“Oh darling, what happened?”
Sophie answers because I’m crying too much. “He hurt his arm when we were playing on the hill. It might be broken.”
She nods. “Okay, we’re going to get you to the doctor. Sophie, where’s your mummy?”
“I called her too, Your Grace,” Eddie replies. “She’s coming. She can wait with me while you get Hendricks fixed up.”
“Thank you, Eddie.”
Miles stands and takes my good hand to help me. When I turn around, Sophie’s crying too, and I feel so bad because it was an accident, but I know she thinks it’s her fault.
“Mummy, Sophie helped me all the way down. She didn’t let me fall. And she told me stories, and we gotdown safely because of her.”
Sophie’s lips rise in a small smile, and I feel a little better. I hate seeing her cry even though I’ve seen her cry loads.
“More stories, eh? Why doesn’t that surprise me?” adds Eddie. “As you’re quite the storyteller, you can tell me some while we wait for your mum to arrive.”
When we get to the doctor’s, he tells me my arm is broken, and I have to go to the hospital so they can fix it in surgery. Miles and Mummy were both given an extra bed next to mine because I have to stay overnight. In the morning, I’m allowed to have jelly and ice cream for breakfast, which Miles has too.
When I get my cast put on, Sophie is allowed to come over and visit, and she’s the first one to sign it after Miles.
Sophie The Storyteller to the Rescue.
CHAPTER 8
Story
Atin of biscuits is shoved under my nose. “Chocolate Digestive?”
Looking up, I find a colleague I’ve met precisely zero times before, though I think he teaches a class two years above me. I shake my head, offering a polite smile, and go back to peering around the room.
This is only the second staff meeting I’ve been in since I arrived at Valentine Prep, and the first where everyone’s in attendance, including the six teachers in the sports department, all in one corner dressed head to toe in PE kit, acting like they own the place.
It’s not a huge school—with fewer than five hundred pupils from kindergarten to thirteen—but you wouldn’t know it, given how many of us are here. With everyone talking at once, it’s impossible to hear what one single person is saying.
My brief time here has been so busy that I’ve barely met anyone properly, and any spare moments I have had were spent catching up on what I should have done earlier in the day. I always loved school, and I wanted to be a teacher as long as I could remember, but no one warned you about the admin. The hours spentporing over spreadsheets and reports, adhering to the curriculum.
If they had, I would have seriously considered my life choices.
According to my watch, we’re already five minutes late starting this meeting, and I briefly question whether I can make a quick cup of coffee. However, it would involve navigating around the group hovering possessively in front of it—most of whom look like they don’t need any more caffeine and would fight anyone who said otherwise.
After a brief deliberation with myself, I decide to leave them to it. School starts early enough. If you’re going to add an extra thirty minutes to the start of the day, everyone deserves all the caffeine they can get, and I’m not the only one stifling a yawn. That is, until a cloud of perfume wakes me up, and thoughts of coffee leave as my lungs fight for what’s left of the oxygen in the room.
Mrs. Benson, the headmistress, marches in wearing a skirt covered in flowers so bright that several people wince.
“Good morning, good morning, everyone,” she calls out, with a singsong voice that grates down my spine.
Next to me, Celeste replies, “Good morning, Mrs. Benson,” like we’re in morning assembly, though I can’t tell if the chuckle she adds at the end is sarcastic or not.
“How is everyone this lovely Monday morning?”
Based on the grunts echoing around the room, I’d say not many people think this morning is particularly lovely. It’s also raining, so “lovely” is debatable, and it’sMonday, but I stop myself before my eyes roll, and button down my annoyance.
Truthfully, I’m annoyed that I’m annoyed. I used tobe like that—cheery, bright, and excited to begin the day with a room full of eager learners. And now, I have no idea what I’m doing.
Unless what I’m doing is having a midlife crisis. That would make sense.
“Sounds like good weekends were had by all,” Mrs. Benson continues, adding a hearty chortle to her tone.
