Arithmetic 

I am in my second year in Mrs. R––’s classroom and we are studying French. Our lessons are on scratchy 45rpm records; we listen carefully to the strange sounds and words, following along in our booklets. Mrs. R–– has a student teacher helping her this year. She is not like pretty Miss M–– , who we had a couple of years back. She is much older, more motherly, with big glasses and bouncy, curly hair. She looks a bit like an owl with a perm, although she can’t do the 200 degree swivel thing with her head. Mrs. R–– sometimes lets Mrs. S–– take the lessons in the afternoon: she encourages us with our French. We are learning the basics. So far, I can say “hello”, “goodbye”, “thank you”, tell you what my name is, where I live and how old I am. That seems about enough to be going on with. Mrs. S–– has also been helping us make papier-mâché glove puppets. She pronounces papier-mâché with a proper French accent. Our puppet heads are a confection of bits of newspaper, part-blown-up balloons, and cardboard egg cartons, all stuck together with wallpaper paste. I’m making a witch with a hooked nose and pointed chin. She is painted green (witches have green faces, everyone knows that), and has a black dress with a jagged hem. I chat with my friend J–– as we work on our masterpieces;  J–– is making a clown, complete with white face and enormous red grin that takes up half its head. Mrs. S–– encourages us to do little puppet shows in French, but they are not very good:

CLOWN: Bonjour

WITCH: Bonjour

CLOWN: Comment vous appelez-vous?

WITCH: Je m’appelle Witch

CLOWN: Quel âge quel âge avez-vous?

WITCH: J’ai quatre-vingt six ans

CLOWN: Au revoir

WITCH: Au revoir

J–– is my best friend. She lives along my road, and has a colour television. She also has an annoying younger brother, but we do our best to ignore him, especially when he interrupts our favourite TV programme. Follyfoot is about a teenager, Dora, who lives on a farm and takes care of the horses. I desperately want to be like her. She is pretty and clever and has lots of friends and a boyfriend called Steve. J–– also has a spangly new bike, all chrome and streamers, which she rides up and down our cul-de-sac. I’ve also recently acquired a bike, but it is second-hand and a bit tatty. It is light blue, with a white seat and handlebar grips. It is also a little too big for me, and I labour to ride smoothly, wobbling along the pavement. This lack of skill is put to the test in our cycling proficiency exam: J–– passes with flying colours, and I fail, having flattened several cones whilst trying to stop at the zebra crossing. 

We have recently embarked on a new and trendy English reading programme: SRA. I have no idea what that stands for, but I like the way it works. Instead of everyone doing the same English work, we take a big card from the box. The cards are colour-coded depending on the trickiness of the writing.  I’ve just finished Aqua, which means I only have Silver and Gold to go, and then I’ll be finished. However, this week Mrs. R–– announces, out of the blue, that we will be having an important test. We are assigned seats, carefully separated from each other, and are given serious-looking booklets in which to write our answers. The first part is dictation: Mrs. R–– reads out a passage very slowly, repeating each sentence, and we have to write it down. I come unstuck when she says, “During this period…” I cannot for the life of me remember how to spell “during”. Does it start with a j? And “period” has me flummoxed; I go through different permutations in my mind, but none of them seem right. Eventually, I opt for “jering this peerod”. I know it’s wrong, but I have to move on before she starts the next bit. Then it’s on to the arithmetic: “A train leaves London at 11.30am and arrives at Bristol at 1.30pm, after stopping at Reading which is 36 miles from London. It travelled both parts of the journey at the same rate. Find the distance from London to Bristol.” I don’t care how fast the train goes, and don’t know how I’m supposed to “find” the distance. Is it lost? Has it been buried somewhere and no-one can remember where? It is all a bit silly. I have a go at these ridiculous puzzles, but most of them may as well be written in Swahili. Or Swedish. Or Swiss. At the end of the test we are asked some questions about ourselves, including our hobbies. I say that I enjoy reading, which is a stretching the truth somewhat. I like picture books, but I only read “proper books” if I have to. I find concentrating on page after page of words quite exhausting. I think whoever is marking my paper will think that I am very clever, and I am quite pleased with myself. At the end of the test, Mrs. R–– collects our papers and puts them in a big pile on her desk, and we can go to lunch. As we file out, I glance at the pile. Teacher’s Pet has given “colouring” as one of her hobbies, which is clearly a mistake: the examiners will think she is stupid.

One of our last projects with Mrs. R–– is on the Victorians. The mother of one of our classmates has an astounding collection of antique clothing, including several pieces from the Victorian era. Mrs. R–– selects some of us to model the clothes and get Mr. B––, the school photographer to take some portraits. We all covet the splendid satin wedding dress, complete with fragile veil and silk flower headdress, and we all hope that we will be chosen as the bride. In the final photo I’m trying to look serious, but I come off as confused. Unsurprisingly, the prettiest girl in the class is wearing the beautiful wedding dress. I, meanwhile, am wearing a long coat with tails (Victorian) and trousers (Marks and Spencer’s). I am the groom. Of course! Clearly Mrs. R–– felt that none of the boys in our class would be sensible enough to take on this role. I’m also wearing my black PE plimsoles. What the photo does not show is that the rubber sole of my plimsole is hanging off… I hobble along trying my best to disguise the fact. I’m not sure what is more unfortunate – my misery over being dressed as a boy or my embarrassment over my worn-out plimsoles.