stood up to leave the room. ‘The man’s soft on you, he can’t help it. He can’t concentrate on a thing!’
Through all this nonsense Fanny continues to work hard at her new job, and already the school is beginning to blossom. At least, there is a clear sense of energy to it now. The walls are covered in the children’s artwork and poetry, and there are nature displays on the tables. She has made a small garden at the side of the school, where the junior class has planted flower and vegetable seeds. Last week her car hit one of the Maxwell McDonald pheasants, so she brought the bird in and dissected it for everyone, which was illegal on Health and Safety grounds, but popular with the children. Next week she wants to take them all out collectingwool. Together (the plan is) they will learn how to wash it, spin it, dye it, and weave it into scarves.
Fanny thinks of her school all day and most of the night. In the three weeks since term started she’s had dinner a couple of times with Grey and Messy McShane. She’s met Charlie, Jo, the twins and the General in the Fiddleford Arms for a weekend lunch. (They’d been unable to invite her to the Manor; one of their more troubled celebrity guests being so afraid of spies he’d demanded that even the post be left at the bottom of the drive.) Fanny’s spent a couple of evenings on her own in the pub, chatting with Tracey and anyone else around (although she tries to avoid drinking with Kitty). And she gossips with Mrs Hooper for at least twenty minutes every morning, when she buys her milk and newspaper. But that, excepting the weekend Louis came, makes up the sum total of Fanny’s Fiddleford social life to date. For someone so naturally gregarious, it’s not much. And yet Fanny hasn’t felt lonely for more than the odd few minutes in all that time. She’s been so wrapped up in her work, and so exhausted by the end of each working day, often she can barely find the energy to talk to Brute, let alone to a human being.
Her evenings tend mostly to be dominated by the government forms: the progress reports, policy papers, target statements, assessment charts and time-allocation forecasts all growing steadily damper under her kitchen sink. It seems the more forms she fills in, the more they pile up, so that her desk at work and the kitchen cupboard are now stuffed and overflowing. And at night, even in her dreams, Fanny finds herself ticking boxes, evaluating performances, identifying ethnic origins, searching – endlessly – for that magical square which says ‘other’.
Only two things worry her more than the paperwork: that Dane Guppy hasn’t appeared at school since Fanny and his enormous mother had their disagreement at the limbo overa fortnight ago; and that Scarlett Mozely, Kitty’s daughter, hasn’t produced a piece of work or said a single word to Fanny, or to anyone else, since term began.
Scarlett sits at the back of the class with her crutches lying neatly beside her, as she sits everywhere in life, plain and silent and mostly ignored. She’s been sitting at that same desk, with that same sullen face, ever since Kitty moved to Fiddleford, and until now no one has ever made more than a token effort to disturb her.
Mrs Haywood the glass-eyed secretary tells Fanny she has been unable to ‘locate’ any notes on Scarlett Mozely in either her office or Fanny’s, which is no surprise since the notes on at least a third of all of Fiddleford’s thirty-eight pupils have been missing for years. Robert White is equally unforthcoming when Fanny finally summons the strength to ask him for help.
They are in the staff room at the time, and not alone. (Fanny takes care that they are never alone.) He’s chuckling self-consciously over something in the Guardian , and Fanny is in the far corner, as far away from him as possible, with her back to him, making coffee.
‘Robert,’ she barks. ‘Tell me what you know about Scarlett Mozely.’
‘Mmm,’ he says
Through all this nonsense Fanny continues to work hard at her new job, and already the school is beginning to blossom. At least, there is a clear sense of energy to it now. The walls are covered in the children’s artwork and poetry, and there are nature displays on the tables. She has made a small garden at the side of the school, where the junior class has planted flower and vegetable seeds. Last week her car hit one of the Maxwell McDonald pheasants, so she brought the bird in and dissected it for everyone, which was illegal on Health and Safety grounds, but popular with the children. Next week she wants to take them all out collectingwool. Together (the plan is) they will learn how to wash it, spin it, dye it, and weave it into scarves.
Fanny thinks of her school all day and most of the night. In the three weeks since term started she’s had dinner a couple of times with Grey and Messy McShane. She’s met Charlie, Jo, the twins and the General in the Fiddleford Arms for a weekend lunch. (They’d been unable to invite her to the Manor; one of their more troubled celebrity guests being so afraid of spies he’d demanded that even the post be left at the bottom of the drive.) Fanny’s spent a couple of evenings on her own in the pub, chatting with Tracey and anyone else around (although she tries to avoid drinking with Kitty). And she gossips with Mrs Hooper for at least twenty minutes every morning, when she buys her milk and newspaper. But that, excepting the weekend Louis came, makes up the sum total of Fanny’s Fiddleford social life to date. For someone so naturally gregarious, it’s not much. And yet Fanny hasn’t felt lonely for more than the odd few minutes in all that time. She’s been so wrapped up in her work, and so exhausted by the end of each working day, often she can barely find the energy to talk to Brute, let alone to a human being.
Her evenings tend mostly to be dominated by the government forms: the progress reports, policy papers, target statements, assessment charts and time-allocation forecasts all growing steadily damper under her kitchen sink. It seems the more forms she fills in, the more they pile up, so that her desk at work and the kitchen cupboard are now stuffed and overflowing. And at night, even in her dreams, Fanny finds herself ticking boxes, evaluating performances, identifying ethnic origins, searching – endlessly – for that magical square which says ‘other’.
Only two things worry her more than the paperwork: that Dane Guppy hasn’t appeared at school since Fanny and his enormous mother had their disagreement at the limbo overa fortnight ago; and that Scarlett Mozely, Kitty’s daughter, hasn’t produced a piece of work or said a single word to Fanny, or to anyone else, since term began.
Scarlett sits at the back of the class with her crutches lying neatly beside her, as she sits everywhere in life, plain and silent and mostly ignored. She’s been sitting at that same desk, with that same sullen face, ever since Kitty moved to Fiddleford, and until now no one has ever made more than a token effort to disturb her.
Mrs Haywood the glass-eyed secretary tells Fanny she has been unable to ‘locate’ any notes on Scarlett Mozely in either her office or Fanny’s, which is no surprise since the notes on at least a third of all of Fiddleford’s thirty-eight pupils have been missing for years. Robert White is equally unforthcoming when Fanny finally summons the strength to ask him for help.
They are in the staff room at the time, and not alone. (Fanny takes care that they are never alone.) He’s chuckling self-consciously over something in the Guardian , and Fanny is in the far corner, as far away from him as possible, with her back to him, making coffee.
‘Robert,’ she barks. ‘Tell me what you know about Scarlett Mozely.’
‘Mmm,’ he says
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