‘Disguised as a bit of a doormat, if we’re to believe his PR.’
‘But you agree with me?’
Gary nodded. ‘I agree with you. But Mike’s away till after half-term now, so it won’t be happening imminently.’
I had forgotten that the head teacher wasn’t going to be back till after the holiday. Something to do with budgets – it was invariably something to do with budgets. ‘Could we share our concerns with Don then?’
Gary nodded again. ‘Yes, we could. But I doubt it’ll make much difference, and, anyway, this isn’t life or death pressing. She’s safe with her grandparents, so she’s not in a situation of jeopardy, is she? And I’d rather wait and speak to Mike – formulate a considered plan of action, than start making waves that might forewarn this wicked stepmother of yours. And, to be honest, it’ll give you a chance to get a bit more out of Imogen – which, as we don’t have a great deal to go on, can’t hurt, can it? After all, if we’re going to make an allegation of abuse, we’re talking social workers, police, the whole kit and caboodle. So we need to be able to back up what we say.’ He drained his coffee. The man had a mouth made of asbestos. Which thought, given the situation, certainly felt apt.
Despite feeling I had Gary on board, I still returned to my classroom feeling disappointed. He was right, of course: Imogen clearly was safe with her grandparents, and perhaps that was part of some grand master plan anyway. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed perfectly plausible that Gerri, ostensibly so nice and so concerned, actually just wanted her new husband’s daughter out of the way.
But you couldn’t un-think bad thoughts and worrying disclosures. And it seemed to me that it was doubly important I try and get Imogen to tell me more – because if it was an unsubstantiated accusation it could very easily be deflected, and, more and more, my hunch was that she was telling the absolute truth; just the fact of how hard it had been for her to share what she had shared seemed to make it feel all the more likely.
But how to get her talking? As in really talking? That was the problem. And one that preoccupied me as I unlocked the door to my room, to find an icy blast whistling through it. I looked up – someone had left one of the top windows open. Probably the caretaker, for reasons I didn’t know. It needed shutting, however, because the weather had definitely taken on a wintry feel, so I climbed up onto an art unit and banged it shut again. As I did so, I heard a telltale rustle of paper, and turned around to see the rocket picture the kids had done a couple of weeks back had fallen to the floor, probably as a result of the sudden gust of air-flow. I climbed down and picked it up, and as I pinned it back to the wall I read some of the words on it – all the bad words we’d written and ‘sent’ off to space. All the bad words we didn’t want – and that’s when it hit me. My secrets box – why hadn’t I thought of that before?
Excited, I went round to my desk and squatted down behind it, rummaging through the top shelf – the place I last recalled seeing it. And that was where it was, too – I was nothing if not obsessively organised – a little scuffed in places, but perfectly serviceable as a postbox.
Which was what it was, being a cylinder of cardboard, painted red, with a slot in the side in which secrets could be posted. It was one of the first tools I’d used when I’d started the Unit. Back then, whenever a new child joined us, out it would come, as well as after every school holiday. I would always explain to the kids that, though it wasn’t healthy to carry secrets around with us, sometimes we were in situations when we had no choice. I’d then explain that sometimes sharing a secret might make us feel better about it, even if it was something really scary. I’d then given them the choice, if they had something to get off their chests, to share the secret by writing it down and posting it anonymously, in my box.
The deal was simple. I would read them and, depending on what they wanted, take action or just keep their secret safe with me. They also had the option of adding a name, if they wanted me to know who they were, and, if they felt they’d like to share it in person they could add that, and we could talk, confidentially.
It had been a while since I’d had the box out, which was the sort of thing that sometimes happened. Life was busy, and new strategies and ideas were always circulating, and it had been ages since I’d even given it any thought. And now I did, I remember there was another aspect to it – there’d been times when it would be routinely filled not so much with important secrets but with tittle-tattle – tale-telling like Jordan was smoking in the toilets, or I heard Mr Moore say ‘damn’ after assembly.
But today my box was going to be reinstated for a while, as for a child who had difficulty expressing her secrets via talking this was surely the perfect opportunity to write them down instead. And if it didn’t work – she might have decided she had shared too much already, anyway, mightn’t she? – well, I hadn’t lost anything, after all.
I got the children on the case right away, explaining that as we’d soon be breaking up for half-term it would be a good opportunity to share anything that was worrying them, rather than it festering away over the holidays. I tried not to focus my gaze on Imogen at any point, just had them gather paper and pens while I explained the principles for those who didn’t know them, which was most of them, and told them that while they were doing that I would sort out the materials for the morning’s activity, which would be to go out into the school grounds on a nature trail cum treasure hunt, looking for leaves and twigs and pine cones and anything else that looked interesting, in order to decorate the classroom for a late autumn display.
It was a popular choice of activity, and the day was perfect for it – bright and cold – and my news set the tone for what I hoped would be a less stressful day than previously. I was also pleased to see that everyone seemed keen to post something, Imogen very much included. Like the others, she had her head down and started scribbling away furiously, writing so much that when the time came to actually post what they’d written, she was the last of the children to come up. I feigned indifference as she posted her piece of paper in the box, folded into a tight, intriguing square. Would this be what we needed? I couldn’t wait to open it.
In the meantime, however, it was time to get outside and romp around the school grounds for a bit. I gave each child a plastic bag and we scoured the whole perimeter for goodies; as well as pine cones and acorns and berry-studded twigs, we were able to gather an impressive amount of conkers from the huge horse chestnut on the far edge of the field. It absorbed them for an hour or so, and then, once I felt we’d gathered enough, surprised them by shouting ‘Leaf fight!’ I then showered Henry and Molly, who were busy inspecting an empty bird’s eggshell they’d found, with an armful of dead leaves.
Within seconds, as I knew it would be, it was war. The kids delighted in throwing leaves at me and all over each other, and I was rather shame-faced as the caretaker stomped past us and tutted, making a mental note to assure him we’d sweep them all up again. And, as ever, we attracted a few disapproving looks from a few adjacent classroom windows, the noise we’d made bringing us to the attention of several teachers.
‘Okay, everyone,’ I said finally, stopping to catch my breath, ‘back inside for hot chocolate and marshmallows!’
Disapproval seemed to go with my job. I knew that my techniques had been the subject of heated classroom debate more than once, one line of thinking being that I was sending the wrong message. Behave yourself in school, so the argument ran, and your reward is simply work. Act like a prat, on the other hand, and look forward to skipping proper lessons and having fun. Most weren’t so simplistic – most of the teachers knew these kids and their challenges – but I knew the odd pocket of teachers who seemed to think that. And, actually, they couldn’t have been more wrong.
Yes, rewards played a big part in what I did, but that was an essential, because it was all about changing expectations. Most of the kids that were sent to me – particularly those affected by difficult home lives and behavioural issues – couldn’t cope long enough in mainstream classes to get rewarded for anything, and came from home environments where rewards were pretty thin on the ground too. Being in the Unit, for