Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Picking up a stack of laminated numberlines, Gemma then closed the drawer and began placing them in front of each chair on one of the tables.
As she headed back to the drawers to grab the small brightly coloured plastic teddy bears to assist with the children’s counting, Gemma grinned as her friend and colleague, who worked as the teaching assistant in the class, Tania Groves, walked through the door into the classroom. ‘Hi, Tania. How was your weekend?’
‘Great, thanks. I went to a Singles Night at the pub on Friday.’ Tania slipped her bulging canvas bag from her shoulder before rummaging through it and unpacking her Tupperware lunch box, her flask of soup for break, and another Tupperware tub, this time containing what looked to be green, glittery Playdough.
‘Ooh, how did that go? Did you meet anyone?’ Gemma paused, the tub of plastic teddy bears still in hand.
Tania had been single for all of two minutes since her ex of two months had split up with her three weeks ago, and Gemma wasn’t sure whether she should be impressed or horrified that Tania was ready to date again so soon.
Probably impressed. Yep, she was impressed.
‘I did indeed. Kind of.’ Tania perched on the edge of the table, knocking the Tupperware tub of Playdough to the floor.
Bending, she picked it up before grinning across at Gemma.
‘The Singles Night wasn’t so great. Full of older men with beer bellies and the creepy type of laugh which makes your skin crawl, but I did see Jared there, and we’re going to try again. ’
‘You’re dating Jared? Again?’ Gemma tried her best not to let her disapproval show, contorting her face into a smile, but she couldn’t help it.
Ever since Tania and her ex-husband Brian had parted ways four years ago, Tania had been on a mission to make up for lost time and had more of a social life than the staff members who were ten or twenty years younger than her.
Jared, though, he was bad news. Tania and he must have been dating on and off for at least a year and a half, and every time the relationship fell apart, it would take Tania at least a month to recover which seemed to be a long time for her.
Holding her hands up, palms forward, in front of her, Tania nodded. ‘I know what you’re going to say, but it’s different this time. He’s explained a lot, and he does want to be with me. He really does.’
Gemma bit down on her lower lip. It wasn’t her place to say anything, but she and Tania had worked together for eight years now.
They’d survived swapping year groups three times together and knew every minuscule detail about each other’s lives, even down to the face that Gemma pulled when she really needed to escape to the loo but break was another forty-five minutes away. ‘I just…’
‘Worry. Yes, I know, but honestly, I’m going into it eyes wide open this time. Yes, we might not last, but if we do? Well, wouldn’t that be great?’
‘Yes.’ Even to her, her voice sounded feeble. It wasn’t that she didn’t want her friend to find love again, she did. She just wanted her to find love with someone who loved her back the way she loved him, someone who would be in it for the long haul.
Grinning, Tania rubbed her hands together. ‘Anyway, that brings me onto the next topic.’
Gemma began sharing the plastic teddies between the places on the table again. She knew exactly what the next topic of conversation would be. ‘I’m not going. Before you ask me, there is no way in this entire world I’m going along to the next Singles Night at the pub.’
‘Why not?’ Pushing herself to standing, Tania walked across to Gemma before straightening the small heaps of teddies. ‘It’s been three years now. No one, and I mean no one, should be single for three years.’
‘Nope, nope, nope. I’m not going. Knowing my luck, I’d probably run into half the class’s parents.
Besides, I don’t want a relationship. I’m happy on my own, thank you very much.
’ Gemma grinned widely. She was happy on her own.
She had her own routine, everything in her cottage had its own place, and she had her friends.
She didn’t need or want a man in her life.
Her last relationship and subsequent heart-breaking split was enough relationship experience to last her for the rest of her life.
‘Then go to one in a different town.’ Crossing her arms, Tania sighed.
Gemma laughed. ‘You’ve literally just told me it was full of old, creepy men. Why would I want to go to that?’
Batting Gemma’s negativity away with her hand, Tania continued. ‘It’ll be different for your age group. There’ll be loads of cute guys. Or, if you really don’t fancy the idea, then just join one of those dating apps.’
‘I really don’t need anyone in my life right now.’
‘You might not need anyone, but there must be a part of you, however tiny, who wants someone to share your life with.’ Tania smiled sadly. ‘Just because Reece was an absolute eejit, it doesn’t mean everyone is.’
Gemma shrugged. She knew Tania was just looking out for her, but she really didn’t need any help on that front.
She really wasn’t interested in the slightest. It had taken her a long time to recover from her split with Reece, and it had taken her self-confidence and self-esteem a lot longer, too.
She just wasn’t ready to risk having her heart pulled in two again, her world turned upside down.
‘Hear me out,’ Tania held up her forefinger. ‘I know what Reece did to you was horrendous. I know he cheated on you, but not every bloke is the same.’
Gemma scrunched up her nose. She didn’t like talking about him.
She’d rather memories of those dark days stayed in the little padlocked box she’d pushed to the back of her mind, but if there was any chance of her shutting down this conversation before the kids started rolling in, then she was going to have to unleash the awful memories from that time for a few moments at least. ‘He did more than that. I sold my home because we were going to move in together. I lost everything I’d worked so hard for.
He’s the reason I’m renting now. Plus, the fact that he paraded around the village with his mistress for six months after I’d found out about them…
He broke my heart, my trust, pulled my life apart and then continued as though nothing had happened. As though he had no shame at all.’
‘I know. I just want to see you happy. That’s all.’ Tania placed her hand on Gemma’s forearm.
‘I am happy.’
‘But if…’ Tania was cut short as Annie Walters, the teacher in the next Reception classroom as well as the Early Years Co-ordinator for the school, poked her head into the classroom and Tania tilted her head, looking at her. ‘You look flushed. What’s going on with you?’
Glancing both ways as though someone may have got lost and accidentally ventured into the corridor leading to the Early Years department, Annie then leaned against the doorframe and spoke in an urgent but hushed fashion. ‘You’ve not heard then, I’m guessing?’
‘Heard what?’ This was quite normal. Especially coming from the gossip queen of the school, Annie.
The last time she’d become so excited about something happening in the school, it had been because someone had seen our kind-hearted caretaker, Oliver, with the headteacher of a neighbouring school, only to later discover that he wasn’t being poached from his job and they were merely catching up as old friends.
Since then, Gemma had learnt to take whatever she told them with a humongous bucket of salt.
Annie again looked left and right, checking the coast was clear before continuing, her voice so low now that both Gemma and Tania took a step forward in order to be able to hear. ‘Mrs Norton has been dismissed with immediate effect, and we’re going to have a new head. Starting today. Right now.’
‘Nooo.’ Tania looked at her, her eyes wide. ‘You’re pulling my leg.’
Shaking her head, Annie’s expression was serious. ‘Nope, I’ve just come from an emergency Senior Leadership Team meeting. Just keep it on the down low. I’m not supposed to tell anyone yet. And, of course, we weren’t actually told she’d been dismissed but I read between the lines.’
Glancing across to Gemma, Tania raised her eyebrows, her look one of knowing, before she turned back to Annie. ‘This wouldn’t have anything to do with the money missing from the PTA account, would it?’
‘The Parents and Teachers Association account?’ Annie shrugged. ‘I’ve told you everything I know.’
‘I bet it is.’ Nodding vigorously, Tania continued.
‘You know how much the PTA raises with all the fetes they do, discos, movie nights and everything else? Well, Gina, the head of the PTA, has been complaining for at least the last year that money has been going missing out of the account. No one knows why, but they all swear it has. Loads of people have been saying it was Mrs Norton.’
Annie opened her mouth to speak before closing it again.
‘I don’t think it is.’ Gemma spoke up. After all, Diane Norton wasn’t here to defend herself. ‘Although I don’t think any of us would have cared if the missing money had been spent on fixing that hole in the hall roof.’
‘Or the lock on the shed we keep the play equipment in. I say every time I use it that I’m shocked no one’s got stuck in there before, it’s so temperamental.’ Tania shook her head.
Gemma shuddered. She hated small, confined spaces and every time she put the bikes and scooters away, she had to check the doorstop was pushed against the door to hold it open twenty times before she dared venture inside.
‘That’s true.’ Annie nodded in agreement.
‘We could actually use some new footballs, too. The number of times I have to inflate them midway through a lesson.’ Gemma rolled her eyes.
It was wishful thinking. She’d have to replace them out of her own pocket, just as she had with the glue sticks her class liked to squash onto the tabletops, the pencils they enjoyed chewing and, more recently, the collection of picture books she’d replaced because the ones she had in her classroom had been so dog-eared and crumpled she’d felt herself getting more and more despondent each time she asked one of the kids to choose a book for them to read.
‘And wouldn’t it be nice to have the wooden playground equipment replaced rather than the poor kids staring at them but not being allowed to play on them?’ Tania took a deep breath, ready to continue her list. ‘Or…’
‘I know. The whole place is practically falling apart, but until we actually know what’s going on, then we probably shouldn’t speculate.
’ Annie pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘Damn, Diane was supposed to be taking assembly today, and I’ve got so much I had planned to get done before we had the emergency Senior Leadership meeting… ’
Gemma knew what she was hinting at. Whenever there was a hitch in the assembly rota, it was always Gemma who stepped in.
Truth be told, she was happy to. The Early Years department was at one end of the school building and if she didn’t venture out of her classroom, she could probably go for weeks before coming across another person.
Besides, she loved seeing the children she’d taught in previous years, and they always seemed happy to see her too. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Are you sure?’ Annie tried her best to feign surprise at Gemma’s offer when, in fact, the three of them each knew what she’d been hinting at. ‘I’d be so grateful if you could?’
‘Of course.’ Walking across to her desk, Gemma placed the now-empty tub on top before reaching over and picking up her guitar case. ‘We’ll all have a nice little sing-song, start the week off with a smile.’
‘I don’t know what we’d do without you and your guitar, Gemma.
’ Annie smiled before looking across the classroom towards the windows where a group of children were standing on tiptoes to cup their hands against the glass and peer through the window, their parents standing and chatting behind them.
‘Right, we’d better open up. See you in the hall. ’
‘See you.’ Walking across to the desk, Gemma fiddled with her laptop before the tune to The Pirate Song - When I Was One began to fill the room. ‘Tania, do you want to do door duty and I’ll get everyone on the carpet?’
‘Yes please, my knees are killing me after all the dancing me and Jared did at the club Saturday night. I don’t think I’ll be jumping along to any of your nursery rhymes for a few days.’
Laughing, Gemma grabbed her laptop and opened up the digital register as she waited for Tania to tidy her things away and make her way to the door.
Just as soon as she’d pulled it open, the usual eager trio, as she called them, raced into the classroom and towards the coat hooks at the side of the room.
‘Slow down, you three. We don’t need any accidents this early on a Monday morning.’ Tania called after them before coaxing Amelia from her mum’s arms. As soon as Amelia’s mum lowered her to the floor, the small girl shoved her thumb in her mouth and walked slowly towards Gemma.
‘Morning, Amelia. Are you feeling sleepy again today?’ Holding her hand out, Gemma waited until Amelia had joined her on the carpet. ‘This is your favourite song, isn’t it?’
Amelia nodded and reached out for Gemma’s hand.
‘Do you remember the actions?’
‘I do!’
‘Me too!’
‘And me!’
Laughing, Gemma watched as the eager trio slowly energised Amelia and she eventually began to join in.