everyone,’ sang Miss Gleet.
Stronger medication was definitely an improvement: 25mg with the midday meal and she was nicely relaxed by Registration. Relaxed enough to spend the first thirty minutes of the triple English marathon reading to the Upper Shells from a novel selected from the rather limited supply in the school book cupboard. Jane Eyre would make a change, Miss Gleet felt (young woman meets rude man). Miss Gleet had no recollection whatever of reading out the exact same passage a fortnight earlier, but there wasn’t a peep from the Mandies, nothing from Brian and the gang either. Brian and Paddy both had Charlotte Brontë sitting on their desks but were busy playing Hangman in their laps. Baker slipped the Eunuch from her bag and tucked it inside Jane Eyre . The Gleet, who’d read English and Drama at university, always insisted on acting out all the parts. Helen Burns was done in very snotty Scots.
‘I wish she’d do “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow Dog” again,’ yawned Bunty under her breath. ‘I liked that one. I hate school stories.’
Baker was miles away in the land of the Eunuch .
‘ Female students are forming a large proportion of the arts intake at universities ,’ said the Eunuch , ‘and dominating the teaching profession as a result. The process is clearly one of diminishing returns: the servile induce servility to teach the servile.’
Those who can’t, teach . . . Baker stretched out her finger and teased a pencil across the desk and into her hand. Miss Gleet was doing Mr Brocklehurst now in an all-purpose, whippet-keeping, northern accent. Her eyes stayed glued to her text and didn’t see Baker underlining the bit about servility.
‘ Education cannot be and never has been a matter of obedience .’
‘Beverly, if you could gather in the books and if the rest of you could carry on with your novels. I have a few errands to run. I shan’t be long. I’m leaving the door open and Mrs Rathbone is next door if you need anything.’ A warning.
The Gleet left a trail of scent behind her as she swept from the room. Queenie gave an educated sniff.
‘Ugh. Je Reviens .’
‘Not if I see you first.’ Bunty, quick as a flash.
‘What is black, white and brown round the mouth?’ remembered Stottie.
‘A nun eating—’
‘Ssshh!’ hissed a girl by the door as a stray goon paced past.
‘G-ross.’
‘Give it a rest, can’t you?’ sighed Queenie. ‘I thought the new top looked quite swish.’
Brian and Paddy were still on the same round of Hangman which they managed to keep going almost indefinitely because they cheated, drawing shoes and bow ties and scrubby little penises on their condemned men so that the game lasted longer and no one ever really lost. Paddy’s word was dirnd l ; this was going to take time.
Baker got out her English file and opened it at the most recent chapter of The Snapdragon Harvest . She had made the mistake of handing it in for comment and the carefully typewritten pages were now awash with the Gleet’s shrill red ballpoint.
It was late spring which she loved and dreaded. Why dreaded? She came upon the great bank of snapdragons and her heart quivered with brightness. What does this mean?
My lamb! Really? barked Miss Gleet.
There was a cold correctness in the way he put his bicycle in place that made her heart sink. Why? Her innermost soul shrank within her in a coil of torture. He was looking at the snapdragons disconsolately and the white tilt of his neck, slender and firm, gave her a sharp pang that resonated to the depths of her soul. She sensed the very quivering stuff of life in him. Over-use ‘quivering’. Down to her bowels went the hot spasm of fear. Her mouth parted with suffering and her heart was scalded with pain. Ouch!
She lingered to gather the snapdragons, tenderly, passionately. Be more sparing with adverbs wrote the Gleet, censoriously. The love in her fingertips caressed the peachy bursten blossoms , Bursten? the
Stronger medication was definitely an improvement: 25mg with the midday meal and she was nicely relaxed by Registration. Relaxed enough to spend the first thirty minutes of the triple English marathon reading to the Upper Shells from a novel selected from the rather limited supply in the school book cupboard. Jane Eyre would make a change, Miss Gleet felt (young woman meets rude man). Miss Gleet had no recollection whatever of reading out the exact same passage a fortnight earlier, but there wasn’t a peep from the Mandies, nothing from Brian and the gang either. Brian and Paddy both had Charlotte Brontë sitting on their desks but were busy playing Hangman in their laps. Baker slipped the Eunuch from her bag and tucked it inside Jane Eyre . The Gleet, who’d read English and Drama at university, always insisted on acting out all the parts. Helen Burns was done in very snotty Scots.
‘I wish she’d do “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow Dog” again,’ yawned Bunty under her breath. ‘I liked that one. I hate school stories.’
Baker was miles away in the land of the Eunuch .
‘ Female students are forming a large proportion of the arts intake at universities ,’ said the Eunuch , ‘and dominating the teaching profession as a result. The process is clearly one of diminishing returns: the servile induce servility to teach the servile.’
Those who can’t, teach . . . Baker stretched out her finger and teased a pencil across the desk and into her hand. Miss Gleet was doing Mr Brocklehurst now in an all-purpose, whippet-keeping, northern accent. Her eyes stayed glued to her text and didn’t see Baker underlining the bit about servility.
‘ Education cannot be and never has been a matter of obedience .’
‘Beverly, if you could gather in the books and if the rest of you could carry on with your novels. I have a few errands to run. I shan’t be long. I’m leaving the door open and Mrs Rathbone is next door if you need anything.’ A warning.
The Gleet left a trail of scent behind her as she swept from the room. Queenie gave an educated sniff.
‘Ugh. Je Reviens .’
‘Not if I see you first.’ Bunty, quick as a flash.
‘What is black, white and brown round the mouth?’ remembered Stottie.
‘A nun eating—’
‘Ssshh!’ hissed a girl by the door as a stray goon paced past.
‘G-ross.’
‘Give it a rest, can’t you?’ sighed Queenie. ‘I thought the new top looked quite swish.’
Brian and Paddy were still on the same round of Hangman which they managed to keep going almost indefinitely because they cheated, drawing shoes and bow ties and scrubby little penises on their condemned men so that the game lasted longer and no one ever really lost. Paddy’s word was dirnd l ; this was going to take time.
Baker got out her English file and opened it at the most recent chapter of The Snapdragon Harvest . She had made the mistake of handing it in for comment and the carefully typewritten pages were now awash with the Gleet’s shrill red ballpoint.
It was late spring which she loved and dreaded. Why dreaded? She came upon the great bank of snapdragons and her heart quivered with brightness. What does this mean?
My lamb! Really? barked Miss Gleet.
There was a cold correctness in the way he put his bicycle in place that made her heart sink. Why? Her innermost soul shrank within her in a coil of torture. He was looking at the snapdragons disconsolately and the white tilt of his neck, slender and firm, gave her a sharp pang that resonated to the depths of her soul. She sensed the very quivering stuff of life in him. Over-use ‘quivering’. Down to her bowels went the hot spasm of fear. Her mouth parted with suffering and her heart was scalded with pain. Ouch!
She lingered to gather the snapdragons, tenderly, passionately. Be more sparing with adverbs wrote the Gleet, censoriously. The love in her fingertips caressed the peachy bursten blossoms , Bursten? the
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