2 cobra 24

 

Chapter 24 A Dash of Teacher’s for the Road

 

“I’ve dismissed Miss Obama back to her normal classes,” I said. “She meant well, I am sure, in trying to help her friend, but she doesn’t need my pearls of wisdom, and she flunked on purpose.”

“I wondered why she had the worst end of term result of her life,” said Jean Lawrence. “I wondered if she’d started her fluxes.”

“No, just misguided,” I said. “Not a people person, though.”

“How would you know?” tittered Lawrence, spitefully.

“Compared to her and you, I’m positively empathic,” I said. “What the hell is it with ‘everyone’ telling Kershaw that she’s useless?”

“She is,” said Lawrence, instantly.

“Lovely positive reinforcement, just what teachers need to be doing,” I said with heavy sarcasm. “Why are you in teaching, Lawrence?  You can’t stand children, you’re bloody hopeless about explaining the most simple of principles, you aren’t even that good at mathematics; last year you told Pulk that it didn’t matter what use some principle was, the point was that it was a principle.”[1]

“Well, what’s wrong with that?” said Lawrence. “And you know why I have to work.”

“What’s wrong with it is that most people don’t see a point in principles of some esoteric nonsense as being worth knowing, if it has no practical applications,” I said. “Because there would be no point in learning math if it wasn’t useful in jobs which call for people with brains that work, rather than calculators with no soul or empathy like you.” Yes, I was trying to get her to resign in a huff, because Griffiths swore he’d replace her, and he hadn’t. “But if ‘everyone’ calls the poor child hopeless, you must all bear some guilt.”

“I call all of them dunderheads,” said Keith, defensively. “I haven’t singled her out.”

“Yes, I know that, but a kid who has been told she’s useless by her useless parents as well, is going to hear it being directed at her,” I said.

“She’s clumsy, she spills things, she wires things up backwards,” said Contini.

“She’ll grow out of being clumsy; all kids go through it,” I said.

“If you can stop her spilling things in time to not set the lab on fire I will buy you the biggest bottle of booze of your choice I can find,” said Contini.

“Get looking for a nice single malt whisky,” I said.

Teachers will bet on anything. Not in high sums, mind you, but bet, they do.

Keith and I stood to make a nice little pot from the rest of them.

None of the rest had the courage to say anything about the concerted bullying of Miss Kershaw.

Keith did draw me aside, however.

“That kid has some of the nastiest parents I ever knew,” he said. “And I’ve met Pulk’s father.”

“He was a sadist, and drove his wife to commit suicide,” I said. “And he interfered with Pulk.”

“Well, ok, I’ll put him back in worst spot, then,” said Keith. “But Kershaw is the younger of two sisters; the older one, Louise, is beautiful, poised, and as stupid as a stump.  The parents have convinced Kershaw that she’s stupid because she is hesitant about things. Her sister puts her down too, I think, and encourages her boyfriends to laugh at the poor child.”

“Well, I plan to do something about it,” I said, grimly.

“Remember not to step outside what we’re allowed,” said Keith.

“If my kid sister invites a friend home for the holidays, I’ll be in loco parentis,” I said.

“Oh, very cunning,” said Keith.

 

 

oOoOo

 

I started the morning run again; some of those who had joined us had kept it up. We opened with Tai Chi, and some kata from kung fu and karate; as I don’t do this sort of thing for competition, I tend to work in, and teach, a combination of a number of fighting styles. Kershaw turned up, and I got her going through Tai Chi, and explained to her that slow ritual moves could be speeded up, and she would be able to figure out where the ends of her body were. I also got her to dance, because working to a rhythm would help her body control. I got Ruth to partner her; Ruth knew how to dance. It was part of her social round. It was part of Kershaw’s social round as well, but she had been quickly written off.

I told her what I thought about parents who wrote off the abilities of their children and did not bother to try to help them. She was half delighted and half shocked at my grasp of scatology.

“I’m getting another sister, aren’t I?” said Ruth.

“I don’t know; I’d like her to go home with poise, and shock them rigid,” I said. “Get that awful hairstyle of hers sorted out in the dorm, and teach her how to take care of her skin. Be gentle.”

“Not like Obama,” she nodded. “I was awful, last year.”

“You were handling the first betrayal,” I said. “Second, if you count his treatment of your mother.”

“Mom always made time for me, however ill she felt,” said Ruth. “I want to be like her.”

“You are, sis,” I said.

With her hair off her forehead and brushed back from her face, and a decent set of skin care products, Kershaw’s skin improved a lot, losing zits and becoming a more healthy colour. With the exercise in the morning, her figure started improving, her eyes started sparkling, and she seemed to grow into her body.

Meanwhile, I coached my class now of five, and brought them on. Having half grown kitten-cats in the classroom livened things up, but playing with them was a reward for good work.

We worked around the ‘Extreme’ program, calculating the needed water in the desert, writing descriptive works around the various locations, finding works of literature which described different extreme locations, and also discovering a lot of geography and geology on the way, as we did when looking for where Elsinore might be – the play was Hamlet this year – and discovering botany about the flowers which Ophelia mentioned. I uncoded the smutty phrase ‘thinkest thou I spoke of country matters’ and looked into the history of policing with Hamlet’s attempt to force a confession from his uncle, and how there was very little in terms of formal law enforcement until 18^th century thieftakers starting with Jonathon Wild and his double cross, and the meaning behind that oft-used phrase.

I’m not sure how much of the syllabus we covered, but probably more than the syllabus did cover.  I had the usual crowd of extra kids wanting homework help after school, and Hana appeared to be fast friends with young Annabel Moorcroft, which was good.

So far, so good.

Then I asked to hire a coach to take the kids on a field trip to see a pioneer claim shanty recreation, where they could also work out how much area the claim was, and with yields per acre of the time, figure out how much had to be cultivated, join in the living history team there in having a go at driving plough horses, digging for potatoes, building walls from logs and so on.

I got the permission once I promised to pay for it.

We were given a driver; I’d have liked to have had Willow along, but she was now visibly pregnant and I didn’t want her having that level of concentration as a chaperone. We had a female driver, however, for that reason, though considering that she appeared to hate kids, she was not, perhaps, the best type of person to have along.

It had been me that Kershaw had come to, in terror, when she had her first period and was terrified she was dying from something else that was probably her fault. I explained matters, mentioned that if she played with herself, this was normal, and sent her to the loo with Ruth, to sort out packing her up appropriately, and I gave her a pass to go and sleep it off if she wanted.

She chose not to, and I swear she was more graceful after that was all settled.

 

 

I produced a book of puzzles to keep the kids occupied on the journey; they were both entertaining and educational. That kept them occupied for a while.

It wasn’t a very big coach, but it did have a toilet, which I had specified. There were toilets out at the exhibit, but its own facilities were, shall we say, primitive.

The kids were to find this out when they got there.

“For health reasons, we don’t actually use the outhouse,” said the guide. “For the real settlers, the waste went into the hole underground, beneath the seat, and it attracted flies as well as stinking horribly.”

“What did they do when it was full?” asked Ruth.

“Took down the outhouse, dug another pit along a different part of wall, using some of what came out to completely fill the old one,” said the guide.

“Isn’t it cold to go outside in winter?” asked Kershaw.

“That’s why they used chamberpots, and emptied them in the morning,” said the guide. “And some people didn’t even have outhouses, but went out with a spade to dig them a hole.”

The girls particularly shuddered.

The boys were keen to build a log wall, and to have a go at ploughing. Ruth wanted to know how they followed the fashion plates of the time.

“You could buy cardboard patterns, which you made larger or smaller for the individual, and to copy the shape of the skirt of the time,” said the guide. “It was all very basic and left loose; women then were expected to have more ingenuity. It’s why most pioneer women on early photos look like sacks of potatoes tied up ugly. Few of them had the skill or the time to make exquisite fashion plate clothes.”

The girls spent some time sewing on nine-patch quilts and were told quite gently that in the Pioneer days, even little girls of five would have such clumsy stitching ripped out and be made to do it again.

Kershaw kept at it, and actually received praise.

“I can do this,” she said.

“It’s a useful skill,” I agreed.

“But nobody sews for themselves these days, so it wouldn’t be appreciated.”

“And what if you made your own debutante gown, to suit you, and the right colour for you, which fitted like a second skin, and was fashionable but with your own twist to it?” I asked. “Nobody else would have the same gown, and you would be stylish.”

“I note you don’t say, ‘beautiful,’” she said, dryly.

“Beauty fades with age; style is immortal,” I said. “You need to be different to your sister, not try to be like her. When she goes for the princess dress, you go for a sheath dress. Now you are over looking like a piece of chewed string, you have the figure to wear that. You should study fashion through the ages and pick for yourself a timeless chic look. Looks aren’t everything, of course, but we both know that the world judges on looks.”

“I do study fashion,” she said. “I draw my own designs.  I hide them, though, because Louise laughed at them and tore them up when I showed her some I had done for her, which would suit her look.”

“And she chose a princess gown weighed down with flounces, frills on frills, and looked like a tart,” I said.

“You saw her?” asked Kershaw.

“No, but I know her sort,” I said. “Silk satin, too many pearls sewn on it, gold thread etc.”

Kershaw giggled.

“She looked like a cake.”

 

oOoOo

 

The kids seemed to have a good time, and if they didn’t learn anything, it wasn’t the fault of the living history caretakers of the place.

They even laid on a visit from some Native Americans, and Paul was fool enough to agree to smoke a peace pipe with the chief. He was a chief; I imagine the tribe made a bit of money play-acting for tourists. I took Paul’s pipe and completed the ritual properly. The kids all bought beaded items which doubtless also added to the tribe’s economy, having bought some stuff from the cabin souvenir shop. Ruth had blown all her allowance on a nine-patch quilt in the bear-tracks pattern.  Now for anyone who doesn’t know, a nine-patch quilt is not made with nine pieces of fabric, but with nine squares made up of smaller pieces in various traditional patterns, each square being the same or complementary colours to go together three by three. They are time-consuming to make, but I presume the living history women had little better to do with their time in the evenings, probably used electric light, or at least, I hope so, and had bought in fabrics rather than using old, torn, faded garments as the real pioneers would.

I did not spoil Ruth’s happy speculation of what garments her pieces had come from. She was used to wearing a gown once and discarding it, something she was learning not to do. I may be rich, but I am not profligate. And I’ve worn clothes until they fell apart on me in my time, so I know their value.

Anyway, after a pioneer meal in the cafe, we bundled everything back into the bus, where the driver growled, “About time too.”

“Miss Shenfield,” I said, “We hired you and your bus for the day. Be assured you won’t be on the list of people worth hiring again. You’re hired to drive and to be a chaperone to the girls, precious little of which you have been doing; not to gripe and grumble. Now shut the fuck up and drive.”

She shut the fuck up and drove.

“She wouldn’t have known what to do about a snake in the lavatory, anyway,” said Miss Kershaw who had screamed blue murder. It was only a corn snake, and I rescued it from Kershaw, but honestly! Madam must have heard the scream and just sat there, reading.

We bowled down the road, the kids tiredly singing ‘Shenandoah’ which they had been taught, when Shenfield leaped on the brakes and the kids cried out in fear and pain as they banged into the seats in front.

“Mister Tiber, there’s an obstruction,” said Shenfield.

There appeared to be a tree down.

I was about to suggest getting out to help me move it, when the two men with guns showed up out of the bushes.

 

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[1] I was told this when I asked why anyone would want to find the volume of vase shapes using integration. I gave up bothering. I now know it can be used in applications using nozzles, and things like jet engines and rocketry. I have no patience with pure mathematics; things are there to be used.