The Little Snake. A.L. Kennedy

the interesting air very quickly, because it had so much to tell him. Several teachers looked straight at Lanmo, but because a small girl never does have a golden snake calmly reclining on her satchel they assumed that they were looking at a strange kind of handle, or that their glasses were dirty, or that they were mistaken. None of the children spotted the snake, because they were busy with each other and, as usual, had no time for Mary.

      While Mary sat in a number of classrooms and learned about the colours of money and the lengths of different silences and the average weights of heights, the snake nipped and slipped from classroom to classroom and explored.

      The snake found the school very odd. In one room the teacher was telling the class, ‘You will see on the board all of the answers for today’s National Test. You will spend this period copying down the answers on to your National Test Papers. If you have copied down the answers correctly you will then be clever enough to take next week’s National Test.’

      A small boy with ginger hair who sat at the back of the classroom put up his hand and asked, ‘But shouldn’t we be learning things like why the wind blows and which way is up and how to tie our shoe-laces and what is love?’

      ‘No,’ said the teacher. ‘We should be proving that we are clever so that the National Test Assessors can assess us, and when we have been assessed we can move on to our next assessment.’

      The small boy with ginger hair – his name was Paul – then asked, ‘Why is there a golden snake lying along the front of your desk pretending to be a ruler?’

      It’s true, our friend Lanmo was lying very still on the teacher’s desk so that he could listen and find out how humans taught their young without the help of educational eggs.

      The teacher looked at her desk and, of course, could not see the wonderful snake, because wonderful snakes are not permitted on desks and do not form any part of National Tests and are therefore invisible. She was, however, puzzled and quiet for a moment and had a chilly feeling in the pit of her stomach.

      While the teacher felt uneasy, the snake raised his slender and perfect head and looked directly at Paul.

      Paul gazed back into those two tiny eyes, red as bravery and sunsets, and deep as chasms. The boy felt his heart beating flipperty-pipperty in his chest and understood – because he was an extremely sensible boy – that something remarkable was happening, something educational, something he would have to remember.