“Mm-hmm. Harry and I found it together. It wasn’t a real map, though.”
“How d’you know?”
“We never found anything.”
“What happened to it?”
“It was in a bag with a bunch of boring stuff. Harry kept everything, and I got the bag. I keep my snails in it.”
“Snails?”
He nods solemnly. “Yes, Uncle Lando won’t let me have them in the house. I keep them in the bag, so he doesn’t notice.”
It’s a struggle to keep a straight face. “That sounds like a good idea.”
We start walking again. “Do you know my daddy?”
“I do, yes.” I stick to facts because I have no idea what Hendricks has told Max about me, if anything. Max only knows me as Miss MacIntosh, and I’m not about to change that without Hendricks’s approval.
“Howdo you know him?”
“Has he ever told you?”
Max shakes his head. “No.”
“Did you know your daddy used to go to this school, just like you?”
“Yes, with Uncle Miles.”
“That’s right, and I was also at this school.”
“Oh,” he replies, as we reach the main doors alongwith the stragglers, reluctant to leave the playing fields. “Do we have singing now?”
I ease my hand from his. “We do.”
His head flops back. “Urgh. Ihatesinging.”
“Do you think we should double the practice sessions?”
Celeste, for all her eternal optimism, constant smiling and generally cheerful demeanor, looks truly beaten.
“If you think it’ll help.”
“Nothing will help,” she groans, and it’s so pitiful that I dissolve into laughter. “It’s not funny.”
“It is. They’re five- and six-year-olds, not King’s College Choir.”
“Henry tried to stick his triangle baton up Maria’s nose,” she wails.
“Kids do stupid things,” I counter, handing over a cup of tea. “It’s a cute choir. They don’t need to be perfect, and it would be weird if they were. Everyone’s going to love it, especially when they’re all dressed up.”
She stays slumped in her chair. Even the sip of tea doesn’t perk her up.
“Come on, it’s nearly the final bell. I’m going back to class to finish getting them ready.”
Sixteen pupils sitting at their desks, blazers and caps on, greet me, waiting for the moment they’re allowed out. “Thank you,” I mouth to Katie, my classroom assistant.
As a last form of order before they’re unleashed on their parents, the class lines up in alphabetical order and files out one at a time to wait by the gates. They’re not allowed to leave the area until a parent has come to collect them. The usual early-bird parents sweep off with their charges, and the rest congregate and make plans for playdates, coffees, and yoga.
