Jacky Daydream Read online

  So we all sang.

  ‘I love to go a-wandering

  Along the mountain track,

  And as I go, I love to sing,

  My knapsack on my back.

  Valdereeee, Valderaaaa,

  Valderee, Valderaa-ha-ha-ha

  My knapsack on my back!

  We went a-wandering all the way back through the Kingston streets to school. Mothers were clustered anxiously in the playground. Mr Pearson was standing in the main entrance, arms folded. Miss Audric wasn’t cowed. She swept past them like the Pied Piper, leading her limping bunch of children back into school.

  Perhaps it was just as well Miss Audric wasn’t a form teacher. She might well have abducted her class for a week at a time. Her children would have developed stout legs and stamina and known a great deal about Jesus and music and nature, but reading, writing and arithmetic wouldn’t have got a look in.

  Our form teachers weren’t quite as eccentric as Miss Audric, but they were a very weird bunch all the same. The first year of the Juniors we had Mrs Dowling. She was a teacher of the old school – scraped-back bun, pleated skirt, flat lace-ups. She could be scathing at times. I wore a new dress with a flared skirt to school one day, and I couldn’t resist twirling round once or twice.

  ‘Thank you for showing us your knickers, Jacqueline,’ said Mrs Dowling, and of course everyone sniggered.

  We had Mrs Symons in our second year and she was so much sweeter. She was Austrian and had a heavy accent, so we thought, ignorantly, that she was a bit ‘funny’. She tried very hard to make every child feel special. She liked my stories and gave me big ticks and the odd gold star, even though my pages were likely to be full of blots and smears. I had trouble with the school dipping pens. My ideas ran away with me and I couldn’t write quickly with those horrible scratchy pens because the ink spurted out and spattered the page. The inkwells encouraged the boys to play Beano-comic tricks. They’d dunk the tips of girls’ plaits in the inkwells and make inky blotting-paper pellets and fire them with their rulers.

  When we were nearly at the end of term, Mrs Symons told us that Santa Claus would be coming soon. We were streetwise kids, eight going on nine. We looked at her, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Don’t you believe in Santa Claus?’ said Mrs Symons, pretending to be shocked. ‘You wait and see, my dears.’

  On the last day Mrs Symons took the register and then told us she had to go on an errand, but a special visitor would be coming to look after us. She trotted off. Five minutes later a portly gentleman with a long white beard came striding into our classroom in wellington boots, wearing a scarlet robe edged with white cotton wool.

  ‘Hello, children! I’m Santa Claus!’ he said, with a pronounced Austrian accent.

  Santa Claus was carrying a big sack. He had little wrapped presents for every single child in the class.

  I loved dear Mrs Symons – but I loved my next form teacher even more.

  * * *

  I’ve written a book where a boy character likes playing chess in the playground. Which book is it – and what’s the boy’s name?

  * * *

  It’s Bad Girls – and the boy is Mandy’s friend Arthur King.

  I sat next to Arthur King at lunchtime and then afterwards he tried to teach me how to play chess. It got ever so boring. I wanted to let my mind wander and think about Tanya meeting me from school and how we were going to be friends for ever and ever.

  ‘No, look, if you put your queen there I’ll be able to take it with my knight,’ said Arthur.

  I couldn’t get worked up about it. The queen didn’t have long hair and a flowing dress, the knight didn’t have shining armour and a plume in his helmet. They were just twirly pieces of plastic with no personality whatsover.

  Mandy gives Arthur rather a hard time at first. I’m glad she makes proper friends with him at the end of the book.

  26

  Mr Townsend

  MR TOWNSEND TOOK us in the third year. I fell in love the very first day in his class. He stood in front of the blackboard and wrote his name – L. R. Townsend – in beautiful chalk copperplate. L. R. We found out soon enough that these initials stood for Leonard Reginald, dreadful old-codger names, but nothing could make Mr Townsend seem ridiculous. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, but he was fit and muscular, with tanned skin and dark-blond curly hair, practically film-star looks, a world away from the usual musty male teacher model.

  He smiled at us all and sat on the edge of his desk.

  ‘Hello, everyone. I’m Mr Townsend. By the end of the day I hope I’ll know all your names.’

  We all sat up straight at our desks and smiled back at him.

  ‘Isn’t he lovely?’ Marion whispered.

  I sat next to her that year, though we didn’t really have much in common. Marion was a very blonde girl with a very pink face. She looked squeaky clean, as if she’d just had a good scrub in her bath. She was squeaky clean inside too. She went to church twice on Sundays, knew her Scripture off by heart and prayed to Jesus every night. Marion had a special smug holy expression when she said the word Jesus.

  I knew even on that first day that Marion and I weren’t always going to see eye to eye, but at least we were united in our love for Mr Townsend. There wasn’t a single child who didn’t adore him. The boys loved him because he was sporty. He still played for a good rugby team and he loved cricket and tennis. He encouraged the athletic boys and coached them enthusiastically, but he didn’t shout at the weedy ones who ran knock-kneed and couldn’t catch. He was gently sympathetic – but he was no easy pushover. He never let anyone take advantage of his good nature. He never caned any child. He didn’t need to. The girls loved him because he was so kind and caring and artistic too. He shyly showed us his watercolour sketchbook. We all tried hard to copy his delicate landscapes with the school primary colour poster paints.

  He taught us our lessons, fairly but firmly, but at play times he wasn’t just our teacher, he was our friend. He’d throw a ball about with the boys and ruffle their hair and pretend to bop them on the nose. He’d chat to the girls, treating us totally seriously. A little bunch of us would lean against him fondly. Marion once actually climbed on his knee. There was never anything odd or weird about Mr Townsend. We all knew adults who’d try to pat you or cuddle you too close. Mr Townsend was as kindly and gentle and safe as Santa Claus, though he didn’t have a silly beard or a habit of going ‘Ho ho ho!’

  I tried harder in his lessons than I ever had before, simply because I wanted to be top of his class. I didn’t have much chance because I was totally useless at arithmetic. I could add and subtract and multiply and divide accurately enough (though I frequently had to work it out on my fingers), but I couldn’t do problems. You know the sort of thing: If it takes six men ten days to dig a hole 30 feet by 60 feet how long will it take eight men? I couldn’t concentrate on the logistics. I made up the six men in my head and wondered why they were digging this hole of such huge dimensions. Was it the foundations of a house? A swimming pool? A grave for an elephant? What time in the morning did they start digging? Did they have breaks for a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich? Why were the two extra men brought into play? Were they reserve builders, like reserve players in a football match? I’d be off in a daydream and all the other children would be on question three already.

  Marion was good at arithmetic. It was her second-best subject (she shone at scripture). When we had an arithmetic test, I edged a little closer to her at our shared desk. She hunched over her page as she wrote down her sums, guarding her work with her hand, but as she turned the page, I could sometimes get a glimpse of her neat answers.

  She saw me writing down an answer at the end of my untidy workings out and frowned. ‘You copied that off me!’ she whispered.

  My mouth went dry. I suppose I had copied. Copycats were deeply despised.

  ‘No I didn’t,’ I said.

  ‘That’s a fib!’ said Marion.

  ‘No, I didn’t copy,