Live And Learn
HISTORICAL SHORT STORY BY ALISON WASSELL
1950s: My teaching skills were often pushed to the limit by Stanley, so very different from his twin…
“Miss! Stanley’s up the tree and he can’t get down!” Oh, dear. This was not the ideal way to begin the week.
I followed the small messenger out to the front of the school, where the oak tree had stood for hundreds of years.
No child, to my knowledge, had ever before become stuck in it. But then there had probably never been a child quite like Stanley.
By the time I arrived, impeded slightly by the high heels I had recently purchased in the hope of giving myself a bit more authority, a crowd had gathered.
Most of the children were cheering and laughing, but Stanley’s twin sister, Sally, stood looking up into the tree with her hands on her hips, giving him a good telling-off.
“How on earth has he managed to get so high?” Alan Richardson, my colleague, appeared at my side.
I didn’t share his surprise, having watched Stanley navigate the gym equipment.
The only puzzling thing was why he was unable to get down.
“My foot’s stuck, miss,” Stanley shouted, and I saw that it was indeed wedged between two branches.
“Someone will have to climb up to dislodge it,” Alan, who had a habit of stating the obvious, observed.
I started to take my shoes off, but he had already given his jacket to a child to hold.
“You’re not exactly dressed for climbing trees,” he pointed out, looking down at my pencil skirt.
I had to concede that he had a point.
Once his foot was released, Stanley had no problem coming down from the tree.
He received a round of applause, as did Alan, who landed somewhat less elegantly.
“Thanks, sir. I thought I would be stuck up there all day!” Stanley grinned.
The bell rang and we shepherded the children into school, thankful that the head teacher, Miss Ingram, was out for the morning.
As the children went to their seats, someone tugged on my cardigan.
“Mum sent this, Miss Taylor.”
Jennifer Murray offered me an envelope with my name written on it in an elegant script.
My heart sank.
Only last week I had reassured Mrs Murray that, despite being far ahead of her classmates, Jennifer was being set appropriately challenging work.
I had no time to read this new missive now, so I shoved it into my desk drawer.
I did my best to explain the intricacies of long multiplication, but the class’s attention was elsewhere.
Stanley was revelling in the limelight, and I heard him whispering to his neighbour that next time he would climb right to the top of the tree.
Putting down my chalk, I reminded everyone, in my sternest voice, that climbing the oak tree was strictly forbidden.
I warned them that dire consequences awaited anyone who dared to do so.
Did you see how high I climbed, though, miss?
Stanley called out.
Eventually I achieved some semblance of order, but the children were still fidgety.
Only Sally and Jennifer were completely focused on their calculations.
I remembered the envelope in my drawer and wondered once again what it contained.
I was on playground duty.
It passed uneventfully, apart from an unfortunate incident when Stanley insisted, despite the absence of a football, on re-enacting the role of his hero Stanley Matthews in last year’s FA Cup Final.
He accidently knocked over a group of infants, so I sent him to stand by the wall to calm down.
It was lunchtime before I finally had time to open the envelope.
I could almost hear Mrs Murray’s imperious tones.
Jennifer informs me that you have asked her to help the new girl, Sally, to settle in.
This seems to be having a detrimental effect on her at home.
She has been impudent on several occasions and her speech has become quite slovenly.
I can only conclude that this is a result of Sally’s influence.
There was more, but I couldn’t bear to read it.
I put the letter back in my drawer and slammed it shut.
Needing to vent my anger, I picked up the board duster and gave the board a vigorous clean, realising too late that I had erased the questions for this afternoon’s geography lesson.
I sat down at my desk and put my head in my hands.
“Cheer up,” Alan said, barging in without knocking and setting down two bowls of sponge and custard.
He was a favourite with the kitchen staff, who often favoured him with leftovers.
We ate in silence for a few minutes, but even my favourite school pudding couldn’t lift my spirits.
In need of a sympathetic ear, I showed Alan the letter.
He laughed out loud when he saw who the sender was.
His father was a vicar, and Mrs Murray, it turned out, was one of his parishioners.
“She runs a women’s group called the Helping Hands,” Alan informed me.
“Everyone’s terrified of her, even Dad.
She’s a bit of a snob, but she has a good heart.
I went over to the window.
Outside, Sally was teaching Jennifer to skip.
“I can’t split them up, Alan. Jennifer’s a different child since I paired her up with Sally, but not in the way Mrs Murray means.
“I’ve never seen her so happy, and her work has come on, too.
“There’s far more spark in her creative writing, and I’m sure that’s down to Sally,” I finished.
It was true. Before Sally’s arrival a month ago I had been worried about Jennifer, who was something of an outsider.
While most of my nine- and ten-year-olds walked to school, she arrived in her father’s car.
She didn’t mix much, despite the other children’s attempts to include her in their games.
When Sally had joined the class, something magical happened.
Within days it was as though the two of them had been friends for years.
Outwardly, they could not have been more different.
Jennifer was always immaculately dressed, her tidy plaits secured with ribbons, but Sally wore grey socks, faded cotton dresses and cardigans with holes in the elbows.
She wore her hair untidily tied back with an elastic band.
What the girls shared was a love of learning, and they brought out the best in each other.
Jennifer was good at keeping Sally focused on the task in hand, when otherwise her lively, butterfly mind might have fluttered off in a hundred different directions.
Sally, in turn, encouraged Jennifer to try new things – even those she feared she might fail at, like skipping.
Alan joined me at the window, and we watched as Jennifer got tangled in the skipping rope and Sally patiently untangled her and urged her to try again.
“You do realise, Brenda, that if you don’t do as Mrs Murray wants she’ll go to Mrs Ingram?” Alan remarked.
He was right, of course, but his words made me angry.
“Then I will go to her, too, and tell her what a big mistake it would be to separate them,” I retorted.
Alan smiled.
“Good for you,” he said, gathering up our empty bowls to return them to the kitchen.
“Miss, Stanley’s tied my shoelaces together and I can’t untie them!”
“Miss, Stanley’s got his finger stuck in the inkwell!”
“Miss, Stanley’s made a paper aeroplane out of his tracing paper!”
Not for the first time, I wondered if Stanley and Sally were really related.
Stanley was inattentive and intent upon causing mischief and mayhem.
He had the same bright, inquisitive eyes as Sally and was clearly not lacking in intelligence, but since joining the class he had failed to complete a single piece of work.
It was a constant battle to keep him in his seat.
“He’s more work than the rest of the children put together,” I told Mum and Dad, collapsing into an armchair.
My parents had begun to look forward to my tales of Stanley’s exploits, and Dad roared with laughter when I told him about the tree climbing, despite my protestations that it was no laughing matter.
“He’s just a young lad, doing what young lads do,” Dad insisted, and Mum reminded me that I’d got into more than my fair share of scrapes as a child.
“I remember being called in to see the head once when your shoe ended up on the canteen roof,” she told me.
Mum had made my favourite, cottage pie, and as we ate I grumbled about Mrs Murray.
“The trouble is, she’s desperate for Jennifer to do well and go to university, and she thinks that being friends with someone not as well off will stop her doing that. It’s ridiculous.”
Mum had a knack of being able to see both sides in most situations.
“Don’t be so hard on her, Brenda.
“She wants the best for her daughter, just like your father and I did.”
She squeezed my hand.
“You’ll work it out, love,” she added, and I was determined that I would.
“Stan has a dreadful cold, miss. His nose is bright red like Rudolph’s.”
Sally went into some detail explaining her brother’s absence, but I wasn’t convinced.
Stanley had seemed perfectly well the day before, and there was something shifty about Sally’s demeanour, her eyes flitting around the room rather than meeting my gaze.
Alan didn’t take my concern as seriously as I would have liked when I told him at playtime.
“He’s probably gone on an adventure.
“When I was his age I told Mum I needed sandwiches for a nature walk and took myself off fishing.
“At least, I tried to.
“A neighbour saw me walking down the street with my rod and told Mum.
“I was in school by half-past nine.”
I had to laugh. Alan’s mum had regaled me with similar tales of his boyhood misdemeanours at the Christmas fayre.
At least the classroom was peaceful without Stanley’s disruptions, which was a relief when Miss Ingram paid an unexpected visit.
“Carry on with your work, I’m making an inventory of maths equipment,” she explained, as the children rose to their feet.
I wasn’t fooled. It was obvious that she was observing the class and, in particular, Jennifer and Sally.
I had been reading “The Borrowers” to the class, and that morning everyone was busy dramatising scenes from the novel.
Eager to prove a point to Miss Ingram, whether she wanted me to or not, I chose the girls to act their little play out at the end of the lesson.
They did not disappoint me.
Jennifer made a wonderfully animated and curious Arrietty, eager to learn about the Big People, while Sally, a born actress, excelled as her long-suffering mother Homily.
They were rewarded with a round of applause with which Miss Ingram enthusiastically joined in.
“I’ve had a visit from Mrs Murray,” she told me when the children had gone to lunch.
The words had hardly left her mouth before I was off, listing all the reasons for not splitting the girls up.
I realised I was babbling, but I didn’t care.
Miss Ingram held up her hand for silence, as though I were one of her pupils.
“I completely agree with you, and I shall say as much to Mrs Murray.
“It would have been helpful, however, if you’d told me about her letter yourself.”
I tried to look suitably chastised, but I was delighted. This was the best I could have hoped for.
However, I was still worried about Stanley.
“Hopefully he’ll be back tomorrow,” I told Mum and Dad that evening, when they expressed disappointment at there being no new instalment of the exploits of Stanley.
“He’s covered in great big spots, miss, and they’re itching like mad.
“It’s catching. Mum says nobody must come to the house.”
This time I was sure Sally wasn’t telling the truth, so at playtime I kept her behind.
When I tackled her, she began to cry.
“If I tell you, miss, do you promise Stanley won’t get into trouble?”
I was furious, but managed to stay calm until lunchtime when I found Alan in the hall, practising his piano playing.
I’m going round to the house right now. What kind of mother keeps a child off school to look after a toddler?
I couldn’t understand how Alan could answer so calmly.
“Maybe the kind who has just moved to a new area, doesn’t know anyone who can help, and is too ill to do it herself.”
He sounded just like Mum. Perhaps he was right.
Even so, I was determined to go to the house.
Against his better judgement, Alan agreed to come.
“What do you know about the family?” he asked as we neared the house.
“Not much. The twins’ father passed away last year.
“Their old house was in a slum clearance area and the children had to move schools when they were rehoused.
“I’ve never met Mrs Jenkins.”
It took Stanley a long time to answer the door, and when he did he looked so terrified that my heart went out to him.
“Where’s your manners, Stan? Invite them in,” a weak voice called.
Stanley reluctantly stood back to let us in.
Mrs Jenkins was propped up on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket. She looked deathly pale.
“I’ll be back on my feet tomorrow,” she assured us, although, listening to her wheezing chest, I thought this was unlikely.
Stanley expertly helped his little brother put on a jumper and ushered him into the kitchen, promising to make him a sandwich.
Alan followed them in there and I could hear his gentle voice explaining that we had come to see if we could help.
I’d intended to give Mrs Jenkins a lecture on the importance of education before marching Stanley back to school, but I could see now that she was in no condition to be left alone to care for a small child.
“I don’t want you thinking I make a habit of this, Miss Taylor,” Mrs Jenkins told me.
“I know how much schooling matters, but I’ve been so poorly these last few days.
“I didn’t know what else to do. I’ve no family round here, and the lady next door is in her nineties.”
My anger evaporated and I patted her arm, feeling helpless.
“Don’t worry. We’ll work something out,” I promised, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt.
Alan returned with a cup of tea for Mrs Jenkins.
“We’d better be off if we want to get back to school before the bell,” he reminded me.
“What on earth are we going to do?” I asked, struggling to keep up with Alan.
He gave me a massive grin.
“I’ve had a brainwave. I’ll get Dad to mobilise Mrs Murray and the Helping Hands.”
After school, he explained his plan.
“The ladies will be only too willing to help. I promise you, Mrs Murray will have a rota worked out by tomorrow morning.”
I was doubtful.
“Mrs Jenkins strikes me as a proud woman. I’m not sure she’ll be keen on accepting help from strangers,” I told him.
I thought Alan’s smile couldn’t get any wider, but I was wrong.
“Just trust me,” he said.
In the absence of a better plan, I knew I would have to.
“We’ve had a ride in a posh motor car!” Stanley boasted, back to his cheery self, when he and Sally were dropped off at school by Jennifer’s father the next morning.
He could talk about nothing else all day, and I spotted him at lunchtime, careering round the playground clutching an imaginary steering wheel and honking a make-believe horn.
His face fell at home time, when I announced I would be walking home with him and his sister.
I had picked some flowers from my garden, and Mum had insisted on making one of her cakes and sending some old magazines for Mrs Jenkins.
To my relief, we found her looking much better, sitting on the sofa with Mrs Murray as though they were old friends.
“Mrs Jenkins and I are kindred spirits,” Mrs Murray informed me, all her reservations and prejudices seemingly forgotten.
“We’ve been having a lovely chat.
“She’s going to join the Helping Hands once she’s fit and well.”
“So all’s well that ends well,” Alan remarked, perhaps a little smugly, when I admitted that perhaps the woman wasn’t so bad after all.
And everything had, almost, turned out well, apart from both of us receiving a ticking-off from Miss Ingram for taking matters into our own hands.
“However, I can’t fault your dedication to the children,” she had said with a smile, which had taken the sting out of it.
One thing still preyed on my mind.
“Alan, why do you suppose it was Stanley who stayed at home, and not Sally?” I asked.
Alan began to laugh.
“Well, you’re the one who’s always saying domestic chores aren’t just for women,” he joked.
Then his face grew serious.
“Actually, I asked him that yesterday.
“He said it was more important for Sally to go to school because she wants to be a teacher.
“His last teacher told him he’d never amount to anything, and he believed her.
“He thought it wouldn’t make much difference if he missed a few lessons.”
My eyes filled with tears and Alan passed me his handkerchief.
“We still have a lot of work to do with that young man,” he said, as I blew my nose.
Looking at his kind face, I remembered why, despite his relentless, occasionally irritating cheerfulness, I liked him so much.
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