The Mummyfesto (5 page)

Drama teachers had it made. To be honest, I sometimes wondered why anyone would want to teach any other
subject. You got to take kids out of the classroom environment, free them from the confines of textbooks and whiteboards. It was like that moment when Angela Rippon kicked up her legs and emerged from behind the newsdesk on
Morecambe and Wise
. You got to see what the kids were really capable of. The surprising talents which no one else knew existed. And for much of the time you got to do it without anyone else bothering you. The Head was far too busy bearing down on the English and maths departments to interfere in what I was up to. As long as the kids put on impressive shows at Christmas and summer, I was left pretty much to my own devices. No doubt at some point Michael Gove would decide that drama teachers were surplus to requirements or would introduce minimum standards in improvisation and mime. But until that point I was simply going to keep my head down and get on with it.

Sheila, on the other hand, appeared to have the words ‘sacrificial lamb’ tattooed on her forehead. It was hard to imagine a more stressed-looking person than the one who sat opposite me in the staffroom, sipping her coffee as if she were scared a sea monster might leap out of the mug and gobble her up at any moment.

‘What’s Frodo said now?’ I asked. The Head’s name was actually Nathan Freeman. But ever since Sheila and I had both watched a BBC2 natural history programme where the dominant bonobo chimpanzee, named Frodo, had bullied the other members of the troupe into submission, he had been referred to by his ape name.

‘He hasn’t said anything. That’s the problem. He came into my classroom this morning, unannounced, stood at the back and watched for ten minutes and then left.’

‘Jeez, that’s scarier than the shower scene in
Psycho
.’

‘What am I going to do?’

‘Make sure you check behind the door before taking a shower?’

‘I’m serious, Jack.’ Sheila spoke in hushed tones although the other members of staff within earshot were all fellow victims.

‘I’ve told you. You need to get out of this place before he turns you into a jibbering wreck.’

‘But it’s wrong, isn’t it? The person being bullied shouldn’t be the one who has to go.’

‘Of course not. But who said life was fair?’

‘Besides, I’d miss the kids too much. I owe it to them to stand my ground. If I go, he’ll hire some joyless smart arse who drills them in grammar until they never want to pick up their pens and write again.’

‘So defy him. Teach the way you want to teach. Dare him to take you on.’

‘And what if he does?’ Sheila asked, pushing her glasses back up her nose.

‘Who do you think the kids would back if he took any action against you? They’d have a sit-in at least. Probably start up some kind of campaign. They’re the children of
Guardian
-reading radicals and revolutionaries, remember. They’re hardly going to stand by while you’re thrown to the slaughter.’

‘Yes, you’re right. Of course you’re right.’ Sheila’s voice had acquired a steely quality not heard for some time. She put her mug down and stood up, straightening her back and jutting out her chin as she did so. ‘Thank you.’

‘That’s OK. Although obviously if it goes horribly wrong, I’ll put my official NUT rep hat on and deny all knowledge of this conversation.’

She smiled and walked out of the staffroom, head held high. I finished my coffee, imagining myself sitting in the Head’s office writing ‘I must not encourage staff mutiny’ two hundred times.

‘Parents’ meeting in the hall in five minutes,’ I shouted across the playground. ‘Come and help us save our lollipop lady. The kids can be looked after in class two. There are no excuses.’

A steady stream of parents started making their way through to the hall. Sam turned and grinned at me, in serious danger of tripping over her long skirt in her excitement.

‘Wow, this is great,’ she said, ‘you’re making them all come.’

‘I guess it’s my persuasive charm.’

‘No. It’s because you’re bloody scary. All you need now is a loudhailer.’

I laughed. Though the truth was I did secretly hanker after one. It wasn’t that I couldn’t project my voice – when you spent your days trying to make yourself heard above thirty teenagers, that clearly wasn’t an issue. It was simply
that loudhailers appeared to be de rigueur in those archived news reels of industrial unrest in the seventies and eighties. If they’d had a rabble-rousing badge in the Girl Guides, that would have been the picture on it.

‘Get me one for my birthday,’ I said, winking at her. I stood square in the middle of the gates. Anyone who wanted to escape would have to get past me first. I guessed it was a kind of reverse picket line.

‘I’d better go and check on the boys before we start,’ said Sam. ‘Make sure Oscar’s behaving himself.’

‘Can you make sure the DVD they’re showing’s not a scary one. Alice is still recovering from
One Hundred and One Dalmations
. I suspect I am Cruella de Vil in her nightmares.’

Sam smiled. ‘Will do.’

I walked through into the packed hall. Anna was already working the room, her dark hair sleek and stylish as ever. Her face animated as she talked to people, engaged them, put them at ease then passed them the pen and pointed to where to sign. It appeared effortless. At least on the surface.

She looked up as I walked over. ‘What a fantastic turnout,’ she said. ‘People obviously feel really strongly about this.’

I nodded, not wanting to admit that actually they hadn’t had any choice in the matter. I got the impression Anna might not agree with my ‘resistance is futile’ tactics.

‘How many signatures have we got?’ I asked.

‘Over a thousand so far. The ones we put in the shops
and the library have done really well. We got a hundred signatures in the Co-op alone.’

‘Brilliant. Well done.’ Anna was also a bit of a whizz at sweet-talking business types. I guess I was John Prescott to her Tony Blair.

Sam squeezed through the doorway and struggled to the front. ‘The kids are all fine,’ she said. ‘They’re watching the
Jungle Book
and Zach’s under instructions to keep an eye on Alice when Kaa comes on. Right. Are we ready to start?’ Anna and I nodded. I looked at the assembled group of parents before us: mostly mums, the usual mixture of middle-class professional types and the more alternative brigade, and a spattering of those very handy right-on dads which Hebden Bridge possessed. All of them ready for battle. I had a sense that we actually stood a chance.

‘Thank you so much for coming everyone,’ said Sam. ‘For anyone who doesn’t know me I’m Sam Farnell, one of the parent governors and mum to Zach and Oscar. Jackie here, who’s Alice’s mum, is chair of the PTFA and Anna, Esme’s mum, is secretary of the PTFA.’

We stood there tall (well, obviously not in Anna’s case) and proud, brandishing piles of petition forms. The three musketeers had nothing on us.

‘As you all know, we’ve started a petition against the council’s plan to get rid of Shirley, our school lollipop lady. The good news is, we’ve got over a thousand signatures so far. The reason we’ve got you all here today is to discuss what our next step in this campaign should be. We only have two weeks to go until the council’s budget
meeting so we need to do something to make them sit up and take notice.’

Sam looked around, waiting for suggestions.

‘We could write to our local councillors,’ one of the reception mums suggested. ‘Maybe even to our MP.’

‘Great idea, so great we’ve already done it.’ Sam smiled. ‘The governors have written a letter and the PTFA has too. But if any of you could send individual letters that would be great. The more they get, the harder it will be for them to ignore us. I’ve got addresses and a draft letter if anyone wants them.’

The room went quiet again. I’d been planning to let other people go first, but if no one else was going to say anything I didn’t see any reason to hold back.

‘How about a stop-the-traffic protest outside school?’ I suggested. ‘The point being that if Shirley is made redundant, there will be no one to stop the traffic for our children.’

‘But we can’t actually stand in the road, can we?’ one of the dads said. ‘It’s illegal, isn’t it? Obstructing the highway.’

‘He’s got a point,’ said Anna. ‘It wouldn’t exactly help the cause if we got ourselves arrested.’

‘We won’t technically be obstructing anything,’ I said. ‘The protest will be on the other side of the road from school and we’ll just take an exceptionally long time getting all the children across the road one by one. With Shirley’s help, of course. It doesn’t take much to cause traffic chaos in Hebden Bridge. I think it’ll do the job for us.’

There were positive murmurings from around the hall. Anna still looked a bit uncomfortable about the idea.

‘We’ll invite the local media,’ I continued. ‘Have big SAVE OUR SHIRLEY placards. Get the kids to join in too. We need to do something that’ll get on the local news. It’s the only way to get them to take notice.’

A lot of heads nodded, including Sam’s. I looked at Anna.

‘Perhaps we should take a vote on it,’ she said. That was the only trouble with Liberal Democrats: they were always so bloody democratic.

‘OK,’ said Sam. ‘All those in favour …’

A mass of hands went up.

‘Against …’

Nothing.

‘I think we’ll take that as a yes then,’ she said. ‘Thank you all for coming and we’ll let you know the date of the protest next week.’

Sam turned to smile at Anna and me as the other parents began to file out of the hall.

‘Great. I guess we need to get a placard production line going then.’ She grinned.

‘Can Rob give us a hand?’ I asked. ‘I think these placards should be objects of beauty. This is Hebden Bridge, after all. People will be expecting something artyfarty.’

Sam laughed. ‘I’m sure he can be roped in. The kids can make their own though. It’ll make it more personal.’

‘Do you think we need to notify anyone?’ asked Anna.
‘The police or the council. I wouldn’t want Shirley getting into trouble.’

‘I don’t see why,’ I said. ‘We’re really not doing anything wrong and the last thing we want to do is get this stopped before it happens.’

Anna still looked concerned.

‘Shirley won’t get into trouble. She’ll simply be doing her job. And all we’ll be doing is helping our children safely across the road. No one can possibly complain about that.’

Anna nodded, her jaw appeared to soften a little too. Or maybe I was just imagining it. We stacked the remaining chairs and made our way down to class two. As we entered Oscar was twirling around in his powerchair singing ‘I wanna be like you hoo-hoo,’ at the top of his voice.

‘Sorry,’ said Sam to Mrs Cooper who had been trying to hold the fort. ‘Has he been like this all the way through?’

‘Yes, but we’ve all enjoyed the performance.’ She smiled.

‘Are we going to save Shirley’s job, Mummy?’ asked Zach, running up to Sam.

‘Do you know what, love?’ she said. ‘I think with all your help, we just might.’

‘Look, Esme. The first snowdrops are almost out.’

Esme stopped leaping along the stepping stones between the roses in our front garden for a nano-second to glance down to where I was pointing.

‘Oh yeah,’ she said, with the casual indifference of one who has better things to do. I smiled to myself. It was one of the things you didn’t get told in parenting manuals. That one of your children may be so different to you that you sometimes wonder if she is really yours at all. Not just different to me, mind. Different to her entire family. I used to spend hours in the garden with Charlotte when she was this age. She wanted to know what every flower was called. The names of the roses, the variety of tulips. She would help with pruning and planting bulbs. Sit for hours on the front step writing notes and drawing leaf shapes in her exercise book. Even Will, although he’d been
less studious in his interest, still used to join me out here and help with the weeding and planting. Although maybe the novelty factor had played a part there. We hadn’t had a front garden in Islington. Or a back one come to that.

Esme attempted to leap over two stepping stones. She landed in between them. Right on top of the snowdrops I’d just pointed out to her.

‘Oops,’ she said, looking up at me and pulling a face. ‘Will they boing back up again?’

‘Probably not, love,’ I said, surveying the flattened stems and trying to keep my voice calm and measured. ‘Tell you what. Why don’t we go and play indoors for a bit?’

‘OK,’ said Esme, turning on her heel and bounding up to the front door which I’d left ajar. ‘Are there any muffins left?’

They were savoury ones. I’d got the recipe from the woman who made them at Organic House. It was an ingenious way to get children to eat asparagus and broccoli without them realising it. And they had pesto in them. Esme would quite happily eat anything that involved pesto.

‘Yes, but wash your hands first please,’ I called after her. There was a seven-year-old girl equivalent of a screech of brakes and a handbrake turn as I heard her crash through into the downstairs bathroom.