Zara Stoneley - Blackberry Picking at Jasmine Cottage

‘I thought bringing Roo with us might help, but if anything it’s made her worse.’ The little terrier looked up at the sound of his name, and Lucy patted his head.

‘She’d be hanging on to you if Roo wasn’t here. She’ll be okay, honest. She just needs time, and Jill will keep a close eye on her.’

‘I hope so.’

The school bell rang, and the last of the children started to make their way towards the entrance door. ‘Shoo, go, and make sure you bring Roo with you when you pick her up!’

‘I wanted to bring Roo in to school.’ Maisie was looking down at the desk, and Lucy knew it was to hide the shine of tears. ‘Roo will be sad.’

‘I’m sure he will.’ Lucy squatted down. ‘Daddy will look after him though, and he’ll be very happy to see you this afternoon, won’t he?’

‘Daddy’s busy.’ She gave a large theatrical sigh, but Lucy was glad to see that the threat of tears seemed to have abated. ‘He’s always busy. Why can’t dogs come to school?’

She was just trying to formulate the best answer to that, when Rosie chipped in. ‘They can.’ She was doodling away industriously at what looked like a picture of a sheep, or it could have been a legless dog, or even a very hairy guinea pig, and didn’t even look up. ‘Our other teacher let us have a pet day. We always have one. I brought my rat in. Do you like my picture, Miss?’

Lucy stared, and wondered if looking at it from a different angle would help. ‘Very good, I thought we were all drawing our favourite animals?’

‘He is.’ She scribbled harder until the point of her pencil snapped off. ‘He’s the furry caterpillar I found on the fence on holiday, he was enormous.’ She picked up a brown crayon. ‘We stayed in a big caravan. But Mummy wouldn’t let me bring him home. That’s why,’ she glanced up at Lucy, ‘I’ll have to bring our rat to pet day. It’s pet day tomorrow, isn’t it Miss?’ She nodded at Maisie knowledgeably. ‘You can bring Roo, as long as he’s not going to try and eat my rat.’

Lucy looked up at Jill, who shrugged apologetically, then pointed to the large calendar.

How on earth had she forgotten that tomorrow was pet day?

‘My mam says caterpillars are a bleeding nuisance.’

‘Sophie, we don’t say that, do we?’

‘A bleeding’ she paused, and frowned, ‘pest. They eat our lettuces.’

‘I wish my mummy was here.’

Lucy put an arm round Maisie, swallowing down the lump in her throat. She remembered wishing her dad had been there when she wasn’t that much older than Maisie. The little girl was only six, what kind of mother just upped and left her child for six months? Josie had to have a good reason, she had to. ‘Draw her a lovely picture of Roo, and you can show her on skype can’t you? I’m sure she’s missing you and Roo.’

‘Lunch time meeting.’ Liz Potts stuck her head round the door, then was off before either Lucy or Jill had time to question her.

‘What’s that about then?’ Jill raised an eyebrow.

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ But even as she said the words, Lucy felt a twinge of anticipation. It was Tuesday, the children had been back at school five days now, and five days into the new school year had an ominous ring to it. It was the earliest date that the Ofsted inspectors could come calling.

Lucy sank down with a sigh onto one of the comfortable staffroom chairs. Would anybody notice if she put her feet up on the table?

The first week of the new school year was always a killer. After a long summer of late nights, lie-ins, walks and general lazing about it was nice in a way to get back into a normal work routine. At her previous school, the first few days were always hard work, particularly when you had a new class, over thirty new names to learn, personalities and capabilities to assess. Behaviour to manage. Here though, even after only a few short months of working at the school, she at least knew most of the children by name – and she was carrying on teaching the class she’d had last year. It was a small school, and several of the classes had been merged, which meant she had Class 1 and Class 2. But there were a few newcomers, a few changes, and the children always seemed to grow over the summer and learn new tricks. Even the sweetest of children liked to test the boundaries, in fact the butter-wouldn’t-melt ones were often the ones who pushed hardest. And then there was Maisie. Sweet little Maisie who had giggled her way infectiously through the summer, but now wasn’t quite sure why she was still here in a strange place, without her mummy.

Lucy tried to force the frown away and relax, and found herself yawning.

‘Keeping you up?’ Jill, her classroom assistant, laughed. ‘Budge up. Any idea why Timothy has assembled the troops?’

‘Nope. I was hoping you’d be able to tell me.’

Jill shook her head, then nodded towards Liz Potts, the school secretary who had just bustled in with an armful of papers. ‘Looks like Liz knows.’

‘Thank you for getting here promptly everybody.’ Timothy Parry, head of Langtry Meadows Primary School coughed, straightened his bowtie and tugged at the cuffs of his shirt which were peeping out of the sleeves of his tweed jacket. ‘I won’t keep you long, I do appreciate how much, er, fun, the first couple of weeks back are. Now,’ he motioned to Liz, who handed over the papers. ‘I have a copy here of our SEF, which Lucy very efficiently updated at the end of last term.’

Lucy grimaced as her stomach hollowed in anticipation. With the small village school still at risk of closure they’d all thrown themselves into making sure they were fully prepared to hit the ground running before they’d closed for the summer break. The school’s self-evaluation form had been updated, a new improvement plan put together, and every file in Mrs Potts’s system gone through to ensure they were ready for anything. Anything, it seemed, involved an early Ofsted inspection.

A small smile twitched at the corner of Timothy’s mouth. ‘As I think Miss Jacobs has already guessed,’ they all turned to look at her, ‘we have been informed that the Ofsted inspectors will be calling rather earlier than anticipated. We appear to be in demand, top of the list.’

A ripple of a groan spread round the staffroom, peaking when it reached their youngest member of staff, who clamped her hand over her mouth as she realised she’d gasped rather louder than she’d meant to. Liz patted her arm comfortingly.

‘Don’t worry dear, it’s not all bad, they’re not the ogres they used to be.’

‘Says who?’ Jill whispered rather too loudly in Lucy’s ear.

‘Ahem.’ Timothy coughed to restore order. ‘After the huge success of our summer picnic I pretty much think we’re on track to safeguard the future of our school, but a good report would be the icing on the cake. Which reminds me, the Right Honourable George enjoyed his visit so much that he sent us a rather delightful letter. Liz has very kindly framed it and put it on the wall so that we may remind ourselves how wonderful we are,’ he paused, ‘if the need arises.’ He glanced around the room, his face serious, but something Lucy was sure was mischief danced in his eyes. ‘George always did like to make himself heard, which I think Lucy has done a splendid job of utilising.’

Lucy blushed and studied her hands. It had really been Elsie Harrington and Jim Stafford who had been responsible for the reintroduction of the Summer Picnic – without their help the idea would never have occurred to her. She would never have known that so many past attendees of the school, like George, now had rather prominent and influential positions on the numerous councils that had the power to control the future of the school. But Elsie, a colourful, elderly villager who seemed to know everybody’s business, and school governor (and councillor) Jim who had a finger in every pie, had soon pointed her in the right direction. She still wasn’t quite sure if she’d been manipulated, or made the decisions, but it didn’t matter.