Page 29 of Lessons in Life

‘Cor, sir fancies miss…’ Kye Vant chortled.

‘My dad fancies her too. Says she’s right hot…’

‘Ido as well.’ Harrison Wade, staring somewhat dreamily in my direction, suddenly realised he’d spoken out loud and flushed scarlet as his mates started to make what could only be construed as sexually suggestive hand gestures while the low-level giggles started at the back of the room escalated into full-scale ribald laughter.

In no mood for these Year 7 kids getting uppity so soon into their time at St Mede’s, I silenced them immediately with a long, low: ‘Ex-cuse-me!’

Total silence ensued, apart from a couple of quickly smothered hiccups of laughter towards which I focused my favourite narrow-eyed glare. I stood facing the class of eleven and twelve-year-olds, starting the ten-second silence I reckoned would bring the class completely to heel.

‘OK, this afternoon we’re going to look at anagrams…’

‘Anna Gram’s what, Miss Allen?’

‘Sorry?’

‘You said we’re going to be looking at Anna Gram’ssomething. You got my last name wrong.’ Anna Graham, the brightest kid in the class, interrupted almost kindly. ‘You said you loved the poem I wrote last term. Do you want me to read it out again?’ Anna started reaching for her bag.

‘She’ssofull of herself,’ Harper Cooke muttered to her mate. ‘You’re always showing off, Anna.’

‘Anagrams.’I laughed in spite of myself. ‘OK, any idea what an anagram is?’

‘My nan sometimes swears when she’s doing the crossword, miss,’ Evie Blackburn said seriously. ‘“Another of them bloody anagrams,” she shouts out to my grandad and thenhesays, “Leave it, love, them things is too hard for us. Do the sudoku instead.” So, whatever it is, it’s hard.’

‘I can’t do hard stuff,’ Billy muttered. ‘Can’t we read some more ofWar Horseinstead? We’d got to a right good bit.’

‘OK,’ I went on, ‘so an anagram is a word or words with their letters mixed up to spell a different word. Or words.’

Silence.

‘I can’t spell words when the lettersaren’tmixed up.’ Billy slumped back in his chair, obviously fed up that, after his bigging me up as his favourite teacher, I wasn’t turning out to be quite so accommodating after all.

‘So, for example, the word lump – a fruit is the clue…’

‘A lump of fruit?’ Billy was now almost horizontal across his desk.

‘Plum!’ Anna Graham shouted.

‘Yes, well done, Anna. A cheap fruit.’

‘Banana?’ Billy offered. ‘Me mam says I can have them ’cos they’re cheaper than pineapples. An’ I reallylovepineapples an’ all…’

‘If you go to Aldi, they’re all quite cheap,’ Aria Spencer, already middle-aged as the sole carer for her mum with MS, piped up sagely. ‘And you’d be gobsmacked at their carrots and turnips. Right good value…’

‘Peach!’ Anna shouted, excitedly.

‘Yep.’

‘There’s no rage with this fruit,’ I quickly wrote on the smartboard.

‘Orange!’ Anna was on a roll, pushing back her hair and preening.

‘Aw, don’t let her get any more, miss.’

‘OK, a bit harder now.’ I smiled. ‘A dirty room – where you might sleep. Work together in pairs, use your jotters. Don’t call out, hands up when you’ve worked it out. Come on.’

There were times when I totally forgot I wasn’t into teaching, that I was in a classroom only by default. Lessons like this, with Year 7, were fabulous. Finishing with best in prayers – a female pop singer – and cheering along with the class when Billy Caldwell came up with the solution first, I was as surprised as the kids when the bell went for the end of the session.

Before my final lesson of the day, now that I’d permission to leave school early, I checked my phone hoping for a message of explanation from Sorrel but, instead, found a text from Fabian.

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