A Pen Dipped in Poison

PROLOGUE

We’re gonna be bringing out the bunting this Friday for our St Barnabus PTA Summer Fayre! Stalls, games, delicious hot dogs – not forgetting our Mega Raffle! Plus, your chance to soak Mr Berryman with wet sponges! Come along from 6 p.m. and help us raise money for school resources – all welcome!

July

(i)

There are many signs that a school summer fayre has gone well – a bare tombola littered with discarded tickets, a cake stall with a few scant Krispie buns remaining – a teacher wet and shivering after a stint on the ‘Soak Sir’ stall. Many signs of things going well – but an empty school office, door wide open, piles of change left unattended is not one of them.

Thelma stood in the doorway; in her hands a Tupperware container neatly labelled ‘Change Bookstall’. Looking round the abandoned room, she felt a prickle of unease. Where was everyone? Linda Barley, cheerfully scooping the change into piles of pound coins? That buttoned-up office manager with her pained air of holding things together, just?

She scanned round looking for some clue. Scattered across Linda’s workspace was a fan of white envelopes that Thelma knew to be the raffle prizes. Apparently there had been a bumper crop this year: tickets to Newby Hall, a free appointment at Curl Up and Di, afternoon tea at the garden centre. One envelope lay apart from the others, crisp cream paper as opposed to white, a slightly different size from the others. Angling her head, she was able to read snatches of the letter protruding from it.

… seven years … great regret but no other

choice … Impossible to remain as chair …

She guessed immediately what this letter referred to, and who it was from – there had been little talk of anything else amongst the volunteers at the fayre, particularly Izzy, the garrulous lady running the bookstall with her. Some spat had blown up between the parent–teacher association (Friends of St Barney’s) and the school’s executive head Mrs Kayleigh Brittain – something about how the money raised was to be used. The Friends of St Barney’s had proposed their usual end-of-term ice pops and bouncy castle; the head teacher, however, had decreed the money be spent on new maths resources.

‘Blood on the walls I heard.’ Izzy Trewin had spoken with cheerful relish. ‘Absolute carnage.’ Indeed, so bitter and so acrimonious had this spat been that Donna Chivers – the breezy, force-of-nature chair – had apparently been reduced to Absolute Floods in the middle of the school playground, and the entire PTA had walked out en masse. Hence the eleventh-hour drafting in of volunteers such as Izzy, a parent new to the school, and people like Thelma and her friend Liz, retired staff members.

‘At the end of the day, your head teacher isn’t here to make friends,’ Izzy had pronounced. ‘I should know – I used to work in a school for my sins, back in the Dark Ages!’ She gave one of her merry trills of laughter as she thumped a pile of Biff and Chip books into some semblance of order. ‘I mean I’ve not met Mrs Brittain yet, but she’ll have had her reasons. The wisdom of management and all that.’

Thelma had said nothing. To her it felt like no sort of wisdom whatsoever to alienate the entire PTA the day before the summer fayre. But then Mrs Kayleigh Brittain, executive head teacher of St Barnabus’s Lodestone Academy, did have the reputation for being One Tough Cookie.

In the year and a half she had been in place, it was fair to say she had neatly divided opinion in Thirsk. On the one hand her toughness – cracking down on absences (pupils and staff alike) and her relentless focus on the end of Key Stage Two tests (the results were apparently the highest the school had ever seen) – was welcomed by many, particularly those who sought to get their children through the hallowed gates of Ripon Grammar School. But on the other hand, if you were one of those parents who could only afford cheaper term-time holidays, or one of those children who struggled with endless tests, or even a staff member in need of medical or dental appointments – in short anyone not totally comfortable with the Lodestone Academy Trust ethos embodied in Mrs Brittain’s designer-clothed form – then she was never going to be your favourite person. ‘More like a blumin’ CEO than a head teacher,’ was the verdict of more than one person.

All this was running through Thelma’s mind as she scanned the empty office. Could the absence of office staff be connected in some way with what Izzy kept referring to as PTA-gate?

‘I need change!’ The voice that echoed Thelma’s speculations was hoarse but penetrating; standing behind her was a short dumpy figure with wild magenta hair and even wilder eyes. Bunty Carter, the Nursery Nurse, was one of the increasingly few staff who had worked in the school in Thelma’s day.

‘Where is everyone? They shouldn’t be leaving all the money like this!’

‘They must have just nipped out,’ said Thelma calmly.

‘I tell you, Mrs Cooper …’ Bunty shook her head darkly, eyes wide with potential catastrophe. ‘It’s been just terrible here. Terrible!’ Her dire tones were ones Thelma had heard many times over the years, describing everything from a playground fight to a jammed photocopier. She took a surreptitious sniff. With Bunty Carter one could never quite be sure. That awful incident at the Teddy Bear’s Picnic.

Bunty took another step forward, eyes darting round the room. She seemed steady enough. ‘Do you think maybe something’s happened?’

Thelma was thinking exactly that but had no wish to join in with any fevered speculation that was likely to end up on the Sowerby Girls WhatsApp group.

‘If you stay here, I’ll go and check,’ she said.

Bunty opened her mouth, obviously to protest, but there was something about Thelma’s voice – the calm authority of someone who had taught for thirty-seven years. ‘I can make a start on counting the money,’ she said, eyes again roving round the office.

Thelma noted the many bottles lined up as raffle prizes and offered up a quick prayer.

After leaving the office she turned left, away from the swell of noise from the school hall. The first door she came to was one that was also open when it should have been closed. This one bore a name plate, gold letters on a tasteful crimson background: MRS KAYLEIGH BRITTAIN – EXECUTIVE HEAD.

From within the room came raised voices, sharp with panic.

‘I say we should call the police, Mrs Brittain!’

‘No.’ The negative held authority – but also a distinct twinge of stress.

Thelma knocked and without waiting for an answer went in.

That she’d walked into the middle of a crisis she could tell instantly from the body language of the four women she faced – three standing, one sitting behind an imposing wooden desk that wouldn’t have looked out of the place in the study at Downton Abbey. On this was an unfolded sheet of paper, which they were all looking at with various degrees of wariness and concern.

One of the women she knew well, Linda Barley – number two in the office, wife of Matt the site manager, famed for her love of rich tea biscuits and the Spice Girls. Next to her was the neat figure of Nicole the office manager, looking accusingly at Thelma. Both women were wearing corporate-looking grey blouses that Thelma knew represented some sort of academy uniform. Nicole’s neck was swathed in a thick turquoise scarf – surely an odd choice for such a warm night? The other woman standing was that tall red-headed girl, the one who had been darting about all evening with a ferocious energy, organizing volunteers and dispensing change. She was now bent over the desk, fingers splayed against the surface, frowning at the paper that lay white against the rosewood. And seated in an opulent office chair was the fourth person in the room, wearing a designer cream jacket and with abundant chestnut hair. Her very presence meant this could only be Kayleigh Brittain, executive head of St Barnabus’s Lodestone Academy. However, it was not her, or any of the other three, who made an immediate impression on Thelma.

It was the room itself.

It was a space she knew well from the days of Feay, the previous head teacher; like the school itself, it had undergone a massive change. Gone was the genteel clutter, the bookshelves rammed with assembly books, the inevitable Mike Hopper calendar and the open cupboard leaking ring binders and magazine boxes. The drab North Yorkshire Local Education Authority olive green had been repainted a refined shade of dove grey, the carpet tiles replaced by something altogether plusher in a shade of crimson. The whole effect was corporate and somewhat spartan; the only breath of something more spontaneous was a large seascape that dominated the wall facing the desk, a vibrant swelling mass of greys, greens and oranges.

‘Can I help you?’ Kayleigh’s chilly tones plus the differing expressions on all four faces made it crystal clear she should not have just walked in. ‘This part of the school is closed to the public.’

‘It’s not the public, it’s Thelma,’ said Linda Barley in relieved tones that she obviously felt explained everything. ‘Thelma Cooper. You can trust her, Mrs Brittain. She used to work here.’

Thelma registered Linda’s use of her head teacher’s title and surname. It struck something of a jarring note from the usually free and easy Linda, who invariably used first names, or more often the term ‘lovey’.

‘I came looking for change,’ said Thelma.

Nicole, fingering her scarf, turned to Linda. ‘I hope you haven’t left the office unattended.’ There was a far from subtle subtext of ‘it’s not my fault, miss!’ in her voice and Linda’s mouth drooped uneasily.

‘There’s someone in there keeping an eye on things,’ said Thelma, firmly pushing away the images of all those bottles of Orchard Hooch with a further prayer.

‘As long as they’re not making off with the money,’ said Nicole.

‘People.’ It was the red-haired girl talking for the first time. ‘If we are going ahead with drawing the raffle, we need to move now.’ Her voice was abrupt, almost gruff.

‘Becky – how can we?’ Kayleigh Brittain’s voice was almost incredulous. ‘Anything could happen if I go out there.’ The girl flushed, in the way red-haired people can. ‘I was just seeing if that’s what we had decided,’ she said gruffly.

‘Someone else could draw the raffle,’ suggested Linda.

‘I’m not being funny, but should we even be even talking about this?’ said Nicole, sliding her eyes towards Thelma. ‘In front of strangers.’

‘Actually, I really don’t think you have anything to worry about.’ Thelma spoke directly to Kayleigh Brittain. ‘The person who wrote this horrible letter almost certainly isn’t here.’

The reaction to this statement was dramatic. All four sets of eyes instantly jerked back towards her, and Nicole swiped the paper on the desk, holding it protectively against her trim figure. They all stared at the slight woman with the grave face and large glasses, wondering how on earth she knew what was going on. Thelma, however, had seen all that she needed to see; years of working in a classroom had made her something of an expert at reading text upside down – besides which the note on the desk had been written in leering block capitals:

I HOPE YOU REALISE JUST HOW MANY

PEOPLE HATE YOU. YOU’VE UPSET SO

MANY PEOPLE! WHY DON’T YOU GO

AWAY – YOU’RE NOT WANTED HERE!

Now she spoke directly to Kayleigh. ‘It’s a horrid thing to receive. I quite understand why you’re upset.’

‘I thought it was a raffle prize,’ blurted out Linda in distress. ‘Thank God I thought to check them all. It could have been opened in front of all the parents.’

‘I rather think that was the idea,’ said Thelma.

Kayleigh regarded Thelma thoughtfully. Even at such a time of stress she cut an imposing figure, and Thelma found herself contrasting her own M&S skirt and blouse with the cream designer suit. ‘You said the person who wrote this isn’t here tonight?’ said Kayleigh Brittain.

‘I don’t see how you can possibly say that,’ said Nicole dismissively. ‘I really don’t think you should go out there, Mrs Brittain.’

‘How can you even know?’ The red-haired girl’s voice could have been interpreted as abrupt and challenging, but Thelma recognized it as that of someone who genuinely wanted to find out.

‘Of course, I can’t be certain,’ said Thelma. ‘But I haven’t seen Donna Chivers all evening, and I understand …’ she paused tactfully ‘… I understand she has said she won’t be coming.’

‘Donna Chivers?’ said Kayleigh.

Thelma nodded.

‘How can you be so sure it’s from her?’ said Linda.

‘The envelope.’ Thelma indicated the white torn-open object discarded on the desk.

‘I don’t see.’ Linda picked it up and scanned it, as if it might say ‘Donna Chivers sent this’. ‘It’s even not like the ones she usually uses.’

‘No,’ said Thelma. ‘But it’s exactly the same as the ones the raffle prizes are in. And Donna organizes the raffle. Or at least she always used to.’ Again, the four women looked at her. ‘As I say, I imagine the plan was for the letter to be revealed in front of parents at the raffle draw.’ She remembered the chair of the PTA – all breezy good humour to your face, and then behind your back …

‘I believe,’ she said, ‘her Jake is finishing this time?’

The red-haired girl – Becky – nodded.

‘So, in a week’s time she won’t even have to come near the place.’

Kayleigh nodded. She appeared to have come to a decision. ‘Right,’ she said standing up.

‘I’m not being funny,’ said Nicole. ‘But this lady could be wrong.’

‘Not Thelma,’ said Linda with a laugh.

(ii)

It was still uncomfortably warm in the school hall, despite no less than three floor fans racketing away on the stage. The sight of Izzy Trewin energetically fanning herself with one of the Biff and Chip books made Thelma feel even hotter.

‘It’s still red hot in here,’ said Izzy, strands of permed curls plastered to her temples as Thelma set down the tub of change. ‘Some sort of issue with the heating, someone was saying. Not that I’m moaning! Hey, I grew up in Cornwall for my sins! Talk about wall-to-wall mizzle!’

At that moment a rather overweight woman – presumably a parent (so many people Thelma didn’t recognize) – brandished a copy of New Life, New You! which was Izzy’s cue to enthusiastically embark on the subject of her recent relocation to Thirsk from Luton (Hey! This is my time now!) leaving Thelma free to reflect on what had just happened. She hoped she’d been right about Donna Chivers; she was as sure as she could be. She remembered that awful incident with the lollipop lady and social services – all Donna’s handiwork.

She glanced around the hall. Everything looked very much as the summer fayre had always looked, no sign of Donna, but as for people sympathetic to the PTA, well, there were so many people she didn’t know … Parents … staff … That large lass on the cake stall surreptitiously polishing off a stray Krispie bun. A plump girl, pink-faced in the heat, half-heartedly selling raffle tickets. Across from her running the whack-a-rat stall was someone she did know – Sam Bowker, the Year Six teacher.

Once upon a time and many moons ago, she had taught him. His rather cadaverous face (his nickname had been Zombie Boy) had not really changed, rather elongated, along with his body. Watching him, Thelma sighed to herself – yet another example of the passing of the years, like the hall she was in, with its smart blue paint job and enormous interactive whiteboard where once there had been the Superstar of The Week display. And above that, dominating all – the logo. Blue, brash letters LAT (Lodestone Academy Trust) with the caption ‘Strive for success and reach for your dreams’. Of course, academies were very much the norm these days. So many schools seemed to be – what was the word? – federated into groups of schools administered by these trusts with their brash-sounding names, dotted randomly across the country. St Barnabus’s was, she knew, federated with schools in Bradford, Leeds and – rather bizarrely – Felixstowe.

A grating whine from the PA system drew her attention to the stage where an energetic man in a tomato-red tracksuit was adjusting the microphone. Thelma knew him to be Ian Berryman, who taught Year Five. Not unattractive (a shame about that livid shaving rash) with hair wet and tousled from his stint on the ‘Soak Sir’ stall. ‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ His voice was distorted with that weedy resonance peculiar to school public address systems. ‘Ladies and gentlemen – I am now going to draw the raffle!’ He said it in a way that invited laughter as if it was some colossal joke – but no one did apart from Izzy and the plump girl with the raffle tickets.

Thelma frowned and looked at the door to the hall. Had Kayleigh Brittain had second thoughts about making an appearance? But at that moment the door opened, and the head teacher of St Barnabus’s Lodestone Academy made her entrance.

For indeed ‘entrance’ was the only appropriate term for the way she appeared and then progressed with easy, smiling confidence through the crowd of parents. Thelma found herself watching her with the same fascination with which she’d watched Helen Mirren at Stratford a few months previously. If Mrs Brittain was uneasy, she gave absolutely no sign of it; the smile was calm and gracious, not giving a hint of anything untoward. As she passed the tombola, Liz’s friend Jan Starke called out something cheerfully to her. Kayleigh’s response – or lack of response – was striking. The smile didn’t slip one jot, but at the same time she paid absolutely no attention to Jan, not even turning her head. There was no doubt in Thelma’s mind that it was a deliberate snub and from the slapped, hurt look on Jan’s face and the grim set of Liz’s mouth she could tell that was how they saw it too. Had Jan somehow fallen foul of her boss? Knowing Jan Starke, that wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility.

Kayleigh ascended onto the stage and took her place before the crowd of parents, looking totally composed and confident. ‘I just want to say thank you so much for coming along and supporting the St Barnabus summer fayre.’ The voice was poised and confident. ‘This is my second summer with you. As ever, I am so impressed by the way you all turn out and support your children’s school.’

The parents regarded the designer-clad figure in watchful silence. Had Thelma been wrong? Was someone going to shout something out?

‘And it’s a good school. There’s so much to be proud of – your children have worked so hard! We’re on track for an excellent set of results and indeed our Year Six writing is not only the best across the trust but has scored very highly in the north-west league tables!’ This time there was a faint murmur of approval – after all, good results were good results. Kayleigh smiled down beneficently. ‘As a result of this, I’m happy to announce that from September we’re going to become a Beacon of Writing Excellence!’

Again, only Izzy Trewin and the girl selling raffle tickets reacted with whoops and cheers; but then many people (Thelma included) had no idea what a Beacon of Writing Excellence was, except that it sounded to be a Good Thing. There was the faintest spattering of applause, but it struck Thelma how very subdued the parents were; there was none of the cheery warmth and support that former head Feay had engendered whenever she spoke.

Thelma regarded the staff, now assembling on the stage carrying the various prizes, looking like the cast of a play preparing for a curtain call with Kayleigh as the leading lady. There was Ian Berryman holding a bucket containing the tickets; beside him stood Sam Bowker hefting a pamper hamper. Nicole and Becky stood to their left holding the basket with the prize envelopes. Across the other side was Raffle Ticket Girl, Linda, and Jan holding the bottles; between them glumly clutching a tub of Quality Street was Bunty Carter. All were watching Kayleigh Brittain. For an absurd instant, Thelma was seized by the fancy the woman might be about to break into a rendition of ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’.

‘And now,’ said Kayleigh, extending an exquisitely manicured hand into the bucket of tickets, ‘let’s get this raffle drawn!’ The staff all smiled dutifully but it suddenly occurred to Thelma that none of the smiles seemed genuine.

‘I never win anything me,’ said Izzy Trewin cheerfully.

‘Blue 279.’ Again Ian’s magnified voice sounded weedy.

Thelma’s attention was not so much drawn as grabbed in a headlock as Izzy let out a piercing whoop and waved a blue ticket in the air.

‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘And I don’t win anything ever!’

She continued to both whoop and repeat how she never won anything as she proceeded to the stage and chose a course of sunbed sessions at Bronze and Beyond. All eyes in the hall were on her – all except Thelma’s. Her position at the side of the hall meant she was the only person in the hall able to properly see Kayleigh Brittain’s face.

The head teacher of St Barnabus’s Lodestone Academy was no longer standing on the stage but had removed herself to the bottom of the steps, looking up at those clustered together holding the prizes. And her face …

Her gaze was completely devoid of any expression – and yet it was by no means expressionless. Indeed, she looked so ghastly that Thelma felt a prickle in the nape of her neck. Was she going to faint? There was something in that gaze, that unwilling stare, as though Kayleigh possessed no power to take her eyes off whatever it was she was looking at. Was it shock? Or fear? None of these, and yet somehow … both.

Thelma swiftly scanned the hall but there was no sign of Donna Chivers. She looked on stage to see who on earth it could be that Kayleigh was staring at in such a way. Ian Berryman? Nicole or Becky? Sam Bowker or Raffle Ticket Girl? Then there was Jan Starke … Linda … Bunty Carter. Had one of them prompted this awful, stricken look? It couldn’t be the letter; it had been well over half an hour since she must have seen it.

So what was it?

Thelma looked back at Kayleigh and was just in time to see the cream jacket retreating discreetly across the hall and out of the door.

CHAPTER ONE

A second envelope is found and sad change is observed in the emotional heart of the school.

September

Face impassive, Kayleigh Brittain stood in the centre of Elm Base, gazing round the classroom. In her hands was an iPad in an expensive-looking leopard-skin case; on this she was making intermittent light taps. As she did, a faint chinking sound could be heard from her gold charm bracelet, which winked and glittered in the September sun streaming through the windows.

From her vantage point in the reading corner, it seemed to Liz that the class were largely oblivious to the presence of their head teacher. She couldn’t help but contrast their reaction to the one Feay, the previous head, invariably provoked from children, fending off barrages of news about trips to Center Parcs and parties and guinea pigs. There was something about Mrs Brittain’s presence that seemed to somehow repel the children – or at least not attract their attention.

She was expensively dressed; even Liz could tell that. The apricot suit was crisp, clean and elegantly cut. The abundant chestnut hair shone in the sun without a trace of a grey root showing. With some shame Liz noted her own appearance, faintly reflected back at her in the classroom window – the helmet of greying hair, the white blouse and faded blue skirt, resistant to most things a primary classroom could throw at them. Her cardie had been consigned to the back of the chair within thirty seconds of entering the room – it really was fiercely hot.

If the children were oblivious, her friend Jan, gamely teaching phonics to her Bumblebee table, was anything but. Her voice had gone up at least two notches since her head teacher had materialized for one of her infamous Wednesday drop-ins. ‘Split digraph, Randeep!’ she was saying in tones that were warbly with stress. No, not stress.

Fear.

Which of course, was the reason that Liz was sitting here helping the children of Elm Base plough their way through various split digraphs and consonant blends. Her thoughts spooled back to the night at book group when this had all started – well, it must have started before that, but it had been that night when she became aware of her friend’s problems.

When Kayleigh Brittain had first started at St Barnabus’s and the school had become an academy, Jan had been an ardent advocate. It was high time, she’d say, that the place was taken by the scruff of the neck and given a jolly good shaking! The energy and enthusiasm of her words had the effect of making the recently retired Liz feel like some decrepit old has-been.

Then, subtly, things had changed.

Jan had begun dropping out of book group meetings, citing the pressure of work. When she did come, she said little (for her) and the comments she did make lacked their trademark authority.

The big reveal had come the previous June. The group had been meeting at Liz’s house; the book, some first-hand account of a drug addict’s hell in a Malayan jail (The Moon Through the Bars – not at all Liz’s cup of tea) had been Jan’s choice. But despite this, Jan had barely spoken … almost as if she hadn’t actually read it …

After seeing the others out at the end of the evening, Liz half expected Jan to be clearing away the coffee cups when she came back to the living room, but Jan was still sitting on the sofa, gazing unseeingly at the remaining crumbs of a piece of Busby Parkin (all of their cakes were named after local places). It was a look Liz recognized instantly and one that made her deeply uneasy.

‘I suppose I better be making a move.’ Jan’s voice had been dull, weary, in the way it had not been for some years. ‘I’ve work I need to do when I get back.’

Liz couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said in response, something along the lines of ‘surely not at this time,’ at which point Jan’s face had slipped and screwed up, followed by sudden sobs and hot tears. Jan wasn’t an easy crier. Her face looked ugly and helpless, her sobs rasping and nasal. She cried for seven and a half minutes (during which time Liz’s husband Derek came in, took one horrified look and hared upstairs with the Yorkshire Post) and then, through fistfuls of Liz’s balsam tissues, the story staggered out.

It was the national Year One phonics test. That year, a number of Jan’s class, for a variety of reasons ranging from a chicken pox outbreak to plain lack of ability, had failed to achieve the golden pass mark of thirty-two. This had not gone down at all well with Lodestone Academy Trust, who had subsequently pronounced an ‘All Achieve!’ policy for the following year’s test. This, it transpired, meant that every child in the Year One class – especially those deemed to be Phonically Vulnerable – MUST have a Quality Bespoke Phonics Experience at LEAST three times a week. Which was all well and good in theory but as Liz knew full well, the simple truth was that some children could spend all the hours God sent having Quality Phonics Experiences and still remain stubbornly and cheerfully Phonically Vulnerable. This view, however, was not shared by Kayleigh Brittain.

‘She has this way of just looking at you!’ Jan had wailed like a hurt child. ‘You just feel completely rubbish!’

Which explained why Liz had found herself on Wednesday mornings since the start of the autumn term steadily dispensing bespoke experiences to the phonically vulnerable of Elm Class. Plus – crucially – to be there on hand to give extra support in the event of any of Mrs Brittain’s infamous Wednesday drop-ins.

Derek hadn’t been at all keen about this arrangement. ‘Don’t be getting involved,’ he’d cautioned. But then Derek was someone who spent his life living with a horror of Getting Involved. Involved with what exactly was something that was always fairly opaque and differed from situation to situation – but Jan crying on the sofa certainly qualified. And of course, there’d been that time the previous year when Liz had very definitely Got Involved in a situation surrounding the death of a former colleague, one that had resulted in three people going to prison.

All of which meant that on these Wednesdays, Liz never said that much about these trips to her former workplace.

‘It’s all looking lovely in here, Mrs Starke!’ Kayleigh’s warm but curiously flat voice broke into Liz’s thoughts. She looked round the room, smiling, taking in the walls with their laminated labels, plus the crayoned vegetable hats strung across a wall ready for the forthcoming harvest assembly. ‘It’s evident a lot of quality learning is going on.’

Jan looked up at her, her eyes wide, her expression vulnerable, hopeful. ‘We have a new home learning system,’ she said with a wide manic smile. ‘The children all take their sounds home to learn in their Funky Phonics envelopes.’

‘I can see you’ve got it very organized,’ said Kayleigh. ‘And I see you’ve got your friend helping you.’ She bestowed a gracious smile on Liz, who felt a sudden impulse to curtsey. ‘I’ll give you more feedback later – but well done! And just a thought to park with you, as t’were. Consider a phonic-rich environment to support all the lovely learning going on.’ She gave a final smile, turned and left the room.

Liz looked over to her friend, giving her a ‘well done, now relax!’ smile. But Jan was staring after her boss. A stare the Liz had not seen for a few years and one that made her deeply uneasy.

‘Right!’ As the children streamed noisily out to play, Jan stood frowning in front of a display of autumn words. ‘A phonic-rich environment!’ Liz noted the edge to her voice and looked at her friend in concern. ‘At least have a quick break,’ she said to Jan.

It was as if she hadn’t spoken.

With a grunt of determination Jan proceeded to fall on the display, ripping off paper and words (words that Liz had spent an hour laminating only the previous week).

‘You go get your break!’ Jan spoke in that gung-ho way she had when the mood was on her. ‘You don’t mind fending for yourself?’ She