Muddle and Win Read online

  There’s also the battle to suppress the muffin racket, which is run by certain enterprising Year Sevens whose bus happens to stop outside the bakery. This one is fought mainly by the staff, by means of confiscations, detentions, letters to parents, lectures in assemblies, etcetera. The pupils of Darlington High listen dutifully and take care to conceal their crumbs. The staff are on their own with this one.

  There’s the long-running guerrilla war over dress code, which took a sharp turn for the worse about a year ago when the governors decided that it would look so much smarter and instil a much stronger ethos if they replaced the old sweater with a V neck, collared shirt and tie. Introducing ties to a thousand twelve- to eighteen-year-olds of course results in nine hundred and ninety-nine examples of tie abuse to make a governor shudder. Sally J, Form 9c, the exception.

  There’s the battle fought by all lonely teachers everywhere to convince their class of thirty-odd students that this subject and this lesson – a double Chemistry period on atomic structure, say – is worthy not only of study but of love, and will be the key to their future lives if only they could open their eyes to see. It is fought and lost in parallel with the losing of thirty-odd battles to stay awake during the same time. (Last term, an inventive Biology teacher actually won all thirty-one battles simultaneously during a lesson on sexual reproduction, with some creative teaching techniques that afterwards involved much correspondence between the Headmistress and parents. In the end it went down as a Pyrrhic victory, and the teacher is now in another profession.)

  And there’s the fight that everyone fights, within themselves, every moment of every day. The opening skirmishes begin with the bleep of the alarm and continue through the dazed, one-word conversations that take place over breakfast. The rumble of the traffic and the hoot of horns are the first bombardments, and by the time everyone slouches into their school or office, shaking off the rainwater and stretching their eyes, battle is truly joined.

  Battle was joined in the mind of Mrs Goodwin that morning, as 9c arrived for their serving of double Maths.

  ‘The dear young things,’ bellowed her guardian angel into her left ear. ‘I’ve so much to offer them . . . What I say now may stay with them for the rest of their lives . . .’ The angel was hanging by a thread finer than gossamer, shouting through a megaphone to get his thoughts across. Little beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. He was acutely aware that his opposite number was suspended by Mrs Goodwin’s other ear, shouting things such as ‘The ungrateful toads . . . Look at them. The best years of my life I’ve given to them, and what . . .’ (Neither angel nor fiend actually dared to enter Mrs Goodwin’s mind at that moment, just in case they got made to sit down and do double Maths.)

  What the angel didn’t know was that the fiends were working in pairs that morning. And while one was doing the bellowing-into-the-ear, a second was undercover, busily sawing at the angel’s thread.

  The thread parted. The angel fell.

  So did Mrs Goodwin.

  ‘That’s enough!’ she screeched. ‘If you can’t come in quietly, you’ll all be staying in at break!’

  In the inner chamber of Sally’s mind, the Inner Sally put her head in her hands. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘We haven’t even started and already she’s getting stressy.’

  She was in her uniform, neat, tie straight, shirt tucked in, sitting at a table exactly like the ones in the classroom. Behind her stood Muddlespot and Windleberry, watching each other out of the corners of their eyes. They weren’t fighting. They weren’t even yelling at each other. They were just standing there with their arms tightly folded, watching each other’s every move.

  Every – tiny – move.

  Just let him turn his back for a moment, they were both thinking. Only for a moment. Please . . .

  You might say an uneasy truce reigned.

  ‘I need a muffin,’ said Sally.

  ‘Remember,’ Mrs Goodwin was saying. ‘When multiplying fractions, what do we do . . .?’

  Windleberry waited.

  Muddlespot waited.

  Windleberry waited.

  ‘ . . . The lowest common denominator,’ said Mrs Goodwin. ‘To find this you need to multiply both sides . . .’

  ‘One Sally over Zero Muffins equals Infinity times Bad Day,’ groaned Sally.

  It was Muddlespot who blinked first.

  ‘Flick some Blu-Tack at her?’ he ventured.

  ‘Be serious, will you?’ said Sally.

  ‘All right,’ said Muddlespot, feeling hurt. ‘All right. Please yourself.’

  ‘I could get the hiccups,’ said Sally.

  ‘Hiccups?’

  ‘Very serious, hiccups. Hysteria. Sickbay. Could take half a morning. I’ve seen it done.’

  ‘Oooh yes! Yes – hiccups. That’s it! Brilliant!’

  ‘Just kidding.’

  ‘Oh.’

  After a moment, Muddlespot tried again. ‘It’s such a nice day out there . . .’

  ‘It’s raining,’ said Sally flatly.

  ‘Well, it would be a nice day if . . .’

  ‘I’m not looking.’

  Interesting, thought Windleberry.

  Mrs Goodwin handed a question paper round the class. Sally opened her book and began to write.

  She’s still attentive, hardworking, thought Windleberry. No change there.

  ‘The kid beside you’s signalling,’ whispered Muddlespot.

  ‘That’s Charlie B,’ sighed Sally. ‘He’ll be stuck on question two.’

  She still wants to help her friends.

  Rain spattered on the window.

  ‘What’s three-eights times four-fifths?’ asked Sally.

  ‘Fifteen over thirty-two,’ said Windleberry promptly.

  ‘Actually, it’s three-tenths. When I want your help, mister, I’ll ask for it.’

  Maybe all I need to do is keep my mouth shut, thought Windleberry.

  ‘Why don’t you pass him the wrong answer?’ whispered Muddlespot. ‘That’d teach him to interrupt you.’

  ‘Because he trusts me. It wouldn’t be fair.’

  Interesting, thought Windleberry.

  But still dangerous.

  It was never dull in the mind of Billie Jones.

  It could be frustrating, infuriating, maddening and soul-destroying, especially for anyone charged with keeping Billie on the straight and narrow. Expecting Billie to stay on the straight and narrow was like showing a kitten a bucket of cold water and expecting it to wash itself. With soap.

  But it was never dull.

  During Madame Guisel’s French lesson, a crowd wearing liberty caps burst into the central chamber, seized the idea of Madame Guisel and carried her off screaming to the guillotine.

  Most of the lesson on Tudors and Stuarts was devoted to the trial for High Treason of Mrs Clough (Head of History) and her subsequent sentencing to Death by Marriage to Henry VIII, presiding judge Lady Billie Jones, clerk of the court Thomas Cromwell (or possibly Oliver Cromwell – Billie didn’t really care what he called himself so long as he was on her side).

  During Art, an idea that looked very like Sally got up from where she sat, gave the idea of Charlie B a passionate kiss and died of a heart attack brought on by the instant hardening of her arteries.

  Ismael ignored it all. He kept his eyes on Scattletail, and the way he dealt the cards.

  In Geography the class was studying Arizona. Up at the front, Mr Bellows talked about rainfall. There wasn’t much in Arizona, it seemed.

  There was plenty outside.

  Scattletail sucked his cheeks. ‘I’ll see your D minus,’ he said, ‘an’ raise you a yawn and a look out of the winder.’

  Geography ground to a finish. The rain lifted. It stayed off, malevolently, long enough for Mrs Bedding to decide that she could hold 9c’s hockey class on the sports pitch. Then it came on again just lightly enough to make everyone miserable without forcing Mrs Bedding to admit that she had been wrong.

  In the chamber of Sally
’s mind it was raining too. She stood there in her hockey gear with her knees going grey in the cold.

  ‘I don’t suppose either of you guys know how to play?’ she growled through chattering teeth.

  ‘Know how to . . .?’ exclaimed Windleberry. ‘I made the Crystal Sea ‘B’ team last year!’

  ‘Oooh, aren’t you special!’ simpered Muddlespot, who was tired of getting nowhere with Sally.

  ‘And what would you know about it?’

  ‘Me?’ Muddlespot shrugged. ‘I never liked sports.’

  ‘You surprise me. Sally – you need to mark their winger.’

  ‘That’s what I’m doing, aren’t I?’

  ‘Call this marking? You need to be closer. And watch the space behind, because that’s where they’ll—Arggh! There she goes! After her!’

  ‘But I’ll get hurt!’

  ‘Never mind that – run!’

  ‘But I’ll get hurt!’

  ‘Not if you go for it! Go for the ball! There – good! . . . HEY!’

  The floor shook and the chamber turned on its side. All three of them went flying. In the outer world, Sally landed flat on her face in the mud. ‘Ow!’ she said.

  ‘Ow!’ said the Inner Sally, from underneath Muddlespot.

  Windleberry leaped to his feet, eyes blazing through his Ray-Bans. ‘Foul!’ he cried. ‘Foul! Get after her! Hack her shins! Stamp on her—’

  ‘Oooh, yes,’ said Muddlespot. ‘Do hack her!’

  ‘Hack her,’ said Windleberry, giving him a filthy look. ‘But in the right spirit!’

  ‘Forget it,’ groaned Sally, picking herself up to the sounds of distant cheering from the team that had just scored. ‘I don’t have to be good at everything . . .’

  And then there was Mrs Bunnidy.

  There is a special place in Heaven for Mrs Bunnidy. It probably has a lock and key.

  She is one of those dear souls who, while never in danger of ending up on the racks of Pandemonium herself, manages to help quite a number of people that way in the course of her lifetime.

  She is an excellent preschool and early primary age teacher. Children from the ages of three and a half to six adore her, and she adores them, although she does not let them know it. She talks to them as they need to be talked to, encourages them as they need to be encouraged, and over a year with her they will flower and grow beautifully. Secretly, Mrs Bunnidy would like to be six herself. She knows how it’s done.

  Mrs Bunnidy does not understand that people don’t stay six for ever.

  Give her a class of juniors to supervise, and she’ll put her hands on her hips and say in that bright sing-song voice of hers, ‘Now – when you’re all sitting nice-ly . . .’ She won’t see the looks on their faces. She can’t.

  Ask her to take a Year Nine assembly and she’ll expect to escort them from the class to the hall herself. Possibly holding hands.

  Mutinous fidgeting gets put down to naughtiness. Stares of disbelief do not register. And never, ever think of trying to talk to Mrs Bunnidy about it. You might hurt her feelings. Or worse.

  You might end up on the Naughty Step.

  Of course, she’s not a regular teacher at secondary school. But secondary schools get short of staff, and when they are they look around and take whoever’s available. And when they get someone like Mrs Bunnidy, they put them in charge of something they think can’t do any harm.

  Like, er, Food Tech.

  Big mistake.

  *

  ‘Pair up, children,’ said Mrs Bunnidy. ‘Two to an oven.’

  ‘Children?’ said Muddlespot indignantly. ‘She called us children?’

  ‘She’s like that,’ said the Inner Sally, putting out flour, eggs, sugar and butter on the kitchen surface that had appeared in the middle of the chamber. ‘Just ignore it. The main thing is not to touch the cupboard with the door that keeps falling off its hinges.’

  (Darlington High’s Food Tech block was the pride of the school when it opened on the site of the old staff car park. That was five years ago, and nowadays bits of it rattle and shake more than they should. The Food Tech Department keep asking the Headmistress to talk to the Governors about funding some renewals. The Head says she will, she really will, as soon as they have cleared one or two very high priority items that are already in the system. Like finding somewhere for her to park her car.)

  ‘Richard, will you share with David, please?’ said Mrs Bunnidy.

  ‘Oh boy,’ muttered the Inner Sally. ‘Food fight of the century, here we go.’

  ‘And I want to see you all cooking nicely . . .’

  ‘I give it five minutes,’ said Sally, mixing her flour and baking powder.

  Through the windows of her mind they saw Charlie B draw a floury hand across his mouth, giving himself a white moustache and goatee beard. Someone out there shrieked with laughter.

  ‘Billie, haven’t you got a partner?’

  ‘Late as usual,’ grumbled Sally in the privacy of her mind. ‘You think she’d learn.’

  ‘We’ll find someone for you . . .’

  Sally stiffened mid-knead. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘No, please no . . .’

  ‘Has anyone not got a partner?’ Mrs Bunnidy’s voice was getting ominously nearer.

  ‘Time to look busy,’ said Sally. She bowed her head over the idea of her bowl and focused fiercely on the thoughts of teaspoon and bicarbonate of soda.

  ‘Sally . . .’

  ‘I am invisible,’ whispered Sally. ‘I am not here. I am not . . .’

  (It was at this point that, out there in the Food Tech room, the first fistful of flour flew through the air behind Mrs Bunnidy’s back.)

  ‘Sally, wouldn’t you like to share with Billie?’

  Slowly, like a space marine who hears the slither of alien goo behind her, Sally turned. The mutinous face of Billie swam in her vision. Billie was clutching a crumpled bag of flour as if it was a grenade.

  ‘There you are, Billie. Cook nicely together.’

  Only Mrs Bunnidy could have thought this was a good idea.

  THERE ARE TIMES when Heaven trembles.

  It’s not when wars are declared, harvests fail or dictators seize power. These things are expected and so far as Heaven is concerned they don’t change very much.

  It’s the little things that matter.

  It’s when someone might laugh or cry, and doesn’t know which until the moment they do it. It’s when they might say a kind word, but forget to do so. It’s when they might cross the road and meet someone, or they might not.

  It’s at times like these that the angels hold their breath.

  And when two sisters face one another by an oven door – that’s when they shriek ‘ALERT!’ in High C.

  *

  ‘What are you making?’ said Billie suspiciously.

  ‘Muffins,’ said Sally.

  ‘It’s supposed to be scones.’

  ‘I asked her and she said I could. I missed getting my muffin because Mrs Goodwin held us back at break.’ (Sally really hadn’t meant to sound as though it was Billie’s fault that the class had been held back. But of course Billie had been one of the ones Mrs Goodwin had snapped at, and so of course that’s how it sounded to Billie. That’s the way the muffin crumbles.)

  Billie looked at Sally’s preparations, which were already well advanced. ‘I’ll make muffins too,’ she said. (And of course that was meant to annoy Sally. And of course it shouldn’t have done. But it did.)

  Billie plonked down her bag of flour and rummaged in the drawer for a whisk. Her fingers closed upon it. And the Billie in the Food Tech Block put that on the surface too.

  But the Billie in the inner chamber of her own mind took that whisk and brandished it like a battle-axe in the face of her twin. ‘Come on, you twerp!’ she yelled. ‘You just try to tell me how! You just try!’

  ‘Hey,’ said Ismael.

  ‘She’s such a know-all!’ cursed Billie. ‘She will, I bet you!’

  Ismael looked across the
little table. On the far side, the eyes of Scattletail peeped over the tops of his cards. They were deep and dark. They did not blink.

  ‘Remember,’ chimed the maddening voice of Mrs Bunnidy. ‘Your dough should be light. Think of air, children, as you knead it. Think of butterflies and air.’

  Ismael looked at his own hand. Why was he never the dealer at times like this?

  Scattletail’s eyes were like a wall.

  A little bead of sweat started to trickle down Ismael’s forehead. He licked his lips. He bared his teeth.

  ‘Twist,’ he said.

  Meanwhile, in Sally’s mind . . .

  ‘Trip her up!’ howled Muddlespot, jumping up and down.

  ‘No!’ cried Windleberry.

  ‘Jostle her!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Swap her sugar for salt!’

  ‘Nice one,’ said Sally. But she went on working grimly.

  ‘Now own up, children,’ cried Mrs Bunnidy, a little less musically than before. ‘Who threw that?’

  And there was one other thing. It was a big one. As big as an elephant. In a way, it was an elephant.

  When people talk about an ‘elephant in the room’, what they mean is that there’s something really big that everyone knows and no one talks about. The elephant in this case was Mum. More exactly, it was Baking with Mum.

  There was an elephant wandering around in the central chamber of Sally’s mind. It was slightly floury, and in a funny way it did look a bit like Mum, which was odd because Mum didn’t look like an elephant at all. But what it meant was what Baking with Mum meant.

  It meant that Billie could shout, scream, manipulate, get her way, force people to do what she wanted just by making them sick of her, but she couldn’t make herself good at baking. Being good at baking meant that you were patient. It meant that you paid attention. It meant that you didn’t throw tantrums when you found that the lumps wouldn’t come out of your dough – you just kept beating them until they did. You didn’t go off stamping your feet and you did come and bake when Mum suggested it, and so you got a lot of practice. With Mum. Doing what Mum wanted.

  If you were good at baking, it meant you were good with Mum. It meant that you were Good, full stop. You were what Mum wanted. There was nothing Billie could do about that.