Mystery Deceit and a School Inspector , livre ebook

Pneuma Springs Publishing - Bryony Allen

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138 pages

English

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"Was it murder or was it an accident?If it was murder, who was responsible?Whatever it was, what are they meant to do about it?"Beaver's Brook Primary School is the subject of a justifiably scathing Ofsted inspection, which rips apart the school and its inhabitants, wrapping them in mystery and deceit.As an inspector is found dead in the staff room, the fragile lives of the teachers are held to scrutiny and ridicule. Their hopes and aspirations decompose beneath a tirade of no-holds-barred mockery, in which love, ambition, jealousy, passion, guilt and innocence collide with disastrous consequences.Book reviews online @ www.publishedbestsellers.com

Informations

Publié par	Pneuma Springs Publishing
Date de parution	01 juin 2006
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781782281276
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0124€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Mystery, Deceit
and
a School Inspector

Bryony Allen
Copyright

First Published in 2006 by: Pneuma Springs Publishing
Mystery, Deceit and A School Inspector Copyright © 2006 Bryony Allen
Kindle eISBN 9781907728501 ePub eISBN 9781782281276 PDF eBook eISBN 9781782280347 Paperback ISBN: 9780954551094
Pneuma Springs Publishing E: admin@pneumasprings.co.uk W: www.pneumasprings.co.uk
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Published in the United Kingdom. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of the publisher.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, is purely coincidental, although you may recognise the odd trait here and there.
Dedication

This book is dedicated to my amazingly supportive husband John, my fantastic children George, Kimberly, Michaela and Charlie, and to teachers everywhere who have lived to tell the tale of Ofsted, as well as to the inspectors themselves – without whom, none of this would have been possible.
The Novel
1
K atie Maker pushed open the staff room door and stepped carefully over the obstruction before making a drunken beeline to 'her' chair. She failed the straight line test as she navigated past piles of magazines, well-thumbed vacancies lists and innumerable boxes full of ‘useful stuff’. She had claimed her seat at playtime by removing the living coffee cup from the vinyl cushion and replacing it with a pile of marking. This was her favourite chair and - let's face it- in a place like this, you grabbed at any available luxury before someone else did. From here, you could see the playground, but not have to endure an army of tomato sauce stained chins grinning at you as if you were the proverbial prodigal son. At least the prodigal son had the luxury of being away from his ‘dearly beloveds’ for longer than fifteen minutes.
From here, she could gain ammunition for her jotter. She needed ample retaliation against Mrs. Cole's complaints of darling David's victimisation - oh, yes, there he is, having to pin Joseph Chester up against the skip and stamp on his recently healed foot. What misdeed was inflicted upon the misunderstood David to cause such a terribly uncontrollable violent outburst? Perhaps Joseph breathed in the wrong way again or perhaps he spoke. How inconsiderate! Flicking through her jotter at parent's evening was also a top tip from teacher training college – possibly the only one. Looking for that one elusive anecdote that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson really must hear about Gemma was a fabulous way of killing at least one whole minute. That left only nine minutes in which she had to listen to their complaints about how her teaching had failed to ignite Gemma’s true spark – how do you recreate fizz in a flat bottle of Coke?
It was 12.21 - thirty nine minutes before the next bout commenced. Luckily, another spell of laryngitis had put paid to Katie's choral speaking club, which her cherubs attended every Wednesday lunchtime with glee. Choral speaking was 'a success of the school', if you believed the prospectus. Indeed the children loved the lunchtime club; spoke with enthusiasm, beautifully clear diction and with as close to a genuine love of learning as they were ever likely to experience at Beaver's Brook Primary School. If only she could bottle that passion and turn it into an aromatherapy essence, Katie’s year sixes would not only achieve level four but sneer at its ease.
Miss Maker perched on the edge of 'her' chair, smugly congratulating herself on landing the only chair that did not directly face Marje Heddon, the deputy head. Marje's chair paid homage to the great lady herself: a white covering of snow indicated the success of Marje's own anti-dandruff remedies. Crisps, breadcrumbs, orange peel and somewhat sticky, unidentifiable objects spread like a skirt around the base of the chair. The seat itself was the perfect epitaph, being autographed by two perfectly moulded cheeks which gently cushioned away the stresses and strains of a lifetime of 'little buggers'.
But the true might of Marje was in her appearance. The bleached hair, which was all the rage in the eighties had made a long-lasting impression on her then thirty-something head, and she had made it her ambition to keep all peroxide manufacturers in business ever since. Wow, what that lady could not do to roots is not worth knowing! Her make-up was also an art form to behold. It must have been surgically implanted in the seventies, complete with cartwheel mascara, turquoise blue eye shadow and more lip-gloss than even your four-year-old sister would wear.
The 'piece de resistance', however, was the clothes. She had fallen in love with the power dressing image of the late eighties, especially the belt-like skirts; the skirts your skinny size ten friend looked lethal in, but which flaunted all those extra areas on your body which even your mother had advised you to hide. Marje would probably have fallen into the latter category, except that she could never have had a mother, as she had never been young. Do you remember Kenny Everett's "best possible taste"? Yes? Now imagine Tina Turner's thighs enlarged about twenty times, Ann Summer's hold-up stockings and more pubic hair than even the strongest hair removing cream could handle. Take a moment to digest…that is why Katie could not bear to sit opposite Mrs Heddon.
The kettle clicked and Katie went across to pull a doubly-extra-caffeinated tea bag from an old ice-cream tub labelled 'Katie's Bags', re-labelled 'Katie's a Bag' by some amazingly witty joker. She checked the clock again - 12.22 - and calculated that she would have to remove the bag at 12.25 precisely. Then she opened the cupboard and rummaged amongst the paracetamol, emergency tampons, incontinence pads, plastic whisky miniatures (empty) and exploded tea-bags in order to reach another old ice-cream tub labelled 'Katie's Nosh', re-labelled by that same amazingly witty joker, 'Katie likes to Nosh'. In her other rather sweaty hand she clutched a small container of happy pills.
12.23- oh, how she needed that pill right now, but she was under strict medical instructions not to alter her pill-popping times. She watched the seconds slug by, experiencing a bizarre, yet brief, moment of empathy as she realised just how much her 'round table’ loathed the tick of the timer in their weekly 'Beat the Egg Timer' multiplication challenge. (The egg timer, incidentally, met a sticky end when one of the said tables hurled it out of the window after another 'nil points'.) Katie's mother had mentioned empathy on many an occasion as she clucked over her brutish grand spawn. Perhaps empathy really does exist...bollocks, its probably just caffeine and drug deprivation.
12.24 - pop that pill and party! Katie navigated a path to the ‘kitchen area’ (definitely estate agent speak) and squeezed the last drops out of her tea bag before flinging it at the bin. Mahogany brown droplets spattered the wall as it ricocheted in, but Katie neither noticed nor cared. Cleanliness was one of the few areas that Ofsted had not criticised; hardly surprising as it was the area that had received the most attention in the weeks preceding. Even the children's exercise books had been given new covers where there was the slightest mark. But post-Ofsted everything was ops-normal, hence the target practise. For a moment, Katie forgot about the obstruction and nearly wobbled the layer of lime scaled insulation covering her sludge-like brew. As revenge, she kicked the obstruction before stepping across with her precious possessions. She paused for a moment before wiping her foot on the underside of the Heddon’s chair, but realised her mistake when she saw all the little multicoloured extras it had collected. Using the same tarnished foot, she shoved the marking off her chair and settled down to some serious pampering. What could be better than adding more caffeine and cholesterol to her nicotine and alcohol encrusted arteries?
Within five minutes of Katie having painted an "I'm happy, honest" grimace on her face, Doreen Hutch entered the staff room and stepped over the obstruction, muttering to anyone or anything that would listen. "Oh, I'm ever so worried, you know, his mummy never took him to playgroup. I know she lives out in the sticks a bit, but she could have got there on the bus. She'd have only had to change in the middle of town and then at the train station. These days, you really have to put yourself out a bit to ensure your children get the best start."
The soliloquy carried on with reminiscences of how she used to get her triplets to their private nursery (you know, being a professional, she had to insist on a private nursery otherwise who knows what might have happened) on her bicycle and sidecar when her four by four was out of service. How she still got to work on time despite allowing only an extra ten minutes for her journey. Yes, it was a bit icy at times, but you know, it was the middle of February. Still they only skidded four times. All that rubbish about the sidecar attacking the school bus queue is absolute slander. If you do not allow space for bicycles then what can you expect? And you cannot expect a mum with three young children to use a dangerous road, can you?
After preparing her little tipple - three teaspoons of extra-caffeinated coffee with four teaspoons of sugar - Doreen sat down with her Barbie lunchbox. "He hasn't got his statement through yet, you know," she twittered whilst nibbling on a delicate triangle of beef spread on brown wholemeal; food that must have been as filling as that which you are served in a fancy restaurant which has cost you seventy five pounds for a starter and consists of a soggy shred of lettuce with a blob of pink sauce on top, and