The Angel of Nitshill Road (6 page)

Above Penny's head, the staff-room window opened, and she heard Mrs Brown ask Mr Fairway anxiously:

‘Is he
hurt
?'

Like everyone in the playground, Mr Fairway watched Mark swivel his head
round as if he were looking for radio signals.

‘No,' Penny heard him say. ‘I think he's actually making a bit of a joke of it.'

Mrs Brown sounded astonished.

‘Mark? Making a joke of something Barry Hunter did to him? Now there's a change!'

Just at that moment, Marigold ran up to offer Mark a guiding hand.

‘Am I
dreaming
?' said Mrs Brown. ‘Is that
Marigold
who just ran up and joined in the game?'

‘She was telling them all a story about an angel yesterday,' said Miss Featherstone.

‘I don't believe it!' Mrs Brown said. Then, glancing down, she noticed Penny just beneath the window. Quickly, Penny ran off, pretending she was going to help Marigold steer Mark away from all the people standing round clapping his brilliant robot act. The last thing she overheard was Mrs Brown saying:

‘Really, that child Penny's clothes are practically falling off her! It's time she tightened her buttons.'

For the twentieth time that day, Penny hitched her skirt up and grinned. She wasn't going to tighten her buttons. Not yet! Having your clothes flapping was much nicer than having them bulging.

Now Marigold had lifted the battered old box off Mark's head. The joke was over, so Penny joined the gang of people crowding round Celeste.

‘Can I be first and sign in the silver?'

‘Let me be yellow!'

‘Bags be green!'

But Celeste hadn't even opened the black book.

‘There's nothing to write,' she told them. ‘Everyone had a good time. If someone's unhappy, then it goes in the book. If
everyone's happy, then it doesn't.'

They all thought about it for a moment. It seemed fair enough, as rules went. Much fairer, anyway, than letting Barry Hunter get away with making people miserable and then saying: ‘Only a joke. Only a game.'

Yes. It was a good way to judge.

Content, they watched Celeste tuck the black book safely away under her arm. Content, they followed her into the school.

‘The bell hasn't rung yet,' said Mrs Brown. ‘Why is everyone in your class except Barry Hunter inside?'

Mr Fairway sighed and put his mug down on the draining board.

‘Blame Celeste,' he said. ‘Since she came, none of them have been the same.'

Mrs Brown glanced at him thoughtfully.

‘Perhaps that's no bad thing,' she said. ‘When you remember how some of them were before.'

He thought about that all down the corridor. It was so much on his mind that when the school secretary popped her head round the office door and said, ‘Guess who's leaving?' he answered right first time.

‘Celeste!'

So
that
was why the whole lot had trooped in before the bell. To bring him the sad news. And he
was
sad. She was a strange little creature, but he would miss her.

He pushed the classroom door open.

There they all stood in a half circle around her. Celeste had even more of a glow than usual on her face. In fact, she looked radiant.

‘Well!' he said, sitting heavily at his desk. ‘This is a sad day!'

She gave him one of her celestial smiles.

‘I have something for you,' she told him, and nodded to Marigold, who stepped up and gave him a black book patterned with gold. At first, from the solemn way she handed it over, he thought that it must be a Bible. But then he realised it was the book he'd seen them poring over so often in the playground. And in the cloakrooms. And in class.

‘Thank you,' he said, and opened it to take a look inside.

It was a shock. A horrid, horrid book. An ugly catalogue of pain and humiliation and fear and spite. He felt sick reading it. He turned over two or three more pages, feeling all their eyes on him, then raised his own to Celeste.

‘Is this really what you're leaving me?' he asked. ‘A book of tale-telling.'

Celeste said steadily:

‘Granny says the rule not to tell tales was invented by bullies –' Her sky-blue eyes met his across the desk. ‘And the people who don't really want to stand up to them.' He couldn't meet her gaze any longer.

He looked down. Another horrid passage caught his eye. He read it to the end. Oh, poor, poor Marigold! No wonder she went round pretending to be deaf, if that's what she heard all day! And Mark! The number
of times he must have been tricked into getting into trouble. And Penny! ‘Moving mountain' indeed! And all the other things that happened to the rest. How horrible to be kept from using the lavatory, or fetching your coat! How nasty to have your things snatched and hidden all day long! Your games ruined, your family called rude names, your jacket torn and muddied.

‘Why didn't anyone tell me all this was going on?'

Those sky-blue eyes again. She didn't
answer. She knew as well as he did, as well as they all did, that he'd known everything he needed all along. But just like Marigold he had pretended not to see, not to hear, not to understand.

He slammed the book shut so hard it made them jump.

‘Right!' he said. ‘I've read enough!'

This time he managed to meet her eye. He really meant what he said.

‘Things will be very different around here from now on.'

‘You promise to keep the book?'

‘Here in my desk,' he promised her. ‘As long as I'm teaching in this school.'

‘Just to remind you . . .'

‘To remind me.'

Again, their eyes met. She was satisfied. Smiling, she stuck out her hand.

‘Well, then. Goodbye,' she said, as if she were leaving a party. ‘Thank you very
much for having me. I hope I haven't been too much trouble.'

Mr Fairway came round the desk. Blinking his tears away, he gave her a giant hug.

‘Trouble?' he said. ‘Nonsense! Listen, Celeste. Wherever you go, I want you to tell them that we thought you were a real
angel
. And in the few weeks we were lucky enough to have you at Nitshill Road
School, you have worked
wonders
.'

She hugged him back. Then she hugged everyone else. On her way to the door, she dropped the gold pen on to Barry Hunter's desk, and whispered, so that only he could hear, ‘This is for you. To help you make some friends and start fresh over.'

She stood there, waiting, till he smiled at her.

Then she was off.

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