Visions (16 page)

26

My opportunity to speak to Darren arose the very next day. As I was welcoming my form in the morning, he was stood standing opposite, watching. My annoyance at his on-going intimidation combined with having Morgan close by, also welcoming her form in, made me feel brave.  “You’ll be late to form, Darren,” I stated, coldly. He looked up at the ceiling as if he was wondering where my voice had come from.

              “Come on, Darren, you heard Miss Gordon,” Morgan contributed.

              “What’s that, Miss?”

              “Get on your way to form or you’ll be given a late mark.”

              “I don’t really care about getting late marks, Miss. I’ll be in detention for one thing or another, anyway.”

              I took my chance. “In that case, Darren, you won’t mind having a quick chat with me before you go.” He made eye contact with me and for the first time, I saw him look undecided on how to respond. He stayed where he was as the last of my form went into the classroom and sat down.

              “I’m just in here if you need me, Miss,” Morgan reassured me. As soon as she was gone, Darren refused to make eye contact with me, instead staring down at his non-school uniform trainers, but he didn’t move.

              “Darren, I think we need a chat.”

              “I don’t. What do you want to talk to me for, Miss? You don’t teach me any more so I can’t see that we have anything to say to each other.”

              “That should be the case, but you seem to have a problem with being civil

whenever you see me, when, if we are being completely honest, there’s not much need for you to see me at all, is there?”

              “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Miss. I don’t know what civil means because my English teacher this year wasn’t very good, you see. I’ll ask my new one when I see her.” He started to stalk away round the corner. “She’s much better than the last one.” His voice was becoming quieter, but was still audible. “She was shit.”

              Before I walked back into my form room, I took a few deep breaths, clenching and unclenching my fists to try and rid myself of the urge to shout something abusive after him.

              At break, Morgan came to see how it had gone. She was surprised when I told her. “I just assumed that it was going well because I couldn’t hear any shouting and when I looked, you were talking to each other. What a moron he’s being!”

              Hazel came to join us and Morgan filled her in.

              “Well, I don’t think there’s any option now other than to tell Corinne and ask for more help with him,” Hazel said, as I looked down into my cup of tea. “It’s no reflection on you, Gillian. His behaviour is just plain weird and I’d be intimidated by it, too.”

              “Me too,” Morgan added. I agreed that this seemed like the only plan of action and resolved to speak to Corinne before I left.

              Corinne was in her office at dinnertime. Reading upside down, I saw she was filling in some forms for a school trip to see Macbeth at the local theatre. “Hi, Gill. Please tell me you haven’t come to ask if I can get you on the trip, too! I’ve filled the staff spaces already, but I’ll keep you in mind for the next one.”

              “No, it isn’t about that. I don’t suppose you have a spare minute, do you?” I was surprised to hear that my voice was shaking as I spoke, but at least it had the effect of getting Corinne’s full attention.

              She put her pen down, turned to face me and gestured for me to take a seat. “Sorry, of course I have time. What is it?”

              “It’s about Darren Pierce.” Corinne opened her mouth to interrupt. “I know you’ve already done so much to try and help me with this issue, but I’m at the end of my tether with it.”

              “Let me get my diary so I can take notes. We need to ensure we have a record of exactly what he’s doing in case it does come to permanent exclusion. One second, Gill.” I wiped a few stray tears away while she rooted in her drawers. “Right, what’s the problem with Pierce?”

              “He just won’t leave me alone!” I blurted out, realising instantly that I was going to have to be less emotionally involved if I was to be taken seriously. “It starts in the mornings; he’s always outside my form room and will completely ignore me if I ask him to move on.” Corinne took down notes on everything I said, asking me to repeat particular comments that I remembered word for word. When I’d finished, she read through her list, shaking her head.

              “I can’t believe you haven’t come to me with this before. This is very strange behaviour,” she said, echoing Hazel’s earlier words. Gillian, really we just don’t cope with these things on our own in this department. We are a team that provides support for each other. Right, you go and make yourself a brew. You’re teaching that lovely year eleven class this afternoon, aren’t you? I promise to get back to you before that lesson ends. This is going to get sorted.”

              Corinne was true to her word. Just as I was taking in their exercise books with

a helping hand from George, one of the year eleven prefects knocked and came in.

“Mrs Mooney asked me to bring this to you,” she said, handing me a folded note.

              “Thanks.” It was very simple but caused my stomach to flip
.
‘Come to Mr Briggs’ office at the end of period 5.
’
Instinctively, I knew that Darren would be there. The truth was that I would be happy never to see the boy again. In fact, if he was hit by a lorry this very evening, I would have to pretend to mourn. Quickly, I gave myself a mental shake and got rid of that thought. I’d never thought anything as cold as that before. “Right, my lovelies! It’s that time again. Stand behind your chairs ready for the…” The bell went before I could finish but out of respect, the class stood and waited for the noise to end so I could finish what I was saying. “Go on. Off you go. Thanks for a great lesson.”

              Walking to Mr Briggs’ office, I must have looked like I was on death row. My instincts were spot on again. Mr Briggs sat behind his desk looking like a judge about to pass sentence, Corinne was sitting next to him looking equally serious. The person supposed to be on trial, Darren, sat in the corner reading all the notices on the walls. For some reason, I felt that I was the person about to be torn down and then it dawned on me; I was scared of him. That was why I hated him so much. I had dealt with naughty, malicious pupils before on my training and in classes at Logford, but he seemed out of control. I wasn’t sure what lengths he would go to.

              “Take a seat, Miss Gordon,” Mr Briggs said. “I’ve been told that you have not had the most pleasant of mornings thanks to Darren here.”

              “It’s fair to say I’ve been having a few issues with Darren,” I replied, trying to keep the wobble out of my voice.

              “What have you got to say for yourself?” asked Mr Briggs, turning to Darren.

              “I don’t know what I’ve done, Sir. Honest. She tried to speak to me about something this morning, but I didn’t have a clue then, either.” Darren’s face was the very definition of innocence. If it hadn’t been me that was accusing him, I would have believed him, myself!

              “Well, Darren, that’s not what I’ve been told and you know, growing up is all about taking responsibility for your actions,” Mr Briggs said, peering over his glasses.

              “I would, Sir, if I knew what I’d done, Sir.”

              “Well, let’s start at the beginning. Let’s start with loitering outside Miss Gordon’s form room when you should be on your own way to registration. Being rude and uncooperative when Miss Gordon is doing her duty…” The list went on.

              Darren did his best to look completely incredulous, avoiding making any eye contact with me at all. When Mr Briggs got to mentioning Darren’s hanging around after school, Darren started to lose control of his calm demeanour. “You do understand I assume that this kind of behaviour is generally viewed as a form of stalking by the wider public?”

              Darren jumped to his feet, fists clenched. “Stalking? Seriously, stalking? Are you kidding me?” Then he turned on me. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

              Much to my relief, Mr Briggs got up and came to stand in between us. “Calm down, Darren,” he said sternly.

              “No, she thinks she’s some sort of celebrity having her own stalker. It’s fucking ridiculous!” His face had turned beetroot red.

              “Miss Gordon, if you want to get going, we won’t waste any more of your time with this nonsense,” Mr Briggs said to me.

              As I left the office, relieved to be out of the situation, I heard Mr Briggs demanding that Darren sat down or it would be the last time he ever set foot in Logford. I couldn’t stop myself from hoping that he refused to sit down and got excluded.

27

“In this case, Gilly, I am inclined to agree with you,” my mother assured me on the phone later. After Mrs Pierce had been told that she needed to come in to collect her son and discuss what action would be taken to resolve his behavioural issues, Corinne had phoned me to explain the compromise reached. It was fair to say that I didn’t find it at all satisfactory. “Exclusion would have been what I expected and I mean permanent, not this new namby-pamby way of giving them a few days off school.” I could hear the annoyance in her voice. “What did you say to Corinne when she told you?”

              “Honestly, I didn’t really know what to say. I just wanted her off the phone as quickly as possible so I could have a cry without embarrassing myself.”

              “It might have done her some good to know how upset you were. I’ve lost quite a lot of respect for that woman today,” she seethed. After ten minutes or so, my mother’s rant began to run out of steam. “I don’t suppose my temper is doing either of us any good. Let’s try to focus on the positive side,” she suggested, taking an audibly deep breath. “The toerag is going to be out of your hair until next week and then what’s to happen?”

              “How do you mean?”

              “I assume that appropriate sanctions have been put into place to prevent him from simply continuing to behave like that?” She waited for me to reply, but I had no answer. “For example, if he insists on ignoring requests from you on the corridor, he will lose his dinner hour and instead of being with his mates, have to eat in a designated room.”

              “Corinne didn’t say, so I guess they’re expecting it to stop.”

              “Well, let’s hope so. Otherwise, they’re going to have to pull their fingers out really quickly. He’s going to start to think he can get away with murder.” Her words turned my stomach as a thought echoed in my mind but vanished before I could acknowledge it, so I made my excuses and went to put the kettle on.

              Naively, I expected the rest of the week to be easier due to Darren’s absence but instead he managed to prove that, even without physically being there, he could continue to torment me. I found out quickly after being told by a few trusted pupils that, thanks to communication on Facebook, all Darren’s friends had been given his version of events, which frankly made me look ridiculous. I was subjected to gossip behind cupped hands in the corridor and badly disguised insults within the classroom.

              Phil greeted me with, “can I have your autograph, Miss? I didn’t realise you were so well known!”

              Scott couldn’t help but contribute to the onslaught. “When the bell goes, Phil, I’ll set off to the canteen five minutes after you, all right? I wouldn’t want you to think I was stalking you!” I did my best to ignore all the comments and was doing a good job of deflecting the attention back onto the learning, until Ryan Crossley let out an almighty guffaw, causing the whole class to stop what they were doing, turn and stare. Up until now, the only time I’d needed to discipline Ryan was when he’d pulled out his Ipod in class. Automatically, I looked down into his lap. He had his phone out and I saw the familiar, thick, blue strip at the top, which clearly identified the current website as Facebook. Scrabbling, he put it away before I could confiscate it.

              “Ryan, you known the school rules about mobile phones.”

              “Yes, Miss. I do. It’ll stay in my pocket. I promise.” Although he was true to his word, further trouble ensued when a crowd gathered around him when the bell went, demanding to know what had been the source of his amusement.

              “I’ll show you in the canteen,” Ryan insisted, pushing towards the door. “Let me through. It’s only Daz’s status for fuck’s sake.”

              I’m still not sure what made me more annoyed, the swearing or the fact that it was about Darren Pierce again, but I found myself blocking Ryan from leaving the classroom.

              Sorry, Miss,” he cried. “You know I never swear normally.” Frustrated, I just pointed at a chair. He flung himself into it with a huff while the others scattered, all pulling their phones out to log into Facebook and see what the fuss was about. Part of me wanted to demand that he show me the offending status, but I knew this would not only be unprofessional, it would also be the only thing occupying my thoughts all day. When all the pupils had dispersed, I addressed Ryan about his language. He took the telling off with good grace and was out of the door within minutes. As he left, Ally strolled back in. She smiled weakly before pulling her phone out of her pocket and showing it to me. It was Darren’s status. “Darren Pierce is officially changing his name to Joshua Corbett in honour of Miss Gordon (AKA Sandra Bullock).”

              I looked up at Ally.

              “I just thought you’d want to know, Miss. I would if it was me. Darren can be a proper twat.”

              I ignored her use of bad language. Firstly, because I was starting to realise that it was just the way most of the Logford pupils spoke and secondly, because I realised I needed a favour.

              “Ally, I don’t suppose I could borrow…” She was already holding her phone out to me. “Thanks.”

              “Just don’t let anyone know that I did this though, ok?”

              “I won’t. Promise. I’ll bring it to you before the end of the day. Thanks for this, Ally.”

              As she left the room, carefully checking each direction in the corridor, I wondered why she had decided to come back. Rather than dwelling on it, I headed straight for Corinne’s room.

              “This is getting ridiculous with this child!” she seethed after I’d told her. “How do you know what his status says?”

              “I promised the child who showed me that I wouldn’t pass on her name and I’d like to honour that if I can.”

              Corinne nodded. “Right, I think we will need to make a phone call home firstly.” She began tapping on the keyboard until she brought up Darren Pierce’s details. I noticed straight away that his father wasn’t listed as a contact and there was a note next to Ms Pierce’s name saying that she can be hostile. As Corinne dialled the number, my hands were shaking and my heart was racing. “Darren? Can I speak with your mother, please? Thank you. You can tell her it’s Mrs Mooney…Hello, Ms Pierce? Yes, I’m calling from Langdon. We have a problem with Darren contacting his friends via Facebook during the school hours. Also, he has some text that his friends are able to access which includes an inappropriate reference to one of our staff. I need for you to…”

              Corinne was cut off by a tirade from Ms Pierce, the general gist of which was that it was our responsibility to deal with Darren during school hours and since we were shirking from it, we could deal with the consequences. Her next words, though

slightly slurred were clear enough. “My boy has the right to say what he wants about anything. It’s freedom of speech.” I watched as Corinne took a deep breath, probably intended to kerb her fury. It was ineffective.

              “Ms Pierce, with the utmost respect, he is your child and you have a duty as a parent to control your son and teach him morals. And freedom of speech is when you say something; what we are dealing with is actual text that has been put in the public domain. In other words, slander. This is something that we at Logford and the police take extremely seriously. You only have to Google ‘internet abuse and bullying’ to know just how serious this problem is. Should the text not be removed within the next hour, I will be speaking to Mr Briggs about permanently excluding Darren. In that case, the onus will be on
you
to sort out an alternative education, which with Darren’s behavioural record may be difficult
.
Thank you for your time.”

              Ms Pierce’s response was unintelligible, but Corinne put the phone down, anyway. “Hopefully the thought of having to put any effort into her son will be enough to get her to sort this one out.”

              “How will we know if the status is removed within the hour?”

              “You aren’t the only one with a few trustworthy spies, Gillian.”

              As I was packing my things up to leave for the evening, Corinne came to inform me that she had been shown proof that the status had been removed. I’d sneakily returned Ally’s mobile, sealed in an envelope while she was in her science lesson earlier. I went home holding on to the hope that Ms Pierce might have enough influence over her wayward son to put a stop to this once and for all.