake – do you hear that?” Helen fixed the boy with a hard stare. “Your class is counting on you. Don’t forget to bring it in or I’ll have to show my favourite Numeracy DVD instead. It’s over three hours long.”

Observing the look of dismay on Jake’s face, Rosie doubted he’d forget.

“Well, no sports day,” Jonathon commented ruefully on their way home. “Some of my Year 6 lot are gutted. It would have been their last one before they leave. I’ll have to find a way of making it up to them.”

Rosie shrugged absently. “Show them a film. We’re watching
Monsters, Inc.
”

“Monsters w
hat?
”

“
Monsters, Inc.
– it’s a kid’s film.”

Jonathon shook his head. “Never heard of it. What’s that about then?”

Rosie rolled her eyes. The film had been out ages. She’d seen it three times at least, but then, that
had
been one of the perks of working at the nursery. “Well, where to start?” She began to run the movie through in her head. “The story’s set in this place called Monstropolis. All the inhabitants are monsters, see. Monsters of every kind. Y’know, hairy, scaly, furry. One-eyed, twenty-eyed – big teeth, false teeth … you get the picture?” She could see that Jonathon was trying his best to imagine it. “Right. Now the whole of Monstropolis is dependent upon one thing for its energy source.” She paused for effect. “Scream power.”

Jonathon raised an eyebrow.

“And the only way they can obtain this power is by harnessing the screams of human children.” Rosie hoped it was making at least a little sense. “That’s where Monsters, Inc. comes in. Monsters Incorporated – that’s the main processing plant. At Monsters, Inc., they’ve figured out a way to get through into the human world. Somehow, they manage to get hold of closet doors from the rooms of kids in the human world and bring them into the Monsters, Inc. factory. Each child is then assigned his or her own monster … tailor-made to scare them most. Are you getting this so far?”

Jonathon nodded tentatively. “I think so.”

“Well, every night, said monster goes through door, magically appears in child’s room, scares kid half to death and comes back out again.” Rosie rattled off the process like a teacher explaining a mathematical equation. “Meanwhile, outside the door, another Monsters, Inc. worker – ’cause these guys work in pairs – he’s collecting the screams and seeing how many canisters of scream power they can produce each shift. There’s a bit of a contest going on at the factory. Which team can break this week’s scare record and all that sorta thing.” She shot him a half-smile. “To be honest, most of the monsters are kinda cute really. The whole scary thing is an act. They’re actually more terrified of human kids than the kids are of them.”

“Is that it?” Jonathon looked less than convinced.

“Well, no – lots of other things happen …” Looking at his expression, she wondered if there was any point in continuing. It wasn’t the easiest film plot to describe and she hardly felt she was doing it justice. “It’s actually very funny and quite clever. And there are some strong positive messages in it. I won’t spoil it for you in case you decide to watch it sometime.”

“Thanks.” Jonathon stifled a smile. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

As it turned out, Rosie didn’t get to watch the film the next day. During the morning sessions there was quite a bit of classroom disruption caused by two of the boys, Josh Bryce and Oliver Packer. As dinnertime approached, Helen Walker was running out of patience. She gave the boys an ultimatum. One more incident and they would both miss the film. The final straw came in the dining hall queue. A provocation, an exchange of sly kicks, and suddenly Josh’s tray upturned, spilling his dinner all over the dining hall floor. Helen was furious when she heard the news.

“I warned them, Rosie. They’ve been building up to this all day. And they’re two of our oldest boys too. They ought to be growing out of this.” She sighed resignedly. “I’m going to have to follow this through. I can’t afford to go soft on them – I taught Olly’s brother two years ago. Little
monster …
”

Rosie gave a wry smile. “Perhaps it’s not the best film for them to watch then. Don’t want Olly picking up any monstrous ideas, do we?”

It was decided that Rosie would supervise the two boys during their punishment. They sat at a table on a corridor near Bev Carradine’s office. Rosie handed them both worksheets then settled down to mark some spelling tests. It wasn’t long before she noticed Josh rubbing his eyes.

“I really wanted to watch that film,” he said miserably, not even trying to hide his tears.

“So did I, Josh,” Rosie replied gently. “I was looking forward to it. But you see what happens when we keep doing what we know is wrong. It doesn’t just hurt us, it hurts other people as well.
I
haven’t done anything wrong, have I? But I have to sit out here too.”

It was a simple lesson in consequences, and just as much for Oliver’s benefit as Josh’s.
Probably more so,
thought Rosie grimly. In her opinion, it was Oliver who was the real problem. Josh was just a daft kid who was easily led. After a moment’s reflection, Josh looked suitably remorseful.

“Sorry, miss.” He wiped his eyes and looked down at his worksheet once more. But Oliver sat impenitent, scowling as he stared down the corridor. Rosie didn’t care to imagine what he’d be like with a few more years on his back. She swallowed a sigh. It looked like it was going to be a long afternoon.

She was relieved when the ordeal at last came to an end. Two girls from the class arrived to announce that the film was finished, the rain had stopped for the moment, and everyone was going outside for a late break. “And Mrs Walker would like a word as soon as possible, Miss Maconochie …” added Jess.

Picking up the worksheets, Rosie made her way back to the classroom. On entering, she was surprised to see Helen with an arm around Molly’s shoulders. Helen turned and gave her a worried look. “I’ve sent our lot outside,” she said in a low voice. “The rest of school is already out there. Bev says they can stay out half an hour if the rain holds off.” She rolled her eyes in Molly’s direction. “I think something must have upset her. But I can’t get a word out of her. She’s so quiet, I didn’t realise she was crying till all the other kids started to go outside.”

Rosie moved to Molly’s side. She couldn’t see the child’s expression. Her head was bent forward so that her straggly hair fell over most of her face. Rosie exchanged glances with Helen. “D’you want me to see if I can get through to her? It’s not like it’s the first time we’ve been here, is it?” She smiled half-heartedly.

Helen nodded and stood to her feet. “You go for it, Rosie.”

“So. What’s up, Molly?” Rosie asked when they were alone. “Was it the film? Did it frighten you?”

Silence.

Rosie breathed out slowly. “Those monsters aren’t real, y’know.” She wished she could say that they were just men dressed up in silly costumes. Somehow, computer generated imagery was a difficult concept to explain to an eight-year-old.

Molly rubbed at her eyes. Still she said nothing.

Oh well,
thought Rosie,
when all else fails.
“How’s about we draw, Molly?” Even though there was no response, Rosie went over to the cupboard and pulled out some paper. She took a pencil and began to doodle, racking her mind for inspiration.

“I know,” she announced after a few moments, “I’ll draw some things that frighten
me
, shall I? Don’t look till I’ve finished.” She quickly sketched a stripy snake with over-large eyes and bared tongue. Then she drew a huge spider with eight furry legs. She pretended not to notice Molly peeping through her fingers. She finished with a picture of a little mouse scurrying up a chair leg. In all honesty, none of them were particular phobias of hers, but in the interests of helping Molly she reasoned it didn’t matter too much. She slid the paper along the table. “There. What do you think of that, eh? Bet you’re not scared of things like that.”

Molly stared down at the images for some time. Nothing in her vacant expression gave anything away. It soon became clear that she wasn’t ready for talking yet. Rosie passed her a piece of paper. “Okay. Now what frightens Molly? I’ll go over there and tidy the bookshelf while you draw something for me. You can use the colours if you like.” She moved across the room, leaving Molly alone with the blank sheet.

For a few minutes Rosie sensed little movement coming from the table area. At one point she stole a surreptitious glance in the child’s direction. But Molly was just sitting there, in exactly the same position that Rosie had left her. Rosie pretended to continue her tidying. In truth there was little to tidy. She was about to go back to the table when she suddenly caught movement from the corner of her eye. Molly had picked up a coloured pencil and was moving it slowly and deliberately across the page. Inwardly Rosie breathed a sigh of relief. She moved quietly over to the window and looked out at the other children in the playground. She couldn’t help feeling frustrated that she’d not been in class for the film showing.
She
would have noticed Molly’s distress. Got her out of the room before the thing got her so wound up …