The first day

September 6th

Today, the new First years arrive.

They're not called First years anymore, are they? They're called Year 7 or Year 8, or Level 2 or Poor little kids who've already been standard-attained tested to within an inch of their lives. Now they have another test to come. And that's the big school. Can they survive it without being destroyed, beaten up or eaten?

I'm not sure I can, if already I'm counting the hours to Friday 4pm. I'll hide myself away and sob under the bedclothes or spend the entire time burning in the September sun, rejoicing in the fact that I made it over the first hurdle to the first weekend.

Well today it's still Thursday. And there's thirty-two kids who are expecting to 'get to know your tutor'. And that's me. I'm a tutor. That's one of my new roles. I don't know what a tutor is. My training says I am in loco parentis. In the place of a parent. I don't know what that means really. I don't have kids. The college tutors say it's about pastoral care, which means something like, if little Jonny falls over, you're not supposed to say 'Quit squealing and get up'. You're supposed to say 'Tell me about it' and 'Let's work out how to help you best'. Is that what parents are supposed to do? The ones I've seen just shout 'Quit squealing and get up'.

Anyway, whoever I am right now, when it comes to standing up in front of children, I'm supposed to be the one in charge. So I'm grateful that the thirty-one kids lined up in front of me are mostly silent, except for some nudging and whispering at the tail end. This morning at 8.30 I led them here, to mobile 57, the Falklands. They're all booted and suited, every one in a grey polyester blazer, too hot for the early morning sun. Beneath the different sticky-up colours of their hair and their fidgety watchful eyes, the school grey uniform shapes their limbs in starch, turning the line of bodies pasted against the mobile into a set of cardboard cut outs. They look like they're lining up to be shot at. I scan the line; they're all little, itching and fidgeting. Nervously, stupidly, I shout an order to line up so I can count them again and make sure that every one of them made it here, and that no-one became distracted by the network of paths crossing the grassy field. Those twisting paths, half hidden by grass and weed, are a lure of late summer, promising adventure, discovery. Well not today.

'This is room 57' I shout, trying not to, hoping there's no betraying nervous trill. I avoid their eyes and point at the mobile. 'Come here when the bell sounds at 8.40 in the morning and again at 2.00 pm after lunch to register.' I'm unnerved by the silence now. They're all looking at me for heaven's sake. They need to whisper, to chatter in nerves, but they don't give in to that need. They may be more scared than I am. Thirty-one pairs of eyes blink at me, expecting something. I might say anything. I might tell them Roald Dahl was right. Witches exist. I'm one. Better not. They might not get the joke.

I put my foot on the step to the mobile. It creaks with my weight. '2.00pm is after lunch' I say again. I don't know why. I think it might be nerves. No one speaks. Two girls, one with ginger hair and one with round pink cheeks open their eyes wide at each other and grip hands, fiercely. The rest glance about them, at their neighbours, and at me. Balanced on the bottom step of the Falklands, I fasten my eyes on their suspicious limbs. I'm not telling them I'm as new as they are. That this is my first day as a teacher, and that I've heard the story of a full milk bottle assault on teaching practice. And then the memory of Archie on my six-week training practice comes unbidden into my mind. Archie was mostly suspended from school, but he could light matches on his teeth. I hold my teacher's planner like body armour, just in case, and start counting again.

When I count the number thirty-one for the third time I check my printed sheet. The number 32 is circled three times in red at the bottom.

'Right' I say, 'when you go in', I pause to scan the line, 'find somewhere to sit. Today for the first two hours there are no lessons'. I swallow hard. My mouth is dry. 'For two hours you'll be with me. Then it's breaktime, and then', I pause dramatically, 'there's a treasure hunt after break'. There's an audible gasp, something like excitement and anticipation. Ginger hair and Pink cheeks clutch at each other in a reaction that looks like horror. I ignore it. I don't think I can deal with individuals right now. 'After lunch come back here. We have to fill in forms. Now', I sigh, grateful I've got this far. 'Let's get started.'

I force out a smile. I'm sure it's the appropriate moment. Yesterday I moved the desks out of rows into large sociable groupings. That's good practice. It encourages talk. Talk is a vehicle for learning. These things they teach you, on teaching practice. 'Go in quietly' I add, to the bodies filing past me on the steps. I watch them go into the room. I'm suspicious. They are too quiet. Perhaps they are plotting. I'm waiting for the ambush, for one of them to yell 'Fuck off' and run away, choosing a pathway to freedom rather than a first day at school with a new and nervous teacher.

One child halts by me, her face sea-sick white, shivering queasily, clutching her abdomen. I bend down to ask her name. With a thin whisper, air without sound, comes the answer, Mary. Then, 'I don't feel well'.
'Oh dear' I say. I look down at her. She returns my look with wide, dark, mournful eyes about to brim over with tears of hurt. Slowly, shakily, her chin heaves up and her bottom lip takes a moist, pink, downward turn.
'Is it very bad?' I ask.
'Yes.' The bottom pink lip slides around.
'Oh.'
'It hurts.'
'Where?'
'Here'. Mary presses her hand flat against her abdomen and gives a tiny wheezy cough, a sick kitten sneezing. Suddenly, in the space of a second, I have convinced myself that here, on this first day, in this first hour, this girl is about to start her first period. Her private horror is about to surge forward, public humiliation, parental outrage, emotional trauma following in its wake. Better get her to the sick room. I put my head round the half-open door. Eyes blink back in expectation. A flourish of hands suddenly slap flat on the desks, primary schoolish, as if to prove the fingers haven't been naughty. I say I'm just off to the medical room and will be back in a minute, then grab Mary by the hand and start to run across the field with her in tow, watched, possibly, by thirty confused children in a hut at the edge of the field.

Ten minutes later, I'm back, minus one child, but with the secretary's admonishment that I must never ever leave my classroom again, ringing in my ears. The gabbling chatter of twenty-odd noisy children rises up to meet me as I open the classroom door. No-one seems to notice my return, which suggests to me that I have some work to do in developing 'presence' as a teacher, but at least it gives me chance to do another head count. One girl is sobbing. Ginger hair and Pink cheeks are playing Pat-a-cake. Five boys have exited via the open fire escape door, and are playing in the sunny field outside. Strips of contraband chewing gum are passing swiftly round the back table and a tape recorder has made its way from the top shelf to a desk top. The fat kid is amusing a crowd of girls; he's pulling out his elastic cheeks with stubby fingers and has a white bathing cap clamped fast to his head. Someone catches sight of me and the noise suddenly subsides and the bath cap is sucked away. I pretend I haven't seen and say nothing. They don't teach you the mechanics of things like this in college.

I turn to one boy, covered in mousy hair and sticky-out ears. He stutters when he says he's called Talbot. I ask him to fetch the five boys from the field. He smiles, shyly. There's some tittering and I can hear a gleeful whisper 'She chose Talbot! She chose Talbot!' I know I've made a mistake, but I don't know what it is. I watch Talbot scarper across the field, wide of the children who are already out there, curving out towards the freedom of the bottom hedge. Things are getting out of control. I decide to ignore the giggling that's starting to break out in the classroom. I'm sure Chris Blyth, my tutor on teaching practice, said that children who are chattering break down barriers; they make it easier to begin to negotiate the responsibility for social order. Anyway, the waves of talk are useful to cover up the sound of weeping. I leave the fact that one kid is opening a window to shout 'Go Talbot Go!' across the field, and I kneel by the green ribboned head crumpled into folded arms. I feel like doing much the same right now. I seem to be experiencing difficulties in crowd control and things are getting a bit overwhelming.

'What's wrong?' I whisper.
The weeping head gulps out 'Bar-bar-bar-bara' in slow watery sobs, and I say 'Don't worry, now we'll play name games to get to know each other'. Actually, most of these kids seem to know each other already from primary school. Opposite, two girls stare at the weeping head. One shuffles in her seat. Her eyes slide guilty towards the window. She has plaits pointing stiffly out from behind her ears, and remind me of fish-eyes Olive Oil from the Pop-eye cartoons.

Suddenly there's a crashing noise at the fire exit as the five boys from the field stumble back in and aim their rears quickly at their chairs. The main door to the classroom swings open. Mr Strevens, red faced and looking as if something like steam might pop out of his ears, shoots me a quick glower and sharply whispers 'Talbot is one of yours'. The deputy head is holding Talbot by the arm and quickly deposits him inside with a final poison dart of a glance in my direction. My card is marked. I think I just learned another lesson, about making sure that the other staff members never see you fail.

We play a game. It involves sticking names randomly on each other, then asking questions and swapping sticky labels until everyone ends up with the right name. I planned this to mean how our identities change in moving schools, or in my case, careers. In theory, it's an opportunity to meet new friends and establish new personalities. Right now, I wish I hadn't done it, because one thing I didn't consider was the actual movement of thirty-odd kids confined in a crowded hut. I've got one in tears again thanks to a head bumping experience, one cowering under a desk and one kid limping. But I carry on, gamely. Franky becomes Alison. Barbara becomes Luke. Alison become Andrew. One boy says he's called Robert, but I can call him Hot Rod. Then he promptly stands on my foot in his size 7 trainers, which are not school uniform. I wish I could sit down, like Miss, like that's who I am.

When Barbara bursts into tears again I can't help feeling my planning has overseen something important, like carried over rivalries, vendettas and family hatreds from primary school. Why doesn't college prepare you for actual life? I'm beginning to think that having kids and a family life of my own might help this type of situation.

Amongst the tears and the noise and the slight scuffle breaking out between Fat Kid and a small wiry child called Franky, Robert suggests we play Simon says. The rules of the game are to catch people doing the wrong thing. You must say please after every action, or the followers don't have to follow. I'm sure setting up relationships to trick people is against my teaching philosophy, but I haven't got time to think about it and anyway, Robert's organised the circle.

When it's my turn to be Simon, I say 'Shake your leg!' Those who shake their legs are pointed at and have to say their name three times. It's a penalty. the fear of being pointed at sends a few of them rigid with fear. One girl, called Angela, who is possibly the cleanest and neatest child I have ever seen, refuses to move on the grounds, I suspect, that movement might crease her grey skirt. I'm not sure what should be my appropriate response to Robert. He bounces up when everyone stands, slaps his forearms together when everyone claps, and catches everyone out before they've done anything wrong. 'Shout your name out, Fatty!' squeals Robert the moment the Fat Kid gets it wrong and sticks his chubby leg in the air. I'm not sure about this game. It doesn't seem much like a game any more, and I wonder if imposing a rule about being nice to each other might be the right locus parentis thing to do in this context. I say nothing. I'm sure silence is wrong, too.

When it's time for a break, I gasp. 'OK, let's stop there. Robert points at me. 'Let's stop playing now' doesn't work either. He demands I say an exaggerated please at the end of my 'Let's stop' and 'Line up' and just about everything else I need to say. And it goes on right throughout the day, too. I'm sure I've read an educational writer who condemns endless teacher 'pleases' as a mechanism by which covert institutional power is established in the hidden curriculum. Tough luck. He's not here now with Robert, Simon Says, a fight breaking out between Franky and Fat Kid, and Barbara in tears again. So I say, 'Can we stop now, please?'

It's 2pm, afternoon registration, when Mary is returned from the medical room by a sprightly young secretary with square framed glasses and a no-nonsense look about her. Oh well. While the 'treasure hunt' was ongoing, which I discovered in disappointment along with the kids in my charge was just code for finding the maths classrooms and science block, Pat Devlin, head of Year 7 collared me in the playground. Pat whispers, with a conspirator's inclined head, that Mary's sickness is School Phobia. She has a record of headaches, nausea, limps, aches, cramps and dizziness for maths tests, pottery classes, school sports days and swimming galas. I tut. Part of me feels foolish. I got it wrong again. Part of me wonders why Mary's parents keep sending her in, and part of me wonders whether Pat Devlin scored an advantage over me by keeping Mary's phobia secret. Is that how it's done? As a teacher you only ever get partial knowledge about the kids in your care? Here's another lesson. Don't trust the teachers. Look at the kids. The kids themselves will directly tell you who they are and what they hope from life. Pat leaves me with a pile more forms to fill in - grey and white to the office, green to medical, pink letters home for signing - and with the injunction that I keep Mary in the classroom at all cost. There's a parental request not to ring home unless there is blood.

Mary slips into the classroom shyly, slyly. Her pallid, fragile face throws out to me a sudden look of defiance. She turns away with a look of sufferance and martyrdom. I smile back, trying sympathy. It doesn't seem to work. She shudders into her seat, still holding her stomach. While I'm sitting there, foolishly trying to look approachable, helpful, Pat Devlin enters, deep frown lines channelling her brow. She is a small woman, cold and clean-lined in metal-rimmed glasses, the same flint grey as her razor cut skirt, and sharp, sensible shoes. All the kids in the room fall silent. I'm not the only one to have felt uncomfortable with Miss Devlin.

'Askungen for you', says Pat, so exact and quiet that I'm sure here's a case history. I don't say anything. Through the door appears the missing name from my morning's list. Askungen Andersson. She looks older than twelve, the age of her peers. Her pale blond hair is brushed into a spray-held halo around her bleached white face. She has pink cheeks where blusher has been carefully applied, and a large, wet mouth, gloss applied, but it looks like purple lipstick has been recently and roughly removed. Her heels are clip-clop high, her blouse is see-through, and she is wearing grey trousers, not black. In fact nothing looks uniform here. And she has an instant audience. All the children in the class stare, silent, wide eyed, except Robert. He grins, showing a line of sharp, milk-white teeth.

I try a smile again, a sort of non-threatening all is forgiven sort of smile. Askungen doesn't respond. She stares sullen back, puts one hand on her hip and heads for Dilys, the only black girl in the class, who edges away. Robert winks.

I feel obliged to tick my list, so I do, while Pat watches. As she turns to go, all eyes follow the sharp twist of her skirt, the snap of her feet. She watches the class, her eyes scanning the faces. Suddenly she gathers herself to a full and menacing stop, sucking in air, her face turns red and her arm flies out and the finger points across the room to Franky. 'Boy!' she screams. Her voice could break glass. 'Get rid of that chewing gum! Swallow it! Choke on it!' Everyone jumps with the force. So do I. Franky swallows. Barbara's round face crinkles and runs with silent tears.

Later, safer from my teacher's desk, we begin upon the first round of form filling. God, I thought these kids were here for an education. One that equips them to fill in forms, that's for sure. We spend hours at this. Names, dates, known diseases, addresses, details, even what pets they've got, though why anyone needs to know this is beyond me.

I look at the collection of faces, thrown together for the next five years, and I try to remember names. I recognise Fat Kid. He's called Luke. He's holding up a fist to Lewis, telling him to say Fatty, or else. I know Mary, draped over her chair in the corner, looking like she might be sick. And Barbara, who for the moment isn't crying.

Franky is here, the tiny-sized child with the brown brush of upturned hair, periwinkle-blue eyes and a stretched, elastic grin that grows and spreads before the skin around his cheekbones can snap it back. His smile takes over his face, and it's hard not to smile back. His blazer, several sizes too big for him, smacks of parental determination. He is freckled in blue felt-tip marks, but absorbed completely in teaching another kid with ginger hair how to roll his eyes so that the pupils disappear. There's Jonathan, the child who hid under the desk. He looks like he's been involved in a car crash, shocked and dazed. His eyes stare around the room, as if it's all too big, it's all too much. Big school's overwhelming for him, and I wonder if he'll survive. At least he's not run off. I'm not sure where Talbot is, but I'm not alerting anybody right now.

One of the other boys is tanned, and muscular, and looks like he's spent his summer trawling beaches and climbing rocks. He tells me he's called Greg, and that his dad's a builder. He says he's got a little sister and he teaches her about dinosaurs and sea creatures when they meet up on their holidays.

Ernie's the easiest to remember. He has a raspberry birthmark pouring about one eye like a pirate eye-patch. He stares at me with an honest, open gaze, while chewing gum with an unselfconscious clacking set of jaws. I say nothing.

I look over by the blackboard. Angela, Alison and Judith are sitting close together, their demure ponytails bobbing together as they conscientiously write out their names, eight times on the forms. I worry I'll mix them up through their reticence. The boldest step that one of them has taken so far is to inquire politely if I am pregnant.

No fear of reticence with Robert, who breaks off his conversation about panty liners while I'm handing out forms headed 'Emergency'. Robert winks at me. 'Hello miss' he says, then pulls another boy forward by the wing of his collar. 'You should've seen what Mick did in the Science block'. Mick is pale; his face is criss-crossed with tiny scars. He looks half-asleep, with drooping eyelids. He has two school ties hanging about his neck. I ask why, and he says in a slurred voice that he's saving one for his brother.

The final hour of the first day passes, while I spell glandular and whooping and listen to Ernie complain again that he thought treasure hunts were supposed to be about digging up soil. Apparently the school version of a treasure hunt is to fill out a form about where the library, pottery wheel and welding gear can be found, then hand in your answer sheet to Miss Devlin. The reward was that you could eat your sandwiches. Ernie stares up at me, cheated. For the first time, I'm smiling back in real sympathy.

As I say goodbye to the kids that will form my life over the next year, I commiserate with Dilys, who wanted real prizes, possibly a mountain bike or rugby ball. Fat Kid Luke offers to sell me a roll of double-sided sticky tape for 50p. It has the words Mr Strevens scratched in red biro on the cardboard inner. I take it off him and hide it in my drawer, remembering Ginger hair and Pink cheeks from this morning. They have already disappeared. Like refugees, they have sought sanctuary elsewhere.

September 4th

And this is it?

I glimpsed the old tumbledown hut, perched at the end of the grassy field, a long time back on a hot summer's day in June. I couldn't stop because we were being marched round on the interview. There were three of us: young, inexperienced, newly qualified teachers, all starched up in grey suits and serious faces, walking in a stiff straight line between the Science block and Arts block, led by the Deputy Head, Mr Strevens. He wore a grey polyester tie with a red gash across it that resembled a chest wound. He looked like he was determined to put a brave face on things, announcing classrooms against all odds, going on with the show. Half way down a corridor he'd pause to introduce the next Act. With gusto, in case the audience's attention wandered off. Then, before we could ask any questions, he'd show us a battered room in semi-darkness which looked like a place you'd store old boxes. He'd energetically lift up his hand and, with a determined smile, announce in a big, loud voice 'And here is our new citizenship centre!'

It didn't get much better. We toured the design department where we heard the Head of Department apologise for the broken welding gear, and we did the library, wondering where all the books were, and we dutifully sighed ooh and ahh over the pottery wheel. One pottery wheel. We all stood round it, and the Art teacher lifted her hands over it like it was a broken bone fragment from the Lord. I don't know which kids got to touch it. We didn't.

And then I spied it, out the dust-shadowed window, the old broken-down hut at the end of the grassy field. A long sandy path twisted its way to the door. 'What's that?' I asked. Mr Strevens stared at me for a moment and then said hurriedly, 'Oh! Sometimes we have more children than we can accommodate in the main block and we use temporary buildings. We're going to get that replaced'. He waved at the hut with his hand, as if he would magic dust the place away, and then turned back to us with that determined, uplifted jaw. 'It shows just what a popular choice this school is. Parents trust us to safeguard the education of their children and that's a responsibility we take very seriously indeed.' I don't know who was interviewing who.

Anyway, that was back in June.

This morning, it's late summer, and I'm arriving here for my first teaching job. I'm 'the successful applicant', and I haven't a clue what to do. A man in a vest who says he's called Neville the Caretaker winks at me and says if there's anything needs fixing, come to him. He says go to the staffroom over there for the first staff meeting of the year. He says I can't miss it. Follow the noise.

He's right. The tiny room is heaving with teachers. They're all twittering and laughing and jostling and patting each other. First day back. Kids arrive in two days time, after all the meetings and the talking's done. For a minute it looks like a crazy party of middle aged people in some sort of support group therapy. Everyone ignores me. Then the meeting starts with a ratatat-tat from the Head's fingers on the edge of a desk. He looks young to me, but weathered and red-faced, beat up, like he's been on the road, or drinking too much for too many years. I'm told bets are on that he'll retire next year. As he taps the desk he wheezes, making a sound like an out of tune percussion instrument. Teachers are very compliant sometimes. Everyone hushed as the Head, Mr Booker, began to speak in his rattle cough, and we all sat there, laughing at his jokes that to me didn't make any sense. Then everyone's introduced to the new teacher that's starting this year, and who's joining to teach English, and that's me, and I don't know what to say when everyone turns to look at me and I force out a smile, when really I'm thinking Am I part of the joke? Is this really an introduction or are they waiting for me to pull a punchline that ends in OFSTED?

Well now the meeting's suddenly full of that, but no-one's laughing. It's HMI, LA, SATS, OFSTED, NQF. Then I have a bundle of papers thrust into my hand, pre-prepared with my name at the top, and Cristina, Head of English Department, tells me to go off and find my classroom, get it sorted and meet back here for an English Department meeting at 2pm. She says my room is the mobile, number 57, and laughingly adds 'Take no notice of Bill. He calls it the Falklands.'

That's it. I have to find my own way. Already lost, feeling foolish in the corridor, I ask for directions to mobile 57. The fat man who's apparently a PE teacher guffaws and tells me mobile 57 is The Falklands. While he's laughing he shakes his head, like all is lost and better not talk about it. He says go to Neville for the key then head out the school doors, turn left and go across the back field. You can't miss it. Stupidly, I didn't ask any more questions. You don't, when you have a new job. You don't know anything on the first day and mostly watch, trying to work things out.

Well now I know why mobile 57 is called the Falklands. I'm standing in the middle of a grassy field, squinting. My first teaching job. My first classroom. At the edge of a field, looking dangerously like it's about to tip into the ditch. I screw up my eyes, peering like through gun sights. This is all about expectation and resolve. I have to make it work. Even though I'm dreading what's to come. I look down. My shoes are already mauled with the dust of dead grass and red earth.

Back in June, after the tour of the school, came the interview. It was fairly informal. The Head sat down with a rattly wheeze and said, bluntly, 'Do you want this job?' He looked like a man who had other things to do and who needed a quick answer. His hands were counting up papers with numbers printed on them, in columns. I never asked which room I'd get. I was too nervous, too busy trying to figure out the salary scale without actually mentioning money, although I badly needed to know what the wage would be. Even as what people call 'a mature student', a year's training didn't come cheap when you're mostly supporting yourself, and I'd used up my savings from a previous job. I not only needed a new career, I needed the wage.

But that morning I'd already smiled till my face ached, saying in the interview how the new Humanities block was inspiring, when really it looked like a bunker of hollow square rooms made out of concrete breeze block and cheap white paint. Foolishly I thought, being new to the staff, I'd get a new room. Well this is the end to that fantasy. I've got the Falklands. And it's too late. Not that I could complain. Not that I'd know who to complain to. I should've been bold like they told us at college and asked for twenty four hours to think things through.

There's only one path to the Falkands. It's a wide, wandering path leading to the hut. The way the path cuts deep into the red earth makes me think of trudging feet; daily marching back and forth. That's something else I didn't think of in the middle of the interview while I chanted Information Technology, community links and child-centred learning. The routine. The awful everydayness 8 o'clock start of this job. The trudge, the registers, the timetables, the same faces. What was I thinking? I must have been lured on by the thoughts of a regular salary and a new start. I got the chance to say 'yes' and I did.

Behind me I can hear Neville, who with another wink passed me the key. He's pruning the rosebushes with a chainsaw. I turn and try to smile but he doesn't see me. He's got a job to do. Like me. There's fifty minutes to go before someone tells me in a departmental meeting about standards for teaching excellence. Or something like that. Right now, it's my classroom I have to be interested in.

As soon as I cross the field I notice planless pathways encircle the Falklands; entangled side ways crossing the stubby grass in patterns like a spider's web. There's one path - a meandering route down a steep bank, stamping a dried mud ring round and round a solitary tree - I would follow, to see where else it could take me, if it wasn't for the feeling that maybe someone is watching me now from the glass windows of the main school behind me.

When I reach the Falklands my heart's sunk and I feel I'm facing an awful reality. I gave up the career path of a shiny new office and a gas cylinder chair for this?

There was once grass around the old hut. Now it's yellow, deep and dead. Brown weeds and matted vegetation trickle away in streaks beneath the suspended floor. The only living thing in sight is a mass of bindweed pushing its way over the bitumen grey fabric of the walls like tentacles. The only resistance it's met so far is the corpse of a yellow archangel, its seed heads bent double under the weight of green weed.

There's no going back then. I fumble for the key. This one, the key to the Falklands, has a red plastic tape bandaged round the stem.

So this is my first lesson. The one I'm receiving, not giving. It's that being a new teacher is horrible. I feel suddenly powerless, and fearful and responsible, and overwhelmed. Picking at the red tape, all I can think is OK, it could be worse but I'm not sure how, so aim to get through a year. In a hut. Locked in. With thirty-two eleven year olds. I could theorise. I'm good at that. Mobile 57 - a site of struggle, a frontier for society, a border crossing for the post-postmodern world. Yeah, that'll sound good when a worn out sick to the stomach parent demands to know why their Andy got beat up in school, why Emily's sitting next to so-and-so who everyone knows is from the sink estate, why Trev's being bullied or coming home effing and blinding, or what the hell I think I'm doing giving Sophia a D grade when her father says she's worth an A grade any day. All that, and me worrying when a shoe's a boot and not a uniform, whether an HMI inspector will leap at me or whether the bank manager will call again and inquire about the overdraft. Then there's the new town, the new life, the new career, and it's all time for practice to take over from ideology. It's time to stop thinking and planning and start doing. If only I knew how.

The key turns easily and quietly and the door springs open with a springing pop. A hot summer stink of rot and soured earth belches out. As the sunlight streams in, I can't help but test the floor with one foot. I feel a patch of water swollen carpet beneath.

Inside, I force myself to smile. After all, I can't expect miracles. It might even be quite cosy. You never know. I could do something about the yellow curtains slung across the dirty windows. The gap between them filters through a browned streak of sunlight over the teacher's desk. Facing it are uniform rows of brown wooden desks, standing in army lines, their surfaces scarred with secret messages and giveaway names and dates. Someone's written 'Adele Jarvis will die' on the leg of the teacher's chair. On the display board there's a crumpled and worn map of Italy with chewed up and spat out paper globules stuck along the Amalfi coast. The paper splodges continue a line up to the ceiling. They look like they're about to fall down. There's lots of changes I could make to this room I think, with determination. I could ask Neville to come and help clear up a bit. If he's not too busy pruning.

As the chainsaw hums in the background I move the first of the grey plastic chairs, in something like preparation. In two days, after the long summer holidays and all my furious scribbling of lesson plans and detailed examination of school lists and names and policies, I'm going to see thirty-two eleven-year olds fresh faced from primary school trudge trustingly behind me on the dried muddy path in crocodile chain to the Falklands, beginning their first day at 'the big school'.

And me. After the first flush of excitement that I've finally landed a job where I'm sure I could make a new start, I suddenly feel I've signed my life away. In return I've received through the post a GCSE syllabus, a book called Your Pension, a leaflet about stress counselling, an appraisal document from Cristine the Head of Department and a letter from the police. And this. The key to mobile 57.

I put down the chair I'm holding. It's like a day of reckoning's arrived. And I get the feeling that at the split second moment in the interview, the second between yes and no, with failures behind me and the gulf of inexperience and unknowing ahead of me, I picked the wrong answer.