Wisps of Cloud (3 page)

"Why not?' Ryan stood up. "How about some more raisins and crisps?"

*

Forty minutes later they drove home and Kala felt nervous again. They pulled into her drive and Ryan turned to her.

"Thank you, Kala," he said. "You're a real woman, you know."

He reached over, squeezed her arm and that was it. She wanted to say something, to perhaps reach out and give him a hug but … "Thanks Ryan," she said and opened her door. "I have not had such a wonderful evening in months."

"And would like to do it again sometime?" He again sounded nervous.

"Yes," she whispered. "Next time your Toyota will do and I'll wear something not so … err... upmarket."

She gulped, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek before retreating out the door. Oh hell, she was acting like a fourteen year old!

Ryan lowered his window and grinned. "'Bye," he said and backed away down the driveway.

Karla watched the BMW reverse around into the road and disappear before she walked inside and turned the lights on. Somehow, her little house seemed strangely silent and empty.

"Oh, don't be an idiot!" she snapped out loud and headed for the bathroom.

*

Over the following few weeks Karla's life changed just that ever so slightly and it was mainly because of Ryan. At school, a set of gleaming painted shelves she had been asking for six months suddenly appeared across the back of her room. He'd also pop his head into her room every morning just to chat for a few moments before returning to his own duties but discreetly stay away from her at other times.

Val now completely ignored her in the staffroom and only spoke directly to her if it was necessary at meetings, Murray just continued drifting through to his retirement and Gillian became more of a friend. Karla also noticed that the staff from the senior classes began to drop into her classroom or seek her out for advice. Perhaps her status next year wouldn't be too bad, after all.

It was late on Friday night and had been a pleasant evening at a movie and an hour or so afterwards at that first little bar Karla and Ryan had visited. They arrived back in her driveway and she was about to say goodbye to Ryan.

Just as she undid her seat belt he reached over and seized her in an embrace that squashed her so tightly she could hardly breath, His kiss was frantic and though welcomed it was unexpected.

"Not here," she whispered.

She wriggled away, opened the door behind her and slipped out.

He followed her inside gathered her in his arms and kissed her again.

"See you tomorrow," he said and stepped away.

"You want to stay?" Kala replied.

Ryan grinned. "Do you mean what I think you are hinting at?"

Kala smiled "Possibly " she replied, kissed him and walked towards the bedroom.

*

Like many of the schools in hilly Wellington, the Tui Park site had little flat land so was built on two levels with a two storey ten classroom block built into a hillside.  The senior syndicate of five classrooms was on the lower level along with the administration block while above them was Karla's syndicate with another five classrooms that faced the top playground. This included an assembly hall across an asphalt court with the five junior classrooms built in a 'L' shape around a grass field. Access between the two floors of the main block was via an internal stairwell that led down to a corridor, staffroom and other resource rooms. This was only used by pupils in wet weather
, for when the weather was fine they had to use an exterior zigzag path that connected the two playground levels.

In late August, the final southern hemisphere winter month, the weather was atrocious with a freezing southerly storm buffeting the city. Once in a generation snow fell on the hills and the school playground was coated in a light coating for the first time in living memory. The children were excited but parents and staff not amused when it turned to slush and replaced by hail. Four days of keeping the four hundred children inside and warm was telling on everyone. Raincoats and gumboots went missing, children slipped on wet floors and the medical room was filled by children suffering from minor injuries or soaked after slipping on the zigzag.

By three-thirty on Thursday most of the children had gone home with only a few waiting in the administration block foyer for the rain to stop or parents to arrive. On the floor above, Karla was sitting in her office that was adjacent to her classroom, doing administrative work. She was tired, couldn't concentrate on the computer monitor and was about to stop and call it a day when the door opened and a sobbing woman burst in.

It was Chrissy Ancell who taught a Year 3 class in her syndicate. Chrissy's position at Tui Park was the first in her career and Karla had originally been on the selection committee who had chosen her from over forty applicants. Her qualifications, personality and the fact that they wanted a newly registered teacher had swung the appointment in the teacher's favour. In Karla's opinion it had been a good choice for Chrissy proved to be one her most conscientious team members who had a flare for art and knew more than any of them about the new computer system installed throughout the school.

She stood and waved the distressed teacher into the only armchair in the room and pulled up a stool beside her to sit on. She handed out a tissue and waited a moment while the sobbing woman wiped her eyes. "What is it Chrissy?" she asked.

"This!" Chrissy blinked away tears and handed Karla a child's exercise book.

Karla glanced at the cover that was in pristine condition and read the child's name, Stephanie McKay and grimaced. Stephanie was a bright but somewhat nervous little girl who excelled in most school subjects except perhaps physical education. The problem wouldn't be with the child herself but her overbearing mother, Pauline McKay who was a lawyer in the city. She opened the exercise book to the latest work that Stephanie had done. This was a four page imaginary story written in the girl's quite neat handwriting. Chrissy had marked the work in the school's prescribed manner with ticks in the margin, a few symbols to indicate spelling or grammatical errors and seven or eight more difficult misspelt words corrected. At the bottom Chrissy had stuck on a colourful sticker and a small comment saying how good the story was. Probably the only thing she could see that could be wrong was that Chrissy used a red biro for her marking.

"So it is not Stephanie but her mother who is the problem?" she asked.

"She's a bitch," Chrissy retorted and briefly explained the problem.

Karla nodded and stood up. "And where is Mrs McKay now?"

"In the corridor muttering about a scarf that Stephanie has lost. Poor little girl does nothing wrong but I now know why she's so nervy and timid in physical education. I told her mother I was coming to you."

Karla nodded at a second door in the office that led directly into her own classroom. "Okay, go through to my room, wait a couple of minutes then slip down to the staffroom and have a coffee. I'll deal with her and get back to you."

"Thanks Karla. I thought I could handle her but…" Chrissy shrugged, blew her nose on a tissue wiped her eyes and slipped out.

*

Karla opened the door and found the woman standing outside with a scarf in her hand. Pauline McKay glowered at the items on the corridor floor, from several lunch boxes to a couple of raincoats and other children's clothes on pegs or the floor. "What a mess," she retorted.

"Over a hundred children use this corridor, Mrs McKay," Karla said in a cold but quiet voice. "We have had a week of terrible weather and the cleaners have not had time to tidy up and wash the floor yet. In the circumstances, I think the staff and children have coped remarkably well. However, you are here about Stephanie so please step into my office."

"If I must," Pauline McKay muttered. "I'd go to the principal but he never does anything. In my opinion the whole school needs a shake up."

She swished past Karla in her upmarket business suit and whiff of exotic perfume, glared around and without invitation, plonked herself in the armchair. "Where's Chrissy; I thought she was here?"

Karla purposely walked behind her desk and sat down facing the woman. "I told her to go and have a coffee. She told me about your complaint, I am her senior teacher and will try to address your concerns."

"Red ink all over Stephanie's work. She works her little heart out and gets this back!" She reached for the exercise book and flipped to the last story. "Look!"

"I've seen it," Karla whispered. "If you look closely you will see several triangle symbols in the margin that mean Stephanie has made a mistake on that line and needs to find it to correct. She can either use a dictionary or spell-check on the computer. Spelling words are corrected and also go into her personal learning list."

"And the three corrections scribbled above her words?"

"This is a First Copy Book and they are difficult words that Chrissy considered Stephanie wouldn't need to learn. In her final display copy, she will include the correct spelling."

"I see," Pauline muttered and pointed at one such correction. "But when the teacher can't even spell the word correctly..."

Karla read the sentence.
Princess Buttercup wore a phsyodellic dress to the party.
The word describing the dress had been crossed out and psychedelic written above. "So?" She looked straight into the woman's eyes.

The woman was defiant. "It's incorrect. It should have an 'h' after the 'p' like Stephanie originally had. How can my child learn when her teacher can't even spell?"

Karla never said a word but reached for the dictionary she always had on her desk, turned to the appropriate page and found the word in question.

"Ms Ancell spelt it correctly Pauline," she said with a stress on using the woman's forename for no-way was she going to be intimidated by her.

Pauline McKay stared at the spelling and had the grace to blush when she realised her mistake. "So why didn't Chrissy point that out?" she muttered.

"I guess you never gave her a chance. Chrissy Ancell is the youngest teacher on our staff but I regard her as one of the most conscientious teachers in my syndicate. As for everything else you complained about, she was following our school's policy for marking children's work to the letter."

This was not completely correct for Chrissy should have used a pencil rather than a red biro but Karla was not going to give this demanding woman the satisfaction of being partly right.

"I see," Pauline McKay almost whispered. "I guess I owe Chrissy an apology."

"It would be appreciated," Karla replied. "Sometimes we forget how it was when we were in our early twenties don't we?"

"I was pretty green and thought I knew everything until I blew a simple procedure and our firm was almost sued. I bawled for a week." Pauline smiled for the first time as she stood up. "Chrissy will be in the staffroom, you said?"

"I believe so." Karla shook the woman's extended hand and watched as she left the office.

Five minutes later Chrissy burst in. "My God, what did you do, Karla?" She had a wide grin over her face and almost shouted. "The old bat came into the staffroom and apologised for everything. She even added how much Stephanie enjoyed being in my room."

"It was nothing," Karla replied. "We are a team, Chrissy and always support each other."

"Val and the boss don't," Chrissy whispered. "Even Gillian doesn't always bother. "

"I never heard that," Karla said. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah! Duty day. I hope the rain stops." Chrissy picked up Stephanie's exercise book, that lay forgotten on the desk and left, far happier than less than an hour before.

*

Karla never saw much of the Junior and Middle School production that was held in the early evening a week later in the school hall. She was out the back assembling classes, helping little ones into costumes and, at one point hastily repairing a backdrop that had come adrift. Several parents were there to help but needed her to co-ordinate all the activities. At the same time Val and later Murray paraded around with the parents they deemed important for the school while the teachers looked after their own classes.

The supper afterwards would have been a complete shambles with screaming children and the few show-offs beginning to tear around, knocking over glasses of orange and grabbing the more desirable food to eat. Karla walked in from the back stage and stared in horror at the scene. One or two teachers were attempting to keep their own children under control but much of the trouble appeared to be pre-schoolers who were ignored by parents more interested in socialising than controlling them. Val and Murray were nowhere in sight.

Karla stood on the stage in front of the closed curtain and rang a tiny bell. Immediately half the children, mainly those from her syndicate, glanced up, saw her and stopped still. The roar subsided and even the adults paused, talking stopped and slowly the preschoolers stopped running and also looked up at her.

"I am not pleased," Karla said in a normal voice but it carried across the room. "All school children will sit on the floor with crossed arms and legs."

Again her own syndicate led but the juniors followed with many preschoolers copying their elder brothers or sisters. When all was quiet, Karla stepped down off the stage and stood at the bottom of the three steps descending from it.