More Than Just Mum

‘You have twenty-five minutes,’ I snap. ‘And anyone who doesn’t take this task seriously will be doing it as homework.’

This gets zero response. I can set as much homework as I like but I can’t make them do it. We all know that.

Year Nine start organising themselves into pairs. By ‘organising’ I mean that they squabble and bicker and barge around the room until at least half the girls are sulking and the boys are all crowded around the back desks in one messy group.

‘Ahem.’ I clear my throat to get their attention. ‘Brandon Hopkins! Can you please tell me how many people are in a pair?’

‘Depends how large the pair is, miss.’ He snorts and elbows the boy next to him who dutifully sniggers.

That literally makes no sense. These kids can make an innuendo out of absolutely anything. It is exhausting.

‘Very entertaining,’ I tell him, narrowing my eyes. ‘There are two people in a pair, Mr Hopkins, and if you can’t all sort yourselves into pairs in the next thirty seconds then I shall be forced to select your partnerships myself.’ I pause, looking around the room. ‘And they will be mixed gender.’

There is a horrified gasp and a flurry of movement as everyone scurries to find themselves a partner. I watch the clock, counting down the last ten seconds, and then, once everybody is seated, I walk around the room dispensing large sheets of paper and coloured pens.

‘Ooh, felt tips,’ coos Wayne. ‘Miss Wallace never trusted us with the felt tips.’

This statement fills me with joy. Finally, my teaching style is being compared favourably to hers.

‘Get started on your mind maps,’ I instruct. ‘I will be coming round in ten minutes to see how you’re getting on.’

The class start pulling the lids off the pens and I return to the front, sinking down into my chair. The chair is the only good part about this job. It used to belong to Miriam and she left it behind when she got promoted to Deputy Head. I spent the entire first term having to defend it from the other members of the English department who complained that, as a part-time member of staff, my needs were less important than theirs. I’m no fool though. I set out my terms and conditions at the start of January, making it clear that the chair is the bonus for teaching Year Nine, Class C and that anyone who wished to negotiate for its extra padding and swivel seat would be expected to take on the aforementioned class along with the chair.

Unsurprisingly, nobody has come after it since then.

A superior chair is, quite frankly, the least that I deserve. In my humble opinion, Miriam could have left me a sofa and a coffee maker and my own personal water fountain and it still wouldn’t have been enough to soften the blow of making me teach English.

Because I am not an English teacher. I am a Biology teacher. When I started at this school it was in the Science department, after I’d left university with a Biology degree but couldn’t get a job. The choice between teacher training or moving back in with my mother was an easy one to make and things kind of snowballed from there. Teaching wasn’t ever what I intended to spend my life doing but once Nick and I started having kids, the long school holidays and vaguely decent pay made it a no-brainer.

But then the inept government started making ludicrous cuts and our school became an academy and all the rules changed overnight. I didn’t even see it coming, that’s the humiliating part. I strutted into the Head’s office last July ready for my annual appraisal, wondering whether I’d have time to pop to the shops on my way home. If I was vaguely surprised to see Miriam in there then it wasn’t enough to register any thoughts of alarm. We all knew that she’d just been promoted to Deputy Head and it seemed obvious that she’d want to be involved in staff evaluations.

The panic bells only began when Miriam took the lead, telling me that sadly, financial cuts meant that the Biology department was being downsized but that I wasn’t to worry, they had found a new position for me. It would be fewer hours and less pay. Worst of all, it would be taking on her old post in the English department.

I had stutteringly queried my suitability for such a job, but Miriam had glossed over my concerns.

‘We’ve been looking back over your curriculum vitae,’ she told me, brandishing a file with my name on the front. ‘And it states quite clearly that you are an avid reader of books and an aspiring writer. If anything, you are overqualified to teach the students at this school.’

I tried to tell her that the phrase ‘aspiring writer’ referred to my one attempt at writing a collection of short stories, after I took a creative writing module as part of my teaching course. When I presented my efforts to the tutor, he informed me that my writing was too try-hard and that it lacked any sparkle. My CV was the last fictitious work that I ever wrote.

I also attempted to explain that my life has changed quite dramatically since then. Not least with the addition of three children, which hasn’t left me with a lot of spare time for pursuing my own hobbies and interests. But Miriam is like a very efficient bulldozer, and before I knew what had really happened I had agreed to a one-year temporary contract, teaching English, three days a week.

‘We will review your progress on a regular basis,’ Miriam assured me. It sounded like the threat that it was meant to be.

And so, for the last six months I have faked my way through agonising grammar lessons and un-creative writing lessons and lively debates where nobody says anything remotely linked to the topic at hand. I have diverted and distracted and downright lied when asked a question to which I do not know the answer and I have stood at the front of the class pretending that I am not an imposter, a charlatan and a complete and utter con artist.

It has been the most exhausting six months of my life and I have hated every single second of it. But I can’t afford to lose this job, and Miriam knows it. If we were playing a game of poker, she would have the entire royal family and I’d just be left with a few twos and a three, and maybe the joker.

The noise in the room has escalated to uncomfortable levels so I bang my hand on the desk.

‘All that talking had better be about the theme of love,’ I warn. ‘Vincent. What have you got so far?’

Before Vincent can reply, the door swings open and Miriam Wallace walks in, as if my thoughts have magically summoned her from whichever dark corner she’d been lurking in. She casts a beady glance around the desks, her eyes narrowing.

I stand to attention and resist the urge to curtsey. Or salute.

‘You’ve given them felt tips, Mrs Thompson?’ she asks, her voice frosty.

And that, Year Nine, Class C, is a perfect example of a rhetorical question. Beautifully executed with a hint of power play. Round One to Ms Wallace.

‘Yes.’ I attempt a smile. ‘I always find that mind maps are much more powerful if the words stand out in a vibrant colour.’

Round Two to me. I am taking control of my choices. This is my classroom now.

Miriam sneers at me. ‘It’s the “vibrant colours” that cause me concern,’ she says. ‘We are encouraging a professional, corporate look here at Westhill Academy and that includes crisp, white shirts that are unadorned with childish scribbles.’

‘Oh, I don’t think we need to worry about that,’ I laugh. ‘This is Year Nine, Ms Wallace. They’re quite capable of—’

‘It’s Year Nine, Class C, Mrs Thompson,’ she snaps back. ‘Wayne! Stand up!’

‘Honestly, Miriam,’ I murmur. ‘I’d have noticed if they were doing anything untoward. Look. His shirt is fine.’

Wayne is standing in the middle of the room, a large smirk on his face. I smile at him reassuringly and turn back to the Deputy Head.

‘We’ve been doing a lot of work on responsibility and appropriate behaviour,’ I tell her, not wanting to lose this opportunity to brag about my teaching. ‘I really do think that I’m getting somewhere with them. I’ve seen a real improvement in their levels of maturity and their ability to focus. For example, this lesson is all about identifying the way that the theme of love is addressed in Romeo and Juliet which, I think you’ll agree, is a complex and highly nuanced topic.’

Miriam ignores me, choosing instead to direct her full attention at Wayne.

‘Turn around!’ she barks. ‘Now!’

At the back of the room, I see Brody and Vincent start to laugh. An icy droplet of dread trickles down my spine, but I am powerless to do anything except watch as Wayne raises his hands in the air like he’s being arrested and slowly, slowly turn so that his back is facing towards us.

How did she know? She can’t possibly have known.

‘What do you have to say about that?’ Miriam enquires. There is silence for a moment before I realise that the question is aimed at me, not Wayne.

I stare at his shirt for a second and then I walk closer, weaving my way in between the desks until I’m standing right behind him, reading what is written in very bold and very permanent pen.

Love is beautiful like #nofilter.

Love is precious like an iPhone X.

Love is sex and drugs and rock and roll.

Love is chaos and death.

‘Who was working with Wayne?’ My voice is quiet and nobody speaks. I do a slow one hundred and eighty degree turn, looking at every single member of the class. ‘Who was working with Wayne?’

Very slowly, three sets of hands rise into the air.