Chapter 16
The week continued much as it had begun. On Tuesday, there was an outbreak of nits, which meant Gemma had had to run up to Corrybank’s office at lunchtime to print out a ‘ Please check your child’s head’ letter to go out at the end of the day.
On Wednesday, four-year-old Megan, who had Down’s syndrome and was as bright as a button, came up, tugging her arm and leading her to the hamster cage, explaining earnestly that she thought Hammie, who had been curled up in a corner since yesterday apparently, was ‘poorly’.
This meant a visit to the vets after school. Had someone given him something to eat that they shouldn’t have? asked the vet. Gemma thought of all the children at Puddleducks who were always poking their fingers through Hammie’s bars, and of all the different snack boxes that came in and out, containing anything from processed cheese and jam sandwiches to smoked salmon with fromage frais.
She couldn’t be certain, she admitted. In that case, suggested the vet, it might be a plan for Gemma to take Hammie home with her for a few days, just to keep an eye on him.
And then on Thursday, there was a rather nasty scrap between a pair of so-called best friends who fell out over their mobile phones. Mobiles weren’t allowed at Puddleducks – not for the children, anyway – but somehow these two had smuggled theirs into their shoebags and then had a big row over whose was ‘better’. What kind of parent gave a mobile to a playgroup-aged child?
Ridiculous, as Bella said during their quick lunch hour, when they munched sandwiches in the kitchen while the cleaner crashed her way round the hall to clean before the afternoon intake. ‘Remember that craze over sparkly shoes last year?’
They nodded, recalling the group of girls who had excluded a newcomer because she hadn’t had the same shoes as them; the ones with the sparkly heels that flashed as they walked.
Children could be so cruel! And yet, thought Gemma, remembering how Lily and Danny and Billy looked after each other, they could also restore your faith in humanity. What would we do without them?
Gemma had planned to visit Brian on Thursday evening, but had felt so exhausted by toddler politics that she decided to put it off until Friday or maybe the weekend. It wasn’t, after all, as though she had told him she was coming, although she’d written ‘I’ll be round soon’ on his get-well card. Amazing, really, that he had survived when everyone had said it was unlikely.
It was also strange, she thought, as she walked back to Joyce’s house and made her way up the stairs to her room, how she had got used to comfortable old Brian, with his penchant for maroon jumpers and biscuits, not being there. It wasn’t that she was slowly warming to Joe, his replacement; it was difficult to do that in view of his critical manner.
But she could also see, rather reluctantly, that he was much more efficient at his job than poor Brian had been. And when she’d popped into Reception the other day, she’d been really impressed by the maths games involving pictures of iPhones and computer screens which were still on the whiteboard from a previous lesson. If they’d taught maths like that in her day, she might be better at it now herself!
‘Hello, Hammie,’ she said, coming into her room and closing the door behind her. ‘How are you doing then?’
On the mend, or so it seemed. The creature sat happily in the palm of her hand, gazing up at her with bright beady eyes as if it knew exactly what she was thinking. Gemma hoped not. Despite the nit alert and the mobile phone drama, not to mention the divorce chat, she hadn’t been able to squash some of the private thoughts which kept coming into her head during the week. No prizes for guessing why. It would be half-term before long, and then it would only be another two and a half months to go.
‘What are you going to do then?’ Kitty had asked when she’d rung up to talk about the Britain’s Best Talent event at school tomorrow.
‘Not sure.’ Gemma’s voice had sounded hesitant, even to her.
‘We’ll discuss it when I come round,’ Kitty had said reassuringly. ‘By the way, it is all right if I stay on your floor, isn’t it? Just for the night. It will save me having to go back up to town that night and besides, we can have a good old girly chat. Catch up, just like the old times!’
Gemma couldn’t wait, and Hammie seemed to sense her excitement from the way he jumped off her hand and on to the bed. Quickly she managed to scoop him up in her palm and pop him back in his cage.
At the same time, she heard the door next to her bang. Joyce, who had gone away for the week to visit her daughter, had left her a note to say that she’d let the room next door, without giving details of the new incumbent. Whoever it was must leave very early and come back late, because she hadn’t seen him or her. In fact, this was the first night she had even heard the door go.
Maybe she’d give him or her a knock and suggest coffee? It would, after all, be only friendly. Checking her reflection in the mirror – slightly smudged mascara but on the whole not too bad – Gemma opened her own door and, as she did so, spotted a very beautiful, glamorous redhead gliding up the stairs, wearing a stylishly cut black silk skirt and short boxy scarlet jacket. Kitty, who was also auburn, was the only redhead she had ever known until now who could get away with wearing scarlet, but this woman made even Kitty look like an amateur when it came to style. Gemma was about to ask if she was looking for someone, but the woman with long ten-denier legs up to her armpits merely nodded in her direction, and then knocked on the door next to hers. Gosh! That perfume, which she could smell from here, was definitely of the expensive variety!
The door opened and Gemma went back into her room, otherwise it would have looked nosy. ‘Darling,’ she heard the woman purr. ‘How are you, darling?’ ‘Very well, Ed.’ The voice, dark and deep, jolted Gemma so that she almost fell against the hamster cage. ‘And I can see that you are too. You’d better come in.’
Surely not? Gemma didn’t know whether to laugh or drill a hole through to next door just to make sure. Unless she was very much mistaken, the other voice belonged to Joe Balls. Her new neighbour. And immediate boss.