Happy Christmas, Mrs Barker!

There’s a buzz in the air: an excited buzz, providing harmonious backing vocals to the selection of upbeat Christmas songs which I’ve chosen to play on a loop.

Everyone’s busy. We’ve got quite a production line going: some are drawing round their hands, while others colour the outlines green before handing them to the next group who cut them out. (Please, don’t think I’m some kind of fiend, making kids colour white paper green for the fun of it. The truth is we’ve run out of green paper and the Boss says he can’t buy any more ‘til next year!) Then the final group, who I’m with, stick the finished product onto the outline of a tree. My partner, Helen, is a bit sceptical about the outcome, but I’m sure it will look great. In fact, I’m determined it will and that’s why I am on my knees, showing the kids to do it in an organised fashion.

“Make sure they are straight. They must be in line with each other,” I say pointing to the hands I have just pasted on.

“They should be overlapping each other.”

“Why?” asks Ally, picking her nose.

“So’s they’ll look like leaves, stooped!” says Suzy Daker before I have a chance to do so.

I nod my head while Ally wipes a snotty hand on her sweatshirt. I note she’s wearing the Dalmatian one yet again.

Task finished, placing my hand on the nearest table I push myself up. The kids should be able to finish it on their own now. Although, there is no guarantee that the tree won’t look like a dog’s breakfast; six-year-olds can’t always be trusted to stay on track.

 God! My legs are dead! The feeling of pins and needles is awful as I kind of stagger over to the second group, shaking at my legs every so often. “A sign of old age,” says Helen. However, I like to think it’s a sign of a good teacher who, taking an active interest in her kids, is always on her knees.

 When I eventually reach them, the kids are colouring hands in various shades of green; some tongues are hanging out, some lips are being bitten but everyone seems to be hanging onto those crayons and pens for grim death. They are so engrossed in what they are doing.  I smile. I wish they could get this into solving math problems!

The results are quite unique!

“Need any help?” I ask more out of habit than anything else.

No-one needs my help. No-one answers me. No-one looks up. In fact, only Ellen stops - although, it looks as if she gave up long ago; a crayon and a half-finished hand lie on the table beside her. She’s playing with her doll. The one with the strawberry-coloured hair and the one she’s never without these days.

The doll’s hair is supposed to smell like strawberries but when Ellen near pushed it up my nose to let me smell the strawberries, it smelled sickly sweet and plastically to me. However, I did my duty: I said I liked it.

Ellen looks at me with that sad hang dog look on her face. If I’m truthful, I’m expecting her to drool, I always am. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve almost told her to stop catching flies or almost tickled her under the chin. I smile. I love Ellen with her big doleful eyes, with her mouth hanging half open and, her hang dog look. I also love her hair.  It’s shoulder length and silky almost platinum in colour.  It’s a testament to her sister; some kids are not as well turned out as Ellen and I think of Ally Deakin.

The other morning, Mrs Lamont, Darren’s Mum, told me she’d caught Ally shoplifting.

“I might’ve ignored it, Mrs. Barker. I might have said nothing to you, but do you know what she was taking?”

“No!”

“Cornflakes! I ask you, Mrs Barker, isn’t that just criminal. Why do some folks have wains. I just don’t know. Anyway, I thought that I should tell you. Maybe you could tell the social.”

Me! I think Mrs Lamont has a distorted opinion of the power that I wield. If they didn’t listen to my warnings about Robert, before he took money from my purse to buy a bike and then set fire to the school, then I’m not sure the authorities will listen to me about Ally and a packet of stolen cornflakes. But I thanked her anyway and said that I would tell them.

I know Ally’s not taken care of. I remember the time she came to school wearing her reversable Dalmatian sweatshirt, the one she’s wearing today. She was proud as punch because it was just like mine.  She even said that we were just the same. I smiled and agreed. But it seems we are not; her mum never washes her clothes. Ally wore that sweatshirt for a fortnight: one week on one side and the next the other. You could see where she had dropped some jam on Monday morning!

Looking now at Ellen, I know she’s not the same. Always looking smart, she always smells of Lavender, roses, or some another scented soap. Her clothes are always washed. As far as I know from the social worker, Mrs Brown, there’s not much money, but Ellen’s always got new trainers, new white tights and when we go on school trips, she’s always the first one to pay.

She looks up at me and says,

“Mrs. Barker. You know Santa’s Elf that’s in this school. The one you told us about.  The one that only big people can see and hear.”

“Yees…,” I wonder what’s coming next. I told the kids last week that they had to be good in school, because Santa’s Elf had come to school and was watching their every move. At the same time, I’d told them not to worry, because I would keep them right. I warn them in whispers and give them lots of stickers, so that the Elf knows that they are good. (I didn’t want to be that cruel or have any of them in floods of tears, but it’s nice to have a bit of peace.)

Ellen eyes me, holding tightly to her doll.

“Do you think he can hear me?”

“Yes. I’m really sure he can.”

“Even if I ask for a special present?”

“Yes, of course.” I smile. “What do you want from Santa?”

“My mum,” says Ellen. “Do you think Santa can bring her home?”

I gulp. How am I to answer that when I know that her mum will never come. The social work won’t allow it, let alone her dad. This is one present that Sant Claus can’t bring, however hard he tries. As I’m trying to frame an answer that won’t come, I’m saved. Isa McDuff, the school secretary is standing in the door. She beckons me over.

Isa’s got a piece of paper in her hand and she hands it now to me.

“Heather Brown, the social worker, just called to say that she’ll pick up Ellen today. She’ll be a bit late. Not till after four. The boss says….” Isa pulls a face. “…the boss says, do you mind waiting with Ellen an Ed ‘til Heather comes.”

“Well… I was going to have champagne and caviar with Prince charming at four, but it can wait. I’ll put him off,” I say wryly.

Isa sighs, touches my arm before she walks away.

For the last fortnight, Ellen and her brother Ed have been picked up by their sister, an aunt or sometimes Heather Brown, the social worker on their case, but always someone comes. We’re under orders not to let Ellen and Ed leave school with anyone else and sometimes, that means staying at school until that responsible adult turns up. Last week, it was my partner Helen’s turn to wait and now it’s mine.

This all started two weeks ago. The thought of it makes me shiver. I don’t think the image will ever leave me. Ellen had handed me a bit of card torn from a cornflake box on which was a note from her mum, written in a spider’s crawl. She said that she would pick her children up from school as she had a dental appointment she had to keep. Ed had brought one too, written on another bit of box.  Helen looked at me and I had looked at her before taking her bit of card and going up to see the boss.

The Boss got Isa to phone Heather Brown, who phoned Ellen’s father, who confirmed what we were all thinking – NO WAY JOE!

So, when Ellen’s mother had turned up at half past three, I’d sat in the cloakroom among the forgotten cardigans, sand shoes and poly bags, slippers left on shelves and those thrown on the floor. I’d sat there with Ellen and Ed for what seemed like hours, singing songs, telling stories about Santa Claus and all the time watching Ellen’s mother staggering and listening to her slurring speech.

“I wrote a note. I need my children. They’ve got a doctor’s appointment, you see.”

Ellen kept saying she had to go that hang dog look on her face.   I kept saying that she needed to wait a minute and asking Ed what he wanted Santa to bring him this year. Then I bit my tongue, changing the subject quick, after all Ellen wanted mum.

“But my mummy’s there, Mrs Barker. I think we need to go.”

“No! No!” I said. “Just wait for mummy to talk to Mrs McDuff and Mrs Brown is coming too.”

The Boss was as usual, conspicuous by his absence, holed up in his room on the phone to his friends in the police and child protection. I’m yet to see those friends! I wonder if they’re real.

In the end, Heather Brown had turned up, late as usual, and persuaded Mrs Fitzpatrick, Ellen’s mum to go on home. Then she, Heather Brown, had taken Ed and Ellen home.

Ellen was really upset. I’d never seen her cry before, but after her mum had gone, she broke down in floods of tears.

“But Mrs. Barker,” she’d wailed. “I didn’t thank my mum for buying me my doll.” Then I noticed it in her hand – that doll with the strawberry-coloured hair. The same one she’d stuffed right up my nose to let me smell the hair. The same one I’d said I’d liked. Now, I knew why Ellen never let the doll out of her sight. My heart began to break. No, that image can never leave my sight.

So, today it’s me who’s waiting for Heather Brown to come. I’m catching up on marking sums, Ed’s reading a Batman book and Ellen’s with her doll again, trying to plait its hair. Just then, we all look up at the sound of feet. It’s Suzy Dakers with her mother.

Mrs. Daker is standing in the doorway as Suzy runs right up to me a parcel in her hand. It’s a red foil like wrapping with a ribbon made to match.

“For you. Mrs Brown. A present! I chose it all by myself.”

“Why thank you Suzy,” I say while looking at Mrs. Daker. Our eyes meet and we understand.

I take the red coloured package from Suzy’s hand. I start to open it. I know that I’m not allowed to keep it for Christmas Day. Suzy wants to see my face when I see what she has chosen. It’s a red trinket box, shaped like a heart and inside there is some chocolate – my favourite, at least that’s what I’ve told the class. I smile in surprised delight. I say,

“Oh, Suzy, that’s just great. How did you know this is my favourite?”

“You told us, remember?” says a beaming Suzy.

“So, I did. Silly me.”

I bend and kiss Suzy on the cheek, she turns and runs to mum. They wave and then they’re gone. Now it’s just Ed, Ellen, and me in the classroom once again.

I offer Ed a chocolate and he takes it without a second thought, but when I offer one to Ellen, she shakes her head.

“No, they’re yours,” she says, turns back to her doll.

We’re back in school again. It’s Monday morning, the beginning of another week, the beginning of another day, another door to open, another day closer to the big one, another day nearer to the holidays. I can’t wait and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

  Ally Daker proudly shows everyone the chocolate she’s just taken from behind door number fifteen on the Advent calendar before stuffing it in her mouth. Soon, chocolate drool runs down her chin, dropping onto her cleanish sweatshirt. Suzy Daker’s eagle eyes spy the red trinket box on my table and she asks me why I didn’t take it home.

“Didn’t you like ma present?”

“Of course, I did,” I assure her. “I just thought it would be a good place to keep my stickers,” I lie.

Then we all turn round as we hear the sound running feet.

It’s Ellen. She’s late this morning – not like her at all. She’s carrying a piece of paper in her hand.

“Oh, no!” I think please not again.

To cries of: “Ouch!” “Look out!” “Ow ma hair!”, Ellen pushes her way through the other children who are sitting on the floor around my desk. She stands on toes, pulls hair, and pushes kids out of the way and then she’s standing in front of me. She’s holding that piece of crumbled paper out for me to take. I hesitate. I’m cautious and that’s too long for her.

“Mrs. Barker! Take it. It’s a present just for you.”

I take the paper from her. It’s a piece of newspaper wrapped round something hard. I carefully unfold and look inside.  There’s the strawberry haired doll now lying in my hand.

My mouth is hanging open, my eyes are growing round and fill up by the second as Ellen says all grown up,

 “You said you liked it. Happy Christmas, Mrs Barker.”