Start DIY panelling – for real this time
Find one of at least six scientific calculators we have in this house
Ditto protractors
Uninstall Drinkaware
Descale kettle
There are some meetings during which you accept calls and interruptions from nobody – and I’m about to step into one of them. I’ll be presenting to other key heads of department and have been dreading it ever since my tête-à-tête with Zach last week. But no matter how important, when the contact that flashes on your phone up reads, ‘JACOB SCHOOL’, you answer.
‘Nothing at all to worry about,’ says the school secretary breezily. She begins all calls with these words. She’d say it even if your 10-year-old had absconded, hot-wired the Principal’s Mondeo and was currently en route to the airport with a ticket to Fiji. ‘However, you’ll need to come and collect Jacob as soon as possible please. There’s been an incident.’
Fuck. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I’m afraid he’s put a Polo mint up his nose.’
‘Oh, thank God. I thought it was something serious,’ I exhale.
‘Well, it’s notideal,’ she points out, as I feel a ripple of panic.
‘Is he all right?’
‘He’s fine. Just says his nostril is very cold, so it obviously can’t stay there. Has he done it before?’
‘Not since he was two, but that was a Tic Tac. It came out with a good blow.’
‘I believe that’s already been tried,’ she says.
‘What about tweezers?’
‘Mrs Darling.’ I decide now isn’t the time to say – again – that I’m aMs. ‘Nobody here is going to put a pair of tweezers up your son’s nose,’ she adds, not unreasonably.
‘No, of course not,’ I mumble, chastised.
‘You’ll need to collect him straight away.’
‘Of course,’ I mutter, glancing into the meeting room, where most people are already seated.
