A Six Out Of Ten

Today, when my granddaughter returns from school, she is silent, the usual laughter absent. I think I can guess the reason.

“Tell me a story – about when you were my age,” she says, her voice quiet.

So I tell her a story– a small window into the 1980’s, when beauty and cruelty often shared the same face.

***

I hope Tess Hartless doesn’t return from whatever has kept her away.

Forever wouldn’t be too long.

A high-pitched thrum in my head.

A pulse fuelled by dread.

My choices are limited.

Essentially – fight or flight.

Flight sounds good. But where can I flee? I can exit the door and run down the marbled corridor with its pictures of past-perfect pupils lining the walls. Unreal girls lost in the mists of time. Or, I could run to the newly installed head for help.

Telling mum isn’t an option – unless I want to deal with a dead body on school grounds. She has a mamma cat’s fury when it comes to protecting me.

The thrum turns into a hum.

In my dreams, I’m running along a sun-kissed shore where the sand is soft and white beneath my feet. A beach of conical, pink-tinted shells, the air carrying the faint scent of hibiscus – vibrant oval petals beloved of hummingbirds…

Anywhere but here.

OR I CAN STAY AND FIGHT.

Slap her dolly face into submission. Pull her hair until clumps fall onto the classroom floor.

Words pierce like scalpels, slicing through membranes, forming tissues of memories to be dissected later

The air crackles.

My mouth dries – like an old dog’s bone. Words really do hurt.

***

It could have been the perfect lesson.

But if I’m going to talk about this, I must be honest. There was more than one of them – but she was kingpin. Without her, the skittles would have missed.

I sit and wait.

Anxiety notched up to breaking point. The octagonal clock on the classroom wall ticks two minutes past two. Mrs Grange, the angel of light, is running late. Please let her come soon.

My mind is a Countdown board. One, two, three, four, five. Seconds of grace before the inevitable execution.

Any moment, it will start.

The humming reaches a high-pitched note – decibels matching my isolation.

My request is simple: I JUST WANT TO ENJOY MY ENGLISH LESSON.

The question is not whether we’ll read Shakespeare – we will – but what the next hour will feel like. If all goes well, it will carry me through till tomorrow. Longer, if the kingpin stays away.

***

Tess Hartless wanders in. All chiselled bones, makeup sprayed on like a mask. A perfect 10 sashaying her way to the middle row. Something shatters inside me. I try to close off the dread, pretend she’s not here. Close up, her scent fails to hide the venom of a natural-born predator.

***

This goddess of spite makes her way to the front of the classroom. Trademark hand on hip , she marks her pitch. Picking up chalk, it takes less than a minute to produce the cartoon. Titling it ‘Harelip’ she circles the remnant of my cleft palate in pink. Her talent is wasted here. She should be a comedian.

***

The scrape of the chair as she rises.

The door opens. She sits back down. My heart beat returns to normal! A reprieve – a stay of execution. For the next hour, Tess and her cronies have other fish to fry.

A diminutive woman wearing a headscarf, of all things, enters the snake pit. Miss Weeble, surely close to retirement, rumoured to have qualifications coming out of her ears but hopeless when it comes to classroom management. She taps her way across the floor like a bird without wings. Stilettos add a few inches – her one concession to vanity. A footnote to happier times.

My relief at no longer being a target is peppered with disappointment. I had been hoping Mrs Grange, Head of English, would be teaching today. When she enters the room, the students are instantly engaged. Tess practically drools!

***

Instead, we have poor old Weebles, Grange’s replacement – papery, mottled, grainy-voiced.

“Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.”

“Now, now, girls, sit down.” A broken reed. Traces of Miss Havisham? Once loved, now lost.

I sit, showing respect – at my scratched desk on the ground floor of the school’s main building.

“WEEBLES WOBBLE BUT THEY DON’T FALL DOWN!”

I lose count of the inane chant..

“Shush, please.”

Weeble shakily hands round well-thumbed volumes of Romeo and Juliet.

Her instructions are inaudible over the din.

“Will you please sit down? We are studying Act two, scene two. Notice the beauty in the language Romeo uses when he talks of his love for Juliet.”

“Ooh, beauty in the language, is it?” Tess snipes.

Loud sniggering.

Beauty? Not something you’d know much about in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

“Have you got a boyfriend Miss?”

Hysterical laughter from the middle section.

“Will you please sit down?”

“But have you?”

“I’m not here to discuss my private life.”

“Too ugly,” someone mutters. “Not even a one out of ten.”

Miss Weeble’s eyes mist up. Who said that? But I don’t dare turn round to find out.

Just for the record, Weeble is not ugly. Just sad and tired and unloved. Repressed in some way. Her clothes hang off her, like a refugee fleeing a war zone. Her cardigan is bland and faded, her skin pale and taut. Unlike her eyes – these are alert – like those of a hunted deer.

Tess heads towards the sash window, pulls it up.

“You mustn’t do that. You might hurt yourself.”

If only.

The mayhem turns into a jungle roar.

Tess jumps out of the window and disappears into the playground. Weeble looks resigned. A truce of sorts? A trace of a smile as she holds her book to the light. A chance to do what she’s paid to do – for once.

But seriously, how does she bear it? Why doesn’t she pack it in and leave? What sort of teacher would she have made – without the timidity?

***

With Tess’s re-emergence, the class grows feverish. Tess’s supporters stamp their feet declaring boredom.

Weeble has failed yet again.

***

The door opens to a disgruntled Mrs Grange, in full Head of Department mode.

“What the hell is going on here?” Her tones are clipped. “Read the passage you’ve been asked to read in silence, girls.”

Weeble stands hangdog in the corner.

“May I have a word with you outside the classroom please, Miss Weeble?”

“Of course.” The colour drains from the older woman’s face.

***

The rest of the lesson passes without incident. I linger, not wanting to face Tess in the corridor. A drained Miss Weeble hovers while I slowly collect my work.

“How is your essay coming on, Nicky?”

”It’s getting there. Slowly.”

“Mrs Grange was impressed with your last one. I’ve spoken to her. I said I thought you were ready to go up a set. To be honest, I’m not sure why you were put into this class in the first place.”

“I didn’t do well in the assessment tasks when I joined the school. It was a bad time for me. Thanks for putting in a word for me. That was nice of you.”

“It’s no problem. I don’t like to see a good pupil go to waste. Indeed not.”

Her eyes are like an orphan’s eyes.

“How do you put up with it?” The words slip out before I can stop them. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I just don’t like the way, you know…”

“You are referring to Tess, of course.”

“She is pretty awful.”

“An unhappy, rather lonely girl beneath all that bravado, I would think. Problems outside school often cause it.”

I leave, stunned by her magnanimity.

***

Even now, I recall the second-to-last conversation with my tormentor. A rare moment, she decides to throw a snippet my way.

“I hear you’re leaving us for better things.”

I simply nod.

“You aren’t looking too bad today, by the way. A six out of ten.”

CRUSHED BY THE SIX!

“I’m glad you approve.”

“Keep it up and you might get a seven.”

The following week. I can hardly believe I’m actually part of a class where the pupils want to learn. No hollering, jumping out of windows or bullying. Bliss. Mrs Grange is there to inspire us with her flair. We now tackle ‘King Lear.’ Weeks blend into one. I give little thought to poor Miss Weeble.

That all changes when Mrs Grange announces:

“Some of you have been taught by Miss Weeble in the past. What you may not have known is that she’s been unwell for some time.”

Cancer isn’t a word readily spoken – except behind closed doors, as if saying it aloud makes it catching. Weeble must have endured her treatments in silence, with no one to turn to.

“I’m sorry to say she died last week.”

Tears sting my eyes. I imagine what she must have suffered, forced to endure abuse in her classes. Her face – beautiful, compassion-filled – haunts me.

***

A week before the end of term, I hear crying in the toilet. Stell stumbles from the cubicle, blotchy-eyed.

“Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”

“Nothing. You seem upset.”

“What do you care? I’ve never done you any favours.”

“No.”

“Oh, I look a sight!” She examines herself in the mirror, dabbing cold water over her face. Then, “Have you heard about old Weeble dying?”

“It’s hard to take in.”

“No great loss. She was a funny one.”

You bitch.

“Funny? She was lonely and ill. She was a good person. You should have treated her better.” Some of my pent-up anger is coming out. “And while we’re about it, I’m not ugly. I can’t help it if I was born with a cleft lip.”

My words hang between us, heavy and unyielding..

After a while, Tess squeaks her heels across the floor, reminding me of the chalk she scraped across the board when drawing her cartoons.

“It was just a laugh,” she says – as if that makes it all ok. “Anyway, my parents are splitting. I’m moving away with mum. New school, private education. Catch up on what I’ve missed here. This isn’t a great school.”

I grab her sleeve. She looks shocked. I no longer care what she does to me.

“Do you know how much my mum worried when I was growing up? How upset she’d have been if I’d told her you made fun of me because of my lip. It’s rude to call it a hare-lip, by the way. My mum was with me every time I had an operation as a baby. She supported me through all the speech therapy and painful dental work. You’re lucky to have a flawless face. It’s just a shame about your personality.”

The ground shifts a little beneath her.

”Do you think you can at least try and be a bit nicer in your new school? Not everything is about looks, you know.”

“Mum says it’s a dog eat dog world. Or you get crushed. Where did being nice get Weeble? What difference did she make to any one?”

She may have been right – the world can still be cruel. Yet Miss Weeble’s kindness echoes in me, soft, but stubborn. Some lessons take longer to learn.

Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I remember her face – fragile, luminous, and remind myself: beauty, in the end, is only skin deep.

***

My granddaughter smiles. The silence that greeted me earlier has lifted. Soon, she’ll be telling me about her day, laughing at some silly incident, her voice animated. And for a moment, I see that even though the world can be cruel, kindness and courage last – soft, stubborn, echoing through the years, offering hope. She checks her phone, and then puts it face down on the table. She looks up at me, the silence stretching. Then a small smile touches her lips. “Maybe a six out of ten,” she says, mischievously.

“Crushed by the six,” I reply, mimicking my old drama.

She lets out a real laugh then – a sudden bright sound.

“Well, for what it’s worth, grandma, I love listening to your stories, and for me, you’re a total ten. Always will be.”

“So glad you approve,” I say. We’re both laughing now – and for once, silence has turned into laughter.