Flour Babies - Anne Fine [34]
‘Might not be safe.’
‘You can always say no,’ Wayne Driscoll responded virtuously.
The others seemed satisfied with this.
‘That’s right.’
‘Just say no.’
‘Not worth taking any risks,’ Phil Brewster told them all sagely.
‘Better be safe than sorry.’
‘One sloppy moment, and your life’s not your own.’
Mr Cartright gazed out at the worried faces, all struggling with the idea of having to defend themselves against the terrible dangers on the horizon. Only one member of the class didn’t seem swept up in the general anxiety, and that was Simon Martin. Simon was sitting chewing his pen and staring thoughtfully out of the window. He’d been quiet throughout the whole hubbub. Mr Cartright was pretty sure he understood why Simon hadn’t joined in the general pillorying of the flour babies. After all, he’d taken such a strong shine to his own that his psychology had been a matter of heated discussion for over two weeks now in the staffroom, with half the teachers insisting the poor boy was in dire need of professional counselling, and the rest lining up behind Mr Dupasque and Miss Arnott to claim his response was ‘rather sweet’, and more to be applauded than pitied.
But what was he thinking now? What was on his mind?
Deliberately, Mr Cartright picked out the semi-literate Russ Mould to read the names on top of the diary entries and distribute them back to their owners. Then, under the cover of the spreading riot, he slid off his desk and made his way round the class till he was beside Simon and could ask him privately:
‘A penny for your thoughts?’
Simon glanced up.
‘I was just thinking about my father,’ he said.
Mr Cartright gave this response a moment’s consideration. You had to be careful. These days, some parents swapped spouses round like first-day-cover stamps, or football cards. Only the week before, he’d strolled behind a couple of pupils working side by side, and heard one saying to the other, amiably enough: ‘You’ve got my old dad now, haven’t you?’ No, you had to be very much on your guard.
‘Do you have a new one I don’t yet know about?’ he asked Simon politely.
‘No,’ Simon said. ‘I was thinking about my real one. I can’t help wondering about him. He’s on my mind.’
Mr Cartright trod as carefully as he could.
‘Is there anything in particular bothering you?’
‘Yes. Yes, there is,’ said Simon. ‘There’s something I really want to know.’
Mr Cartright pitched his voice over the growing tumult behind them.
‘What?’
‘What he was whistling.’
Mr Cartright was mystified.
‘What he was whistling?’
‘When he left,’ Simon explained. ‘I want to know what he was whistling the day he walked out.’
Mr Cartright was floored. After a moment, he patted Simon affectionately on the shoulder.
‘Sorry, lad,’ he said gently. ‘Not on the syllabus.’
He was on the verge of adding, under his breath: ‘Nothing of much use is,’ when suddenly it struck him he didn’t mean it and it wasn’t true. They’d learned a lot from this Science Fair project, for example. Dr Feltham was right. They’d learned about the tedium of responsibility, its endless grind, and how they felt about it. Mild little Robin Foster had even learned he had a serious temper. Sajid had learned (if he didn’t know already) he had a healthy entrepreneurial streak. And every single one of them now knew that, old enough to father a baby as he might be, he was not yet old enough to be a father.
Every single one of them?
Maybe not. Mr Cartright still had his doubts about Simon. There the lad sat, his huge limbs folded uncomfortably under his desk, fingering the grey lace on his flour baby’s bonnet and sunk morosely in thought.
Was he still wondering about his father? Or was he, as half the staffroom insisted, going broody with longing for a real baby of his own?
Either way, it was time to put a stop to it. Mr Cartright had never claimed to be a patient man. And it was at this moment that he decided that he’d had enough. There was, after all, almost a whole year of teaching the boy still ahead. He couldn’t stand this woebegone face, these glum