Hence this morning Pippa had dressed appropriately in a headscarf, boots and trademark slash of red lippy. Pippa reckoned she would have made a brilliant Land Girl and was more than ready to help the children pull the vegetables from the ground. Plus, her whole family had clubbed together to buy her some vintage Fendi knee-high wellies for Christmas last year and she didn’t get to wear them as often as she wanted. They were so beautiful she would happily sleep in them (but even she drew the line at boots in bed).
Whilst waiting for Matt Masters to appear (the gardener who ran Penmenna Hall and was the presenter ofGreen-Fingered and Gorgeous, the gardening show that was filmed there), Kam led the rest of the children, with Pippa bringing up the rear, to the raised beds by the orangery that were set aside for the children’s segment of the show. As they reached them, Ellie ran up to Kam and slipped her hand into his.
‘Hello. I’m going to be your friend today.’
‘Okay, that sounds good. How are your harvesting skills?’
‘Oh good. I’m good at everything. In fact, my daddy says I’m too good for my own good. I don’t know what that means but he smiles when he says it so I think he agrees that I’m good at nearly almost everything.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yes.’ The brevity of her answer indicated she believed it to be utterly true; however, she called over her shoulder to her friend to provide more evidence. ‘It’s true isn’t it, Sam?’
‘Well, you’re good at lots of things, but—’ He didn’t get to finish his sentence.
‘See, told ya.’ Ellie looked up at Kam and smiled. Pippa hid her own grin as she watched the teacher look like he had fallen a little bit in love. Mind you, Ellie wasn’t hard to love. She was adorable – sparky and confident and full of mischief – and when you knew her back story, it kind of made you love her even more. This child was a survivor.
‘Why are you holding his hand? That’s just stupid. You can’t be friends with teachers,’ Billy (whose position had been usurped as Ellie had broken the line) shouted at her from behind them. Billy had never really understood the concept of a gently pitched conversation and shouted absolutely everything. Pippa had been trying to teach him about an indoor voice for a while now, but as they were outside she decided not to muddy the waters.
‘Of course, I can.’ As they all stood around the raised bed, Ellie’s little face scrunched up and Pippa took a couple of long strides to get to her. Kam hadn’t seen that facial expression before, but she very definitely had. It normally resulted in injury to those Ellie considered had thwarted her.
‘Mr Choudhury!’ Pippa shouted across to try and warn him, but Ellie was too fast and her hand went straight into the raised bed beside her, grabbing a handful of dirt. Billy towered over her but Pippa knew that wouldn’t matter a jot to Ellie.
Kam realised what was going on and moved like the wind to grab Ellie’s hand just as it reached up, a millisecond before she rammed the earth into Billy’s mouth.
Phew. Pippa didn’t even want to imagine what would have happened if Billy had found himself with a mouthful of mud and worms.
‘Ellie!’ Her best friend Sam gave her a stern look. He was very practised at those.
‘He d’served it. I can be friends with who I want. I’m friends with Miss Winter and Matt, they live next door to me so I can be friends with Mr Choudhury too.’
‘They live next door to me.’ Sam said, his furrow getting deeper.
‘And your home is my home – your mum always says so – so they live next door to me too. You have your things at mine so it’s fair.’
That logic seemed to satisfy Sam who nodded matter-of-factly at his friend.
‘Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Penmenna. Now, I’ve got an action-packed afternoon ahead of us, so listen up and let’s see how much we can fit in.’ Matt Masters, who had popped up from behind a raised bed, addressed them all, his curly hair blowing around his head in the springtime breeze. His dog barked at his ankles, jumping up and down in excitement, presumably at having all the children back again.’
‘Hello, Matt darling,’ Marion who was accompanying them, along with a couple of other parent helpers, was in leopard print again. For a woman who had never really worn it before, she was fully embracing it this term. Pippa half expected her to break out a pair of fur-trimmed knickers any minute.
Matt smiled and waved before setting the children a whole heap of gardening jobs. Pippa kept Ellie close to her side for the rest of the day but couldn’t stop sneaking glances at Kam as he dealt with the children outside of a formal classroom setting. He was smashing it.
Not only did he get down and on with the jobs in hand, letting the children take the lead where appropriate and encouraging the shyer ones to participate as fully as the more confident ones, he also managed to stop Alfie trying to saw a worm in half to see if it made two worms like his big brother had told him it would. He prevented Billy from eating the entire crop of radishes before they could bring them back to school and he also gently challenged gender stereotypes when Alfie refused to harvest the vivid hot-pink rhubarb in case Harry teased him for being girly.
Pippa was aware that she was in danger of having her mild crush turn into a massive one if she didn’t rein herself in and concentrate on her work. The time she was spending with Kam on a day-to-day basis wasn’t helping much. Secretly she half expected each day to reveal something that would paint him in a less golden light, something she didn’t like. Did he eat messily or pick his nose when no one was looking and smear it on the furniture? But alas, so far there had been nothing. He just got more appealing rather than less as each day passed.
She was also beginning to notice Rosy watching her watching Kam around the school and as much as she loved the headmistress, she didn’t want to be in trouble at work. How embarrassing would it be to be outed as that girl, the one harbouring the inappropriate crush? She was fairly sure Marion would be the first to dob her in to Rosy, should she make ridiculous cow eyes at Kam today. It was just that she didn’t always realise she was doing it.
The class finally packed up all their bounty and clambered back onto the minibus excited about what they would do in the classroom over the next few days with the vegetables they had harvested. They planned to make a great big crumble and also a salad for snack time. It was remarkable how so many of the children wouldn’t touch a vegetable when they first joined the school, but they would happily munch away with the alacrity of Peter Rabbit, after growing and harvesting them.
They pulled into the school grounds and Pippa was proud of herself for reining in her lustful glimpses at Kam all the way home (even though she had just seen him digging and looking properly manly, a little bit sweaty and great with the kids all at the same time). She wanted to try and put a little bit of distance between them with the intention of throwing Marion off the scent, but when she looked out of the minibus window, her heart sank and despair took over.
There, right outside the front of the school and parked on the great big yellow do-not-park zigzags was a shiny bright red convertible that screamed ‘Look At Me!’ and a couple of other things besides.
There could only be one person responsible for that.
Chapter Fifteen
