Anne Fine - Saving Miss Mirabelle

1 In which we are introduced to Lancelot, Miss Mirabelle and Flossie the cow

2 In which Miss Mirabelle tells a Giant Whopper

3 In which the terrible, terrible secret hangs heavily over all

4 In which Mrs Spicer sees a great improvement all round, and is delighted

5 In which Lance’s granny is totally disgusted

6 In which we all watch dear Flossie save the day

Lance sat on the wooden fence that ran round the meadow, watching the cows and worrying as usual about his teacher, Miss Mirabelle. Two feet away, Flossie his favourite burped gently, flicked her long raggedy tail, and watched him anxiously.

‘It’s no good, Flossie,’ said Lance. ‘Things aren’t getting better. They are getting worse .’

Flossie shook her big heavy head and looked, if possible, even more anxious than before.

‘If she’s not careful,’ Lance warned, ‘she’s going to lose her job. She’ll get the sack. Why, she spent almost half an hour this morning just staring out of the window sucking her pencil. There was practically a riot at the back of the classroom.’

Flossie turned round and ambled off towards the ragged bit of fence that was so good for back-scratching.

Left to himself, Lance sighed and stared up at the vast bowl of sky.

‘She ought to try to do better,’ he told the clouds above him. ‘She’s always writing it on other people’s reports. She ought to try it herself. She should pull her socks up. She should get a grip. We can’t go on like this. It’s beyond a joke.’

Behind him another cow burped, rather more rudely than Flossie.

‘All right for you .’ Lance scowled. ‘You never had to go to school. You don’t know what it can be like.’

Lance remembered only too well what school was like before Miss Mirabelle came.

First there was Mr Rushman. Terrifying! He spoke so softly you could hardly hear, and then, as soon as you did something wrong because you hadn’t heard, he shouted at you that you ought to listen.

No one was sorry when he left the school.

Then there was Mrs Maloney. She seemed to think they were all idiots. She spoke so loud and clear and slow, and said everything she had to say at least a dozen times, and everything they did was so easy-peasy that everyone was driven half mad with boredom.

There was great relief all round when Mrs Maloney moved back down to Infants.

Then there was Mr Hubert. He talked all the time. Nobody else got a word in edgeways. They never did anything. They just watched him talk. He talked about what they were going to do, but took so long talking they never did it.

Then he broke both legs falling off his motorbike. They all signed the card to the hospital, but nobody cried. They just felt a little bit sorry for the nurses.

And then, like an angel, Miss Mirabelle came. One morning they were all fiddling about at their tables or hanging around the windowsills wondering who was going to take them, when in stepped a vision in a flowery dress, with golden hair piled high and tumbling down, and silver bell earrings that tinkled as she moved, and scarlet fingernails and bare brown legs. And on her dainty feet the vision wore the brightest, greenest shoes, with frills round the edges and bows on top, and the highest heels ever seen at Wallisdean Park School.

‘I am Miss Mirabelle,’ the vision said. ‘Get off those windowsills. Stop fiddling about. Plonk your bums straight down on your little chairs, and listen to me.’

Extraordinary!

Half the class slid off the windowsills and crept to their seats. The other half stopped fiddling. There was absolute silence. Everyone stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, as Miss Mirabelle hitched up her flowery skirts, perched on the very edge of the teacher’s desk, crossed her legs elegantly at the knee, and told them:

‘I am your new teacher, and I think I should tell you right at the start that I can stand practically anything in the world, but I can’t stand sniffers .’

She reached in her capacious woven bag and pulled out a huge box of paper tissues.

‘I’ll put these here,’ she said.

She placed the box ceremoniously on the front of her desk.

‘At the first sign of a sniff, or a snuffle, or even a bit of a blocked nose, you are to come up here, take a tissue, and blow !’

She rose dramatically, and pointed to the cupboard at the back of the classroom.

‘Sniffers will be sent to sit in there, out of sight and out of hearing. I’m sorry, but there it is. I just can’t help it. Sniffers bring out the murderess in me.’

Then suddenly she smiled and, swinging round, began to write the date very neatly on the board, just like any other teacher in the world.

Her back safely turned, everyone took the chance to glance at their friends, and nudge their neighbours. Deborah even whispered to Lance.

‘What do you think of her?’

‘She’s different.’ Lance shook his head. ‘She certainly is different.’

And he was right. Miss Mirabelle certainly was different. She started the school day with a Wake You Up Sing Song. Her silver bell earrings tinkled when she laughed. And every so often during the morning she reached into her capacious woven bag and, pulling out an exquisite little pearl knife and an apple, she peeled off the skin in one long perfect coil, sliced up the apple thinly, and popped each delicate sliver into her perfect red mouth.

Lance watched. It made a change, he thought, from watching teachers mark books, or go round the class, or write on the board. Miss Mirabelle was different, she was exotic, she promised adventure. Lance longed for adventure, and he hoped she would stay.

But would she be able to stay different? Lance wasn’t sure. He’d seen the head-teacher take Miss Mirabelle aside after lunch, point first at Miss Mirabelle’s high heels, then at the wooden floor in the hall. Mrs Spicer was worrying about pockmarks on her nice boards.

That’s it for the shoes, then, thought Lance sadly. He knew Mrs Spicer’s little talks. Mrs Spicer was a dragon. The high heels would end up in the bottom of Miss Mirabelle’s closet. Tomorrow she’d be in flatties, or clumpies, like all the other teachers.

But she wasn’t. The next day the amazing Miss Mirabelle turned up in the very same shoes.

The whisper ran round like wildfire.

‘Wait till Mrs Spicer sees!’

Lance peeped at Miss Mirabelle. She didn’t look worried. Cheerfully she called them into line and marched them smartly down the corridor towards the hall. But what would happen when Mrs Spicer saw her sail through the big swing doors wearing the same fancy shoes?