At breaktime Pippa headed to the staffroom and stopped by Sheila’s desk, which was constantly overflowing with bits of paper, paperclips, piles of post-it notes and records of achievement. It looked terrifying, a mountain of paper and blue files that could topple at any moment.
‘Are you alright under there? Can I bring you a cup of tea and a biscuit?’
Sheila popped up, glasses resting wonkily on her nose.
‘Lynne’s baby – Piran, they’ve decided upon – is doing really well, you know, although the poor woman has got mastitis. I said to her, “You think that’s bad? Wait until he starts getting teeth.” Bless his little face.’
‘Oh, um. Okay. Tea? Oh, and did Kam leave some papers here? Something for me possibly?’ Pippa adored Sheila, but she did have some odd ideas about what was alright to share. However, she made a mental note to check in on Lynne later.
‘That would be lovely. And yes, somewhere. Give me a sec.’
Pippa watched her move pile onto pile, off of one pile and to the side. It was like primary paperwork version of Find the Lady. Pippa thought she may get dizzy just looking at it.
‘Any second now.’ Sheila smiled up at her, adjusted her glasses with her finger and went back to super speed shuffling.
‘I’ll go put the kettle on for a minute then.’
‘Okay, dear…’ Pippa turned to head to the staffroom. ‘Hold on, is this what you’re looking for? Sheila was somehow now standing directly behind Pippa, as if she had teleportation powers, and thrust a small sheaf of papers under her nose. ‘This?’
Pippa glanced down at the papers. It was Kam’s new literacy plan, a project he had taken on to breathe a bit of extra life into… Well, it was all very exciting and so forth, but Pippa wasn’t quite sure why Kam had been getting hot and bothered by it. Yup, there on the corner of the top sheet was her name so this must have been what he was talking about.
Smiling a thank you, she headed to get tea whilst wondering if the yellow paint under her nails would stay with her for life.
That was quite a day!
Oh yes, Billy is a monster, but how can you not love him?
Relatively easily. You should have seen his mum’s face at pick up.
I saw her dragging him from the playground. She had a face like thunder.
There was a long pause as Pippa watched the moving dots appear indicating Kam was typing. Then they stopped and started again. And stopped. It took about ten minutes before the next message came through.
Did you get to read it?
Really? She knew Kam had put quite a lot of work into the phonics package but was he sitting there nibbling his nails whilst she read it? It seemed unlikely, but if he wanted reassurance that she had read it and paid attention, that she could do.
Yes, I read it when I got home.
There was no immediate answer and she found herself nodding off as sleep began to curl its drowsy fingers around her. Just as she drifted off, her phone pinged again. She reached her hand out, her eyes bleary, to read the message.
And? What do you think?
What did she think? Right now, all she could think of was how her pillow and duvet were emitting a call to sleep. She tapped out what she hoped was a supportive reply…
Great, you obviously put loads of work into it. Well done.
…and fell fast asleep, the phone still in her hand.
Chapter Forty
The remainder of summer term had whizzed by, but Pippa had not enjoyed it as much as she normally would have. Yes, there had been lots of trips to the beach, even more to Penmenna Hall, and the glamour of corralling small children whilst being filmed. Lots of the lessons were taken outside, which was Pippa’s favourite thing, with the school field and the playgrounds being commandeered as teaching spaces and the classroom itself smelled permanently of sun cream.
But despite the term being as fun packed as usual, something had happened in the classroom and she was more than a little bit broken-hearted. After that first day, Kam had withdrawn into himself. No longer did they banter back and forth, no longer did he try and catch her eye and make silly faces, or mutter appalling jokes under his breath. Instead, he had become very remote, closed off.
He hadn’t put a foot out of place, he was still utterly professional, and very kind, but the spark they had once had, had disappeared.
Poof! Gone.
