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Every Friday morning the school gathered for Assembly, and today marked Neill’s first time presenting. He entered the front of the hall in an air of grandeur, a deep resplendent blue suit, and his blonde hair swept in a fresh washed texture, filling the hall with the smoothness and charisma of a seasoned politician (‘but a nice one, a really nice one,’ Natalia thought) as he offered sincere thanks to everyone for making him feel so welcome in his first week.
‘Where I come from,’ he declared, ‘we pronounce an A where you pronounce a U. Where you say ooh, I say ahh!’
The hall tittered.
‘So, if I tell you the door’s shut, I do not mean that it’s fouled itself.’
More tickled murmurs, as he continued:
‘But rest assured if I say I want to sack you, I’m talking of a no-job… not what the boys think,’ as the school erupted into laughter with some turning faces of disbelief, as he finished:
‘I’m sure we’ll adjust to the dialect differences, along with new positive differences I plan to bring to Thornwood!’
Half the hall’s eyebrows were raised as Natalia couldn’t help observing the teachers standing at the sides. Some smiled whilst others like Mr Cohen frowned at the floor. Had they already had words? Was Cohen on his way out?
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Over the next week, it seemed everyone was remarking on the exuberant new Head, whose raucous laughter would be heard daily from somewhere in the building or grounds, rousing a Mexican wave across the school.
‘He lets you call him Neill,’ Bernard was grinning at morning form. ‘God he’s so different from Neary!’ joined in Luke, and then Ryan: ‘Mrs Williams sent me up to Neill for detention, but he chucked me a Mars bar and told me to clear off!’
Year 10 boys were wheezing with laughter in the playground. ‘We shat our pants when Neill caught us smoking up by the fence. But he came up to us and asked for a light!’ On the same day, two Year 9 girls passed Natalia in a corridor, chattering excitedly; ‘Mrs Williams confiscated my lipstick at break, but Neill came up, started doing the waltz with her, tossed the lipstick back to me and gave her a hug and a peck on the forehead!’
‘What! He’s mad!’
‘Mrs Williams just looked stunned! Don’t think she’s been kissed for a century!’
‘What like Sleeping Beauty?’
‘More like Creeping Snooty.’
‘Bleating Fat Booty!’
They tailed off into squeals of laughter.
Like a mesmerised spectator of a celebrity or comedian on a TV screen, Natalia observed these moments from the sidelines. Neill would dazzle corridor traffic to clear a path for him like Moses parting the Red Sea. High-fived by pupils greeting ‘aye up!’ to his attempted response in Yorkshire dialect ‘aye ooop!’ would elicit a chorus of giggles. Even the staff couldn’t resist discussing his unconventional ways.
‘I don’t think that’s going to bother Neill!’ laughed Mrs Coleman, when Miss Doris frowned over a deadline missed for a local Children in Need bake-sale fundraiser. And one afternoon, Neill was spotted in animated conversation with at least five female teachers around him, comically lauding up one of them as she posed her frumpy legs Vogue-style, exhorting:
‘What do you mean you can’t do Hollywood! You’re built like a hourglass!’ as they shrieked in laughter.
Upon the home bell, Natalia’s gaze would linger on Neill’s Merc as it disappeared out of the school driveway, her feet tracing the path his tyres had rolled. She couldn’t help but wonder about that enthralling man inside the black pinprick that now accelerated to the dual carriageway, likely racing back to his wife and family, who in her perception were so blessed to have his exuberant character for their own. A performer of sorts, brimming with gaiety, larger than life!
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*
The following Tuesday, Natalia spied Neill through the doors down the corridor, loitering with the posse from the other Year 11 form class. Wearing another fetching dark grey suit, ebullient and smiley, talking with the popular girls: tall Alana, toothy Gemma, and Aisha sporting her salon-coiffed Afro. Bet Neill’s in his element, she thought, as she watched him stroking everyone with his gaze, hypnotising the circle with his patter, as he now slunk away with a softly frowning, back-to-business expression, coming toward the doors - right toward Natalia. Her face went down and her heart rate up, knowing their paths were about to cross.
He opened the door, saw her, and held it open.
‘Thanks,’ she smiled, as she stepped into the gap, and as she brushed against his jacket, his gaze fell right upon the coldsore by her lip.
‘Winter winds? Or has someone been blowing?’
She stared, her fingers flying up to her chin.
‘Yeah, just from the cold. It’s going.’
‘Ohh! Just like old Cohen!’
She couldn’t suppress rising to the bait.
‘Well if you want a poem, I loathed ever having to know him.’
He chortled and walked on. Showman smiles for the posh girls, thought Natalia, and that embarrassing comment for her?
What a bizarre character Neill was on the education scene at all. Was this school so lowly, so desperate for a gentrifying, Queen’s English big fish like him that it was turning a blind eye to his ashtray-scented office, his tactility with staff members, and his sexual innuendos in front of students?
There was no doubt that Thornwood’s credibility was on the rise. Only the next day, unfamiliar faces were seen coming and going from the school, who must be prospective staff for interviews, Natalia gleaned, as an energetic young woman in a pinstripe suit descended the stairs smelling of peach and vanilla. What subject would she be teaching? And later came a looming, silver-haired gentleman in black, carrying a satchel, giving a deep ‘good afternoon’ and Dickensian cock of his head as Natalia gawped up at his sheer height.
The creeping promise of metamorphosis lowered Natalia’s dread for PE that Thursday morning. Whilst the boys went out for football on the field with Mr Winterbrook, the girls went to the gym for Netball. Normally Natalia would detest being knocked from pillar to post by the wiry bodies of the other girls, especially the bulldog-like Lisa McGann who would utter ‘sorry, little ‘un!’ as though Natalia were a toddler. But today, Natalia gazed into space in half-smiling reverie.
Luxton blew the whistle, making Natalia jump.
‘Earth to Natalia! Not woken up yet?’
Blowing the whistle for her own time up, she grinned to herself, as the game went on, and she thought back to Neill agreeing that ‘Luxton’s past it!’ Was Luxton looking tenser today than usual?
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Changed from PE, Natalia headed up to fritter break-time alone in the warm IT suite, before remembering she’d left her scarf back in the changing rooms. She headed back down to get it before it was handed into lost property.
Her stomach lurched, when coming out onto the staircase, she caught sight of a descending bustle of teachers led by the jogging, whistling Neill in a cream-coloured suit. As the other teachers filtered around Natalia and bustled down the stairs in chit-chat, Neill slowed and disappeared right behind her, his whistling fading into off-key tunelessness and ceasing completely.
Expecting him to manoeuvre and overtake her like the others - she even slowing for a second to allow it - he stayed behind her like a wasp trained on a jar of syrup. She hastened her pace, not daring to look round for fear of losing her footing or or have him collide into her like a freight train. Then, in a moment so subtle yet unmistakeable, she felt her left pigtail lightly flick up, and land down again.
As they reached the bottom of the stairs she felt a blush begin. He advanced to the door they were both headed for, opened and motioned politely for her to go first.
She replied only with a tilt of her head she walked through. Through the next doors, she felt her right pigtail flinch up and back down again.
She flashed round with a nervous smile. ‘What?’ she whispered.
‘Are you going to PE?’ in a gravelly tone back at her.
‘No - er, just to get my scarf…’
He produced an envelope from his pocket. ‘Do the honours, executioness, and hand this to Mrs Luxton. Saves me having to see the troglodyte ever again.’
‘Er, oh?’ as her hand came out.
‘You’re right, you need something to keep your neck warm.’ His eyes roamed momentarily to her pigtails, then he drew his hand across his throat. ‘Meanwhile think of poor Luxton’s. Tomorrow’s Friday 13th, unlucky for some!’
He turned and went off, as Natalia blinked down at the envelope. Heart racing, she stepped forward to Luxton in the gym.
‘Miss, Neill asked me to hand you this, I don’t know what it is…’
Luxton took it, frowning.
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For the rest of the day Natalia still felt the flinch on the roots of her hair like a tiny ghost, whilst Luxton got it in the neck for real. She had a permanent grin on her face all evening - eyes staring at Coronation Street or rather straight through it - till her mum noticed:
‘God yeah, now that is a laugh. Who the heck did Gail Platt’s hair?’
It all felt so naughty, so unbelievable, like someone surreptitiously slipping you a sweet in church, someone who dares to offer you a sugar rush when you are supposed to be praying to be fed a piece of tasteless wafer.
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