Competition Entry - Growing Up

It was generally agreed that things had not turned out well. Even Lucy’s upturned nose for once could not disagree, in spite of her goody two shoes reflexes. Ben felt his eyes glaze over with a distant fondness every time he remembered Mr Parker’s famous joke at her expense. He had stood before the class, towering like a gentle colossus as he urged them all to think for themselves. Even aged six it was very important to question things, he had said, before asking her with a reasonable, encouraging tone, and such delicious timing, “but of course, you’d still jump in the pond if I asked you to, wouldn’t you Lucy?”. Lucy’s knee-jerk “of course, sir” had followed her around the playground for weeks and for a short while some of the starch had been taken out of her ever-pristine collar.

Today though, Mr Parker was ill, and instead Ben shared his classmates’ sense of foreboding as they faced the entirely different prospect of Mrs Mortar. She possessed none of Mr Parker’s good cheer, and stood before the blackboard like a fat and displeased ghoul, her black shoulder-length hair brushing against the black cardigan that somehow stretched over her voluminous waist. Below her knee-length skirt appeared a pair of chubby calves swathed in thick black tights, and below these Ben almost expected to find a pair of stripy socks and curly-toed witch’s shoes. One summer’s evening, they had all watched Mrs Mortar cycling home with her son perched behind her on the narrow frame-seat and, when quite sure that she was out of earshot, Alex had whispered to him with glee how her son’s head was shaped just like a pumpkin.

Despite much discussion on the subject, the children had so far been unable to agree upon which of her eyes was the glass one. Alex thought she deliberately avoided looking at anyone directly when she asked a question so that no-one could tell, but he was quite sure nonetheless that her left eye was the “beady” one. Now, as she turned to pace back to her desk, and all around him the class scribbled down their spelling for “cathedral”, Alex put his theory to the test. With well-practised deftness he rose noiselessly from where he sat beside Ben and stood upright with his hand raised in mock request. Mrs Mortar’s black shoes continued to clack their slow, unbroken rhythm against the wooden classroom floor and for step after step she went on towards her desk.

One or two of the other children had noticed and they looked up from their desks, some with wonder and others with barely suppressed mirth as they shared in Alex’s heady defiance. Mrs Mortar was only a few metres from her desk now, and as more heads popped up around the class Ben felt sure that she would notice the change in atmosphere and deliver a punishment as immediate and terrible as her reputation promised. He glanced up and saw that Alex was lit from head to toe with the excited glow of victory. He seemed intent upon enjoying the moment for as long as possible and Ben began to feel the trace of a murmur growing that would surely give the game away.

He tugged sharply at Alex’s shorts to encourage him back to his chair, and then twice more, and sighed with relief as Alex appeared to relent and dip his knees to sit back down. Mrs Mortar seemed momentarily preoccupied with a sheet of paper she had picked up from the edge of her desk and as he took in this happy timing Ben felt the blood drain soothingly away from his cheeks with the luck of the escape. No sooner, though, had Alex come within an inch of the seat than, seeing the delay, he shot back up to his full height and clasped his hands together above his head, shaking them from side to side as though he were a victorious racing driver newly crowned upon the podium.

“Mrs Mortar”, piped a shrill voice from the front as Alex froze in the midst of one of his most jubilant flourishes. He was back in his seat as quick as a flash and without so much as a sound as the good eye hoved into view. Ben and Alex both recognised the voice and looked over in fear, knowing already the familiar blonde and ribboned hair that would greet him.
“Yes, Lucy?” came Mrs Mortar’s even response.
Lucy turned her head sharply to look across at them with a cold and disdainful expression. She paused for a moment, clearly enjoying her moment of satisfaction just as Alex had enjoyed his before she replied. Ben’s heart beat loudly in his breast and he thought for a moment he heard Alex’s breath quicken.
“May we have the next word please?” Lucy asked primly as she wheeled back to face the front with her nose more upturned than ever.
“Yes, you may.”

Ben knew the words should come as a relief but there was something in Mrs Mortar’s tone that unsettled him. Alex, meanwhile, was assured of his success and had begun surreptitiously to sketch a small pumpkin on the corner of his answer sheet. He seemed oblivious to the growing pregnancy of Mrs Mortar’s pause and was idly readying himself for the next word by re-tracing the forms of the letters on his previous answers. Ben found himself following the path of the pencil and saw that Alex had missed out the “a” in “meadow”.

He fixed his gaze back upon his own answers and cradled his head in his hands. He felt uncomfortably hot all of a sudden, as though the air had grown muggy in anticipation of a storm.
“Did you have a question, Alex?” she asked with an unnaturally kind tone, turning to look directly at him as she spoke his name.
Ben didn’t dare look up but he sensed that she had drifted ever so slightly closer, and he pictured too the look of surprise upon Alex’s face as he did his best to appear unflustered.
“No miss,” he said, his tone a ready mixture of confusion and innocence.
“Are you sure, Alex?” She continued, seeming to relish the sound of his name as she spoke it.

Ben continued to stare down in front of him but soon saw the tops of her shoes, and then her ankles and the hem of her skirt as she moved softly towards their desks. Beside him Alex’s fingers played nervously at the fringe of his hair.
“If you have a question I would like to hear it. This is, after all, a school, and we are here to learn.”
“No. I’m sure, miss.” Alex replied with an attempt at steady obedience, though Ben could hear a tremor in his voice this time.
“Very well then. Would you like the next word too?” She asked, as though doting upon a favoured grandson.
“Yes please, miss.” Alex answered, the confidence returning to his voice, “I would like the next word, miss,” he continued with a touch even of cockiness.

Ben looked up to see her full form looming above him very closely now, so that the bottom of her cardigan was touching the top of his desk. Alex had returned his pencil to the paper together with his gaze in anticipation of the word to come, but Ben was fixed upon the smiling face of Mrs Mortar.
“The final word, children,” she said, as she removed with a quick jerk the eye which had been looking straight at him, the eye they had thought was real, “is beady.”

With that she set it down neatly into the centre of Alex’s inkwell and looked on with the growing semblance of a smile as one by one the class fainted to the floor with the fluid softness of a colony of rabbits, suddenly filleted.