‘Grandma, Grandma, it’s me!’ Jack called.
‘And the pea went POP!’ Billy clapped, practising his song and jumping as he did so, pride scrawled wide across his face. ‘Clap not roll, clap not roll, clap not roll!’ he added loudly, just to make sure everyone knew that he had been trying really hard.
Rosy fought to keep the laughter in as she herded them across the hall and to the front where they sat. The youngest didn’t come in often for assembly in the first term and were only now beginning to get used to it. Not laughing but presenting an authoritative face had always been one of the hardest bits of her job. Luckily today the children’s spontaneity was a perfect ice-breaker and she felt her shoulders relax as she fought off the giggles.
Matt didn’t have such professional restrictions and laughed out loud at the kids’ level of cute, waving at them as they walked across and clapping Billy’s ‘POP!’ His anxious expression completely evaporated, leaving that comfortable, relaxed and slightly mischievous one that Rosy knew so well. That she had slid her hand down as he had lifted her to the table. Arrgghhh.
She decided the best thing to do was just to send him her most welcoming smile and maybe try and speak to him later. She was exasperating herself with all the zigzagging in her head but one of the few indisputable facts of this whole sorry mess was that the Penmenna Hall restoration could be the saving of the school and for that she should be thankful.
He beamed back. She felt her neck tingle.
Now all the children were in place – there were ninety-three in total, two of which, the Russell brothers, had only joined the school this week – Rosy began.
‘Good morning, Penmenna.’
‘Good morning, Miss Winter.’
‘Can we please have a Penmenna welcome for Mr… um… Matt, who is joining us today, and his friends from the television.’ How the hell did she not know his surname? This was madly unprofessional – any other visitor and she would have checked first. She had let her fretting get in the way. She could have kicked herself.
Reserved clapping resounded through the hall, although a couple of the boys in Class Four made a clattering noise with their feet until a well-practised glare from Mrs Adams made them settle down with hands on laps, heads down and terror on their faces. Rosy herself was in awe of Mrs Adams’ looks; they were a nod to the teaching methods of the nineteenth century and seemed to contain the combined power of the cane, the slipper and the guillotine without any recourse to actual items. Mrs Adams was a firm proponent of the ‘children should be seen and not heard’ school of thought and would prefer classrooms segregated by gender and social class. She was the only woman Rosy knew who still asked ‘and what does your father do, dear?’
Rosy smiled and moved her hand down slowly, the international schoolteacher gesture forquiet. ‘Now, we have been practising a welcome for you, Matt. Class One, if you would.’
Matt listened attentively to all three classes’ offerings, clapping and smiling in the right places, and giving a nod and a thumbs up to the older ones for ‘ximenia, yam and zucchini’. He thanked them and, as Rosy returned to sit on the floor with her class, he launched into a big hello where he introduced the film crew by name, Bob and Sid, and explained what he was going to be doing up at Penmenna Hall and how he hoped the children would help him.
He launched a quick slide show on the smart board showing what the gardens were like now and his plans for how they would look when he was finished. He pulled children up to the front and had them doing activities; in fact he overran his slot by fifteen minutes, but remarkably managed to keep the children focused, attentive and engaged the whole way through.
The only awkward moment was when the youngest Russell brother stood up and with an imaginary gun took potshots at his brother across the hall. The oldest brother (instead of shushing his sibling) jumped up and took aim back. Matt smiled but didn’t miss a beat as Mrs Adams managed to quell them both without getting in the line of fire and removed them wordlessly.
Once he had finished, the children were all excited about going up to the hall, which they would begin doing this very week to start planting and get a feel of the place. Marion had organized the rota and they would be going up in groups of ten, and for the first couple of weeks Rosy knew she would have to accompany them. If she neglected her professional responsibilities just to dodge Matt and keep The Rule, the very premise of which was so deeply embedded but beginning to lose its hold after the night at Chase’s, then she would be disrupting her own life in the very way she wanted to avoid. By going she could make sure everything was run smoothly and that the only outtakes the production company would get would be terribly cute puddle splashing, ladybird conversing and suchlike, rather than the children setting fire to things or slipping things into their pockets to sell later in the playground, Mrs Adams clipping a child around the ear (although after last time Rosy was fairly sure she had learnt her lesson – writing a letter of apology to an eight-year-old was probably the darkest experience of her life), or Hippy Dippy Harmony setting up a crop positivity circle. All the above would be distinct possibilities if Rosy didn’t keep a firm eye on proceedings.
The children gave him a heartfelt chorus of thank you and, aping his earlier action, some gave him a thumbs up before trooping back to their classrooms. Lynne, who had come in especially for the assembly even though it wasn’t one of her official teaching days, took control of Rosy’s class so she could thank Matt and see him and the crew out.
‘That was fabulous, thank you. You have a real gift with the children.’ Rosy beamed at him. ‘I really appreciate you coming in today, especially after… well… thank you. I have a feeling that this is going to be even better than I hoped it would.’
‘Did you doubt it?’ he asked with an arched brow.
‘Of course not! It was just interesting to see you in action with them.’ He was right, she should have known. Anyone who could make a Tudor hat out of weed control fabric and teeny bits of gravel was going to be a natural near a primary classroom. Now he was here, in front of her, she felt ridiculous. How could she have allowed herself to spiral so badly and assume he was another Josh? Examining his face she realized, again but with more force this time, that all her upset had been one hundred per cent her, and zero per cent Matt.
‘You too! You have that whole mind control thing down pat. One sweep of the hand and a hundred children fall silent. You should market that stuff.’
‘Every teacher does that!’
‘Yes, but whilst I wouldn’t usually dream of being rude about your colleagues, the thought of that scary-looking one controlling my mind could keep me up tonight, not in a good way, and as for that—’
She hit his arm, just lightly, a familiar gesture reminiscent of the camaraderie they had shared before that evening he had come for supper, before she had fallen prey to the crazy attraction she felt and before she’d screamed at him in Chase’s garden.
‘Ouch! I’m fairly sure you’re not allowed to use corporal punishment in schools any more. Where’s that one in the tie-dye? I’ll tell on you.’
‘No, you won’t, I’ll quell you with my mind control.’
‘Ooh yes pl…’ He tapered off at the glare she shot him. ‘Sorry, not appropriate.’
‘Nope. Look, thank you for today but I need to get back to class. I’ll bring the first batch up on Friday like Marion arranged, is that still good?’
‘Yep, weather looks OK, but wellies and waterproofs just in case.’
‘Obviously.’
