“They went for you, I suppose.”
“Yes, but only after I had made my point, Mr Schuman.”
He looked at me and smiled.
“Welcome to the library anyway. Do you, by any extraordinary chance, like reading?”
“Not much.”
“Something?”
“Adventure?” I hazarded.
He looked disappointed but showed me to the relevant shelf. Much more to my interest was the number of teachers who entered the library, nodded at Schuman and then disappeared into a side room. This struck me as intriguing. I sidled over and Schuman followed.
“They’ve put me in charge of reprographics as well.”
“What’s that?”
He threw open the door to reveal a teacher about to kick the side of a large photocopier.
“Of course they don’t pay me any extra. I don’t complain because I haven’t a clue how it works – any more than he has!”
I wasn’t sure yet how I would make use of the library but I liked what I’d seen already. The buzzer sounded. Another jumbo wheeled off left as I headed to the next lesson.
Others flourished in different spheres. Michael scored an early success when the Music teacher gave him an hour, for gobbing into Razza’s cornet during ‘orchestra’.
“A hour? A hour? You can’t do that!”
“I can,” he said, uneasy with the challenge.
“Not without twenty-four hours’ notice you can’t. What if I’m not home when I’m expected? Eh?”
Michael has always been good on his rights and others’ wrongs.
“Your mother will be relieved.”
This teacher couldn’t even do sarcasm.
“Nah, nah, nah, that ain’t funny. You can’t do it, mister. Twenty minutes, innit, twenty minutes max or Denny’ll come and explain matters t’ya.”
There were other coups. Stacey Timms claimed to have done it in the toilets with a Year Nine protected by a salt and vinegar crisp bag. Razza, the son of the caretaker, told a teacher to kiss his arse. Clearly I was needed to raise the tone.
The following week the school secretary came to pull me out of a lively Music lesson.
“Sorry to, er, interrupt – but could I borrow Jack for a moment? There’s a visitor for him.”
I didn’t know what model I had demanded: anything so long as she was drop-head gorgeous and red. I wasn’t disappointed and, if my man was, he didn’t show it.
“Don’t worry, sir. You did write a remarkably good letter. Fooled us fair and square. This is the least we can do – and perhaps in a few years’ time our indulgence will pay off in terms of brand loyalty. The horn is in the usual place. One blast should do the trick.”
I climbed inside to hit the horn, which made such a very horny sound that the music-room windows filled with kids – and other windows too. After smearing the mahogany veneer with my sticky fingers, I got slowly back out, pacing around her and leaning into gales of envy. I shot a few questions at the man, cocking my head in interest at his replies. I took the odd note in my homework diary before languidly checking my phone for messages: too many to cope with now. Might have to get a school secretary myself.
I eased back inside and, to grateful cheers, sent the roof up and back, retracting sexily into its slot. I nodded to the school’s façade which now included a lifelike bust of Bumcheeks. The bust sprouted a quick finger and bellowed, “My study, now!”
“I have meant to make your acquaintance earlier, young man. Of course I have spoken to your mother once or twice. I spent a good deal of time at the start of the year apologising for you to the airport authority and now I dare say a car manufacturer will be in touch. This is not going to become a craze, do you understand?”
“Yes sir.” I knew Razza had written to a Chinese company about a clever-looking military vehicle which could fire bridges across raging rivers.
“And I think you would do well from now on to restrict your activities to the school. Stop getting muddled up with the outside world.”
“You mean lower my horizons, sir? I have always tried to aim high…”
“I mean, Jack Curling, focus your energies where they count, which is in the classroom.”
Before taking this advice, I couldn’t resist writing to the photocopier company and getting a manual which I learnt off by heart. Schuman was much impressed by my enlarging, my stapling and my shrinking. He gave me increasing access to what I now saw as key school power node.
“I’ve never really understood any of the buttons but you seem to realise it has been underachieving,” he moaned. “Like so much round here…”
There were delicious dividends. Teachers, stressed and confused, so often left behind on the glass what they had been copying. Salary statements, pages of their own boring stories, an invitation to a taster bell-ringing evening in Feltham. Nothing, however, on Miss Price, whom I was looking forward to introducing to Mum and Dad at parents’ evening.
The atmosphere was good. The teachers looked a bit knackered but the really mad kids never come to these dos, their madder folks refusing to be bollocked by smarmy young graduates – so there was little for anyone to worry about on such a beautiful sunny evening.
I had left Miss Price to last on the bookings sheet. I told Mum even as I saw the Science teacher setting out his table that he had said he was unable to make it.
“Family matters, I think.”
This avoided a difficult meeting for me and gave Dad the chance to moan about the school (“We’ve come all this way and he can’t be bothered to stay. Think of the holidays they all get…”) which improved his mood. History, Maths, English and ICT passed OK except Mum thought the English teacher was a bit snobby.
“Always were,” said Dad.
Bumcheeks breezed by and greeted us civilly which did no harm. Ronaldson let me down a little by saying I wasn’t trying hard enough and called me a “great asset”, which sounded rude. Miss Price alone remained, in the still sunny Modern Languages room.
“Hello, miss,” I beamed at her, eagerly pulling up a chair and letting Mum and Dad find their own. “How are you?”
“Fine, thank you, Jack. Hello, Mr Curling, Mrs Curling.” She’d done her research and knew there were no carers, guardians or steps for me.
“Really, I have nothing but praise for Jack. He has been a wonderful student all year and he has improved a great deal.”
“In what way, Miss Price? Can you give us some specifics?”
She looked at Dad and entered into some curriculum detail and the way I’d been handling it.
“… Furthermore he has also been a tremendous help to other less talented students in class, especially in group work. He’s even helped with some of their homework.”
“I can’t see what good can come of that,” sniffed Dad. “That was called plain cheating in my day.”
But he and I both knew Mum would love it. She squeezed my shoulder.
“It’s really nice to hear about you helping – poor Michael, was it?”
I