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After that, the public library became my refuge. I worked in the repairs room, spent my days fixing broken spines and wrapping books in protective wrap. Solitude stopped being satisfying when I began feeling like I was wasting my brain. After all, I had a qualification and I knew I was a good teacher. What good was my university tuition debt when I was spending my days gluing books back together instead of teaching? I soon yearned to get back into a classroom, and this role popped up at the perfect time. Getting that phone call from Phillip had been one of the rare fist-pumping moments in the last twelve months.
Tucked away in the belly of the not-quite-Pentagon, with a door that linked to the staffroom, my new library smelled of tannins, vanilla, and dry-cleaned carpet. A small courtyard at the rear of the space still looked like an upscaled terrarium. Wisps of rubbish and overgrown weeds spun about in the warm wind like a bite-sized tornado.
Stacks I used to hide between stood solid like tin soldiers, now with a comforting beanbag at the end of each aisle. I not so silently wished we’d had them during my time; they would have made lunchtimes in the library much more fun.
Penny nattered excitedly as she unlocked the door to my office, a glass-fronted room tucked in the front corner of the library. It looked like the aftermath of an evacuation. Books were strewn across benches, blue and yellow streamers hung from the roof, and random football-themed drawings were tacked to the windows. My attention kept floating back to a caricature of a dark-haired footballer holding a trophy aloft.
‘I guess someone was in a hurry,’ I mumbled.
‘You’ve got no idea.’ The right corner of Penny’s mouth twitched into a smile.
I ran my finger along the spines of DVDs, in numbers heavy enough to cause sagging in the shelves against the wall. An empty table with a large roll of book covering held in place on a dispenser sat under the window. The old workbench brought back memories of lunchtime chats with Mrs Coates. Often, our debates descended into discourse over which Roald Dahl book was the best.
I never did understand her adoration of Royal Jelly until I was an adult. Sick, sick woman. I tossed my handbag under the bench, thrust my hands against my hips, and tried to take in this adult version of a childhood memory.
‘What do you think?’ Penny asked.
‘It’s a little surreal, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘We couldn’t wait to get out of here as kids.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she chuckled. ‘And for someone who was so desperate to get out of here, you spent a lot of time in detention.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘That’s the best you can do?’
It wasn’t my fault I kept scoring higher than Jarrod Sims on maths tests. For so long, he’d been ego-stroked into believing he was some sort of Pythagorean prodigy. When we ended up in the same class, it was a constant tussle every time he took offence. It made my last year of primary school interesting. It became even more tangled when he developed a crush on me in high school.
‘Anyway, time for me to play fairy godmother.’ Penny tapped my shoulder with a ruler. ‘Come, sweet summer child, let’s go make some new friends.’
Chapter 3 (#ulink_143921d6-9ebe-585c-996e-cf65ae072f3a)
A tiny cheer rose from the sofa by the window as we entered the staffroom. Four women, all squeezed up against each other and inspecting phones, leapt to their feet like a choreographed greeting party.
‘Please tell me this is Ellie!’ A magazine-thin brunette pushed herself up out of the depths of the sofa and crossed the floor in loud heels.
‘This is she.’ Penny waved her arms about like a game show host. ‘Ellie, these ladies form the bulk of our junior class teachers. This is Grace, and we’ve got Emma, Gemma, and Jemima.’
They almost sounded like an Austen novel. I did my best impression of someone who knew what they were doing, stepped forward, and made my way along the couch, shaking hands and uttering greetings.
‘What’s happening on the sofa this morning?’ Penny asked.
‘The usual.’ Emma used a sole fingernail to tuck a lock of platinum blonde hair behind her ear, her mouth last seen on the back end of our neighbour’s cat. I’d seen that face before on numerous GIFs. ‘Just looking at You Know Whose Facebook, ogling football photos, the usual.’
‘Who what now?’ I looked between the two of them. Then again, did I really want to know?
‘I’ll explain later. We’re on a whirlwind tour of the isles. Bye, ladies.’ Penny grabbed me by the elbow and dragged me in the opposite direction. ‘They’re lovely girls, they really are, but their thirst is real, and their class is sometimes not. Come on, let’s go meet some more people.’
‘Who were they talking about?’ I whispered.
‘You’ll see,’ she muttered, tugging harder.
Where I thought I was going to hide in a corner – I even had a spot picked out at the corner table – Penny made like the amazingly sociable, bubbly person she is and introduced me to anyone she could get a word in with, pushing into twosomes and creating threesomes. With each new conversation, she remembered to include a helpful Brief History of Eleanor. Eleanor is a past pupil, she studied teaching and computing in Melbourne, and has recently returned home. She enjoys knitting, long walks on the beach and world peace, and she once played in an orchestra. Oh, and she’s my cousin. Ask her about the time I broke her arm.
I was both delighted and put at ease by the conversations this started. And the broken arm story was accurate. I was fourteen, and she was trying to demonstrate her best karate chop. With a stick. In hindsight, it may have been the offcut of a railway sleeper. Snapped that bone right in two, she did.
First lesson of the day: I could learn a thing or two from Penny about simply getting out there and being the life of the party. Whatever that special something was, she had it in overflowing buckets and then some.
Phil was busy in conversation with someone else, his bald head gleaming under artificial light, shining eyes lined in laughter. Others milled around and took their spots, echoes of tired greetings and holiday stories repeated ad nauseum while they waited. Eventually, somewhere around the sounding of the first morning bell, we all came to rest in seats and on table edges in some late-thirties game of musical chairs.
‘And a very good morning to my favourite team.’ Phil clapped his hands together, the only person ecstatic about the end of holidays. ‘Welcome back, commiserations if your chosen team lost the Grand Final, and all that buzz. We have one day before the onslaught of final term begins, so I guess it’s heads down today as we prep lesson plans.’
The room was so quiet you could hear stomachs rumble and coffees slurp. The Zip instant boil clung to the wall and sighed as the tank refilled.
‘Look at all that enthusiasm. It’s not that bad, we’ve got a curriculum, we know what to do. We’ve walked this path before.’ He glanced over as the door adjoining my library opened, and three men wandered in confidently late. Leading the pack was an irritatingly handsome man. He was far too attractive to be relegated to a classroom all day.
Around me, women sat up straighter. The mystery of who ‘You Know Who’ was had been solved.
Phil clapped his hands together. ‘Marcus, good afternoon, thank you ever so much for joining us.’
Marcus, who was met by a round of applause, bowed and made a beeline for caffeine.
‘It’s lovely to see you’re still raising our dress standards single-handedly after such a stellar performance on the football field. Well done on the trophy.’
‘I do my very best.’ He pressed his hand to his chest and took a sip of his coffee. He winced and stuck his tongue out in disgust. Yes, the coffee really was that bad.
The high-pitched wheezing I could hear was either the women at my table, gearing up like pressure cookers at a potluck, or the sound of the local fire station calling for help. Marcus, with his navy suit jacket stretched tight across his shoulders, looked like he’d leapt from the pages of GQ in a scene reminiscent of an old A-ha video clip, cuffs ready for shooting and shoes so polished I was surprised we couldn’t see up his inside leg. Not that that would be entirely offensive, it had been a while, and I was running out of options. Either that, or he was one Jimmy Olsen away from writing for the local paper.
He was beautiful in a way that was not possible. At least, not by any of the standards set by my life experiences. He was tall, so much so that most could use him as a maypole and still slip under his arm with room to spare, and I was sure I could stack bricks on those shoulders. Brown hair and bottle-green eyes were accentuated with laugh lines that he wore like some men wore suits – perfectly charming and wonderfully naturally. The glint in his eyes, and the squared-out shoulders told me he knew this, too.
‘And good morning to you,’ Penny mumbled beside me. I held my mug to my mouth in the hope it hid my laughter.
It didn’t.
Scanning the room looking for a place to land, Marcus turned, and offered a tight smile to our table. There was a mouthed greeting mixed somewhere in there, but I couldn’t quite make it out. I made the broad assumption it was aimed at everyone, and not solely at me, because we did not know each other from a bar of soap, and I bet he used expensive soap. It probably also smelled of fresh pine forest and sex. Really, really good sex. He and his two accomplices took the empty seats at the end of our table.
‘And before I forget, I want you all to welcome Eleanor Manning to the team.’ Phil recaptured my attention, imaginary spotlight burning up my face. What’s behind door number two? The new girl! As much as I expected it, warmth still pooled in my cheeks and my skirt ruffled up my thighs as I slipped a little further down into my chair. ‘Ellie is taking over from Cathy in the library who, as you’ll remember, took off like a bat out of hell at the end of last term. Ellie is making me feel incredibly prehistoric today, as I was her principal when she was a student here.’
Was that the sound of surprised gasping? It may well have been.
‘And, boy, do I have some stories,’ Phil chuckled.
‘Please don’t,’ I laughed, hiding my face behind my hands.
‘No, I won’t do that to you today. The Christmas party will be here soon enough.’ He smiled softly. ‘It’s good to have you back, Ellie. But, speaking of Cathy, has anyone heard from her?’
‘Currently sipping cocktails in the Bahamas,’ came a chirpy voice somewhere to our left.
‘Half her luck.’ Phil made a point of rolling his eyes. ‘The most I could manage was a glass of Passiona by the swimming pool after the Grand Final. Even had a little purple umbrella. Anyway, please give Ellie the support she needs as she settles in.’
I gave a quick wave and looked out at a crowd of expecting faces. On first inspection, they looked mostly bored. A few people were checking phones, and Penny was picking at muck under her cadmium-yellow fingernails. Marcus continued to peer into his coffee cup, as if its murky contents could read his fortune. Then again, it was a stroke of fortune to drink the coffee supplied and not die, so maybe he was on to something.
So far, so good.
When the meeting was over, I scuttled for my office, avoiding getting caught up in too much chatter. I was full of the type of nervous energy that either propelled you forward or paralysed you if you thought about it too much. I wanted to get moving before it turned into the latter.
Returning to primary school all these years later, it was an Alice in Wonderland moment to realise how small the furniture looked. Chairs that once felt like thrones now barely grazed my knees. My eyes caught spines of books I recognised and, besides the occasional hello from teachers who used the library as a thoroughfare, it was quiet and calm. It felt right; peaceful, even.
I switched on the office light, felt around the computer for the on switch, and wondered exactly where the hell I was supposed to begin. It was all well and good to have the lofty notion of returning to the classroom until I had to actually do some work. The not knowing was no better than bobbing about at sea, life jacket on, but nothing in sight but bright blue horizon.
‘How are you feeling? Ready?’ Phil appeared in the doorway, a bunch of well-worn clipboards clasped to his chest.
I took a deep breath, and felt a quiver climbing my spine again. ‘I think so? I was just planning on cleaning a bit before I got stuck into things.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that. Cath was feverishly excited about getting out of here. I hoped she might stay until the end of the year for handover, but nothing was convincing her.’ His eyes scanned the room quickly. ‘No idea why.’ He winked. ‘Now, we don’t have your password yet. Matt in IT will get you sorted at some stage today, so let’s get you introduced to everyone while we wait. Thankfully, Cath was a dab hand at record-keeping, so you should be able to check back through her stuff and work it all out easily. She’s organised everything for the Book Fair. I think that’s the only big thing on your calendar. All you’ll need to do is take delivery of the books and sort the displays out … oh, and deal with the mess on the day.’
To be fair, if I were Cathy, I’d take the tropical holiday over teaching the new girl, too. One of the positives of my redundancy was escaping that responsibility of handover altogether. I was out the front door so quickly I only had time to collect a few scant personal belongings and my coffee cup. It looked like Cathy had the same idea. Clever girl.
Phil and I had been in contact in the last few weeks, emails pinging back and forth, as he detailed the first few weeks of term, so I felt confident I wasn’t completely in the deep end. I’d done the teaching gig before. Hopefully everyone’s bike-riding metaphor was right, otherwise I’d be heading straight into a prickly bush of mistakes and mayhem.
Those exchanges pulled back the curtain of the theatre production. As a student, you don’t think of nearly half the things that need to happen in the education system. You see work and deadlines, but you don’t see the jigsaw puzzle of trying to get all your ducks in a row, teaching what needs to be taught, while still maintaining some semblance of fun. It was a challenge, but one that I’d always loved.
With blank paper, a pen, a heart full of hope, and a bladder full of coffee, I followed Phil down hallways, where we mused over murals, both the old and new, and reminisced over my years as a pupil. Things were simpler then, he explained, easier to handle with what felt like less rules and red tape.
We slipped into each of the classrooms, shook hands and mingled, until I had met almost everyone I could. Random jottings quickly filled my notepad, requests for films, documentaries, books, and stationery orders. Despite my brain feeling a little bogged down by the unrelenting pace, it was great to be useful again.
‘Ruddy hell, Ellie Manning!’
Our final stop for the day was the Grade Six block, where I froze at the sight of a familiar face. ‘Mick?’
Michael Buckley was arguably the best teacher I ever had. Big call considering the number of classes I’d taken in my time. In my final year of primary school, he was maths mad and perpetually grumpy, but made all of us feel important. Often, he would stay late to chat with someone who was slower to leave class or looking a little more anxious than usual. At one point, he called my dad to voice his concerns that I was ‘less rambunctious than usual’.
As it turned out, having a cold would do that to me.
I peered around my old classroom in amazement as he urged me to follow him. Tables and chairs formed a ring in the centre of the room. Thoughts and plans had been scribbled on the whiteboard and crossed out again. Last term’s artwork dangled from ceiling tiles and clung to windows.
Phil took his leave as we sat on the ledge of a table facing the centre of the room. I was more than capable, he reasoned, and I didn’t disagree. Mick was a familiar face. I had this.
‘What on earth possessed you to come back here?’ he asked. ‘Returning for family?’
‘I heard you still made a great coffee,’ I teased. I don’t know that I’d ever seen him without a coffee cup in hand, either. ‘Plus, I thought you could do with checking in on.’
‘See, the coffee has fallen to Marcus now.’
‘Ah.’ I turned towards where Mick’s attention was held at the back of the room, three men scuttling at the realisation they’d been caught spying. It was a Monty Python sketch as they bumped, shuffled, and passed paperwork to each other like synchronised jugglers. Marcus crossed the glass-windowed office, mug to his mouth and watching from the corner of his eye. Busted.
‘Clowns, the lot of them,’ Mick said quietly. ‘And, if I point at them just so, they’ll think I’m talking about them. Egotistical little shits.’
I pulled the folder up over my face and laughed loud and free.
‘I’m sorry I missed the meeting this morning.’ Mick elbowed me gently. ‘I saw your name on the roster but wasn’t sure if it was you, or if someone by the same name just felt like orbiting the area for a while.’
‘Surprise.’ I grinned, throwing my arms out like P. T. Barnum on a slow morning, then scrambling to pick up a packet of crayons that tumbled from my hands and scattered to the winds. ‘How have you been?’
Mick gave a small shrug. ‘You know, just slogging around here, keeping kids out of trouble.’ He slipped from the table and nodded towards the office. ‘Speaking of trouble, come with me.’
I followed him into the small office, which looked like it had been used by the same four men for a few years. It had that old, comfortable look and smell that screamed ‘Keep Out: Boys Only’. Desks were well settled into, a coffee machine had its own small altar in the corner, and family photos lined desks and noticeboards.
‘Ellie, these gentlemen here – and I use the term ‘gentlemen’ loosely – are Tony, Roger, and Marcus.’
‘Hello.’ I gave a tiny wave at the three smiling faces, all seated around one desk in the middle of the room. One by one, they stood, introduced themselves again, and shook my hand. Roger was quick and jangly, much like his bony arms. Tony was limp and damp and looked like he needed to pat down his forehead with a handkerchief before heading back into battle. Marcus, despite being warm and solid, left me with the distinct impression I was being sized up. Did everything have to be a competition? I avoided his continued gaze and turned my attention at the others. ‘I’m just here to meet and greet and take requests.’
‘Kicking ass and taking names,’ Tony tittered.
‘Bingo.’ I set my belongings on the table and watched as they shuffled through papers and pulled out ready-made lists. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d stocked up on requests in anticipation of slipping things past the new girl.
‘How has today been for you?’ Mick glanced up from his seat.
‘I’m … yeah, just taking it all in again.’ I pushed myself up on the balls of my feet. ‘It’s making me vastly aware of the years that have passed, and I’m suddenly feeling rather … inferior.’
‘Try being me,’ he joked. ‘Not only is my past coming back to haunt me in the form of you, but Jack is now teaching here.’
‘No,’ I laughed. ‘He is? I don’t think I’ve met him today. I’ll have to go and find him.’
‘He is.’ He nodded. ‘He was probably in the meeting this morning. You’ll find him down in the music hut cultivating his beard and apparently fashionable man-bun. God knows it’s a mess, and his mother hates it, but you can’t tell him these things.’
I snorted. The last thing I’d have pictured him with was a beard. Jack would come in and help Mick on his days off school. As a teenager, helping involved not a lot more than supervising some quiet reading time, or re-enacting a Shakespearean scene to give Mick another ten minutes on lunch break. He was quite the rock star to the small handful of pre-pubescent girls in our class. I wondered if Mick ever understood that. Probably. It’s not as if twelve-year-old girls were renowned for their subtlety, after all.
‘I’ll make sure to tell him you’re here. He’d probably be keen for a catch-up.’
‘If he remembers me,’ I noted, looking around the table. ‘Now, does anyone need anything else from me?’
Silence. One by one, they shook their heads in turn. Only the scrawled lists I’d been given? Nothing more than pencils and glue? Good.
‘No … oh, wait. Yes.’ Marcus peered up at me, brow knitted. ‘I’d like to change my library session. I want a morning, preferably Monday. Could you make sure that happens?’
I blinked twice and stared hard at he who would be Clark Kent. ‘No.’
‘No? Is there a reason for the no?’ He rested his chin in the palm of his hand. I’ll bet that look worked on all the ladies.
‘I’ve been here not quite a day, and I have zero desire to turn this place into a snow globe just yet. I would like the opportunity and support of my colleagues as I settle in. I’m sure at the start of the new year, we’ll look at changing time slots.’
Tony snorted, then hid his mouth behind his hand quickly. My heart gave a bass drum thud, and annoyance prickled at the back of my eyes.
‘I’d really love a morning session though. Do you think you could get another class to shift?’ Marcus pressed on. It didn’t at all surprise me that he didn’t understand the word ‘no’.
‘You can try if you want, see if someone wants to swap,’ I said.
The office was so quiet you could hear my heart using my ribs as a xylophone if you concentrated hard enough. Please, do not put me in this situation, I thought. Not on day one. Yet, there was always one, wasn’t there?
‘Could you? Please?’ he asked. ‘I’ll be so busy with curriculum all day. It’s not like it’s a difficult request.’
