Lessons from the Heart by John Clanchy Page A

‘Besides, we were late getting away this morning.’
    And Dave doesn’t say, And whose fault was that?, but he raises his brows at me and the door hisses shut and Miss Temple plumps herself down in the front seat like she’s totally exhausted all of a sudden and says, ‘Go to the back again, will you, Laura, dear? That’s a good girl,’ and then looks at me in amazement at what she’s just said.
    And from the back, as we pull away from the curb, I look out and see the same black man standing and gazing after our bus with the same intense look of puzzlement and inquiry still on his face.
    â€˜I didn’t like that one,’ says Sarah from the seat in front of me, and I realize she means the town and not the man I’m still looking at as we turn the corner and head for Broken Hill and the mines. ‘Did you, Luisa?’

8
    â€˜This incident at Broken Hill …’ Mr Jackson says, and picks up a document from his desk. It’s not a newspaper, I can see, just a normal collection of pages stapled together, so I guess it must be a report from the teachers.
    â€˜Which one, Mr Jackson?’ I say. And curse myself for my stupidity.
    â€˜The one involving Miss Darling, of course.’
    â€˜Oh.’
    â€˜It’s clear from these statements,’ Mr Jackson says, ‘that Miss Darling was bent on mischief from the outset. It defeats me why she was ever allowed to go on the trip in the first place.’
    â€˜Quite,’ says Mr Murchison.
    â€˜Well, it had nothing to do with me.’ For the moment Mr Jackson’s forgotten me completely. ‘The teachers organized the trip, they had total autonomy.’
    â€˜Did they?’ Mr Murchison makes a note of something on his pad.
    â€˜Of course, as Principal …’ Mr Jackson’s getting red himself now. ‘I have final responsibility for anything that happens in the school. But you can hardly –’
    â€˜Of course not,’ says Mr Murchison. ‘I understand. I was a Principal myself once.’ He smiles. Which only seems to make Mr Jackson redder than ever.
    â€˜This incident,’ Mr Jackson shouts at me, ‘with the union official at the Trades Hall.’
    â€˜Oh, that.’
    â€˜Yes, that. The union was kind enough to arrange a tour not just of the mine but of its historic buildings.’
    â€˜It had this huge conference hall. It was very beautiful, with all these green and white inlaid tiles in the ceiling.’
    â€˜I am not interested, Miss Vassilopoulos, in the tiles on the ceiling of some union building in Broken Hill! Will you please try to concentrate. I am interested in the misbehaviour –’
    â€˜But it was all just a simple misunderstanding, Mr Jackson.’
    â€˜Not according to the teachers who were there,’ Mr Jackson taps the index finger of his right hand on the document in front of him.
    â€˜The union official was just explaining to us about mining, and how dangerous it was.’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜And he said in Australia seven thousand miners had given their lives to the industry.’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜And Toni, who maybe couldn’t hear properly, said “Their wives?”, and the kids all started giggling and some of them were bored with the talk and deliberately went on laughing and even hooting – that wasn’t Toni’s fault – and the teachers couldn’t control them, and the union man said he wouldn’t go on talking in front of a pack of hyenas and ordered us out of the building.’
    â€˜And later in the street when Miss Temple reprimanded her?’ Mr Jackson says. ‘Instead of being remorseful at making such a fool not only of herself but of the entire school, Miss Darling was equally rude to Miss Temple as well. Isn’t that so?’
    â€˜I don’t know, Mr Jackson. I wasn’t there then.’ Though, of course, Toni did tell me all about it later.