Cats

Our classroom is outside the main school building. It is pre-fab, and probably not intended for long-term use; it seems to have decided to put down roots and take up permanent residence. There are two classrooms separated by a small hallway, where we can hang our coats. Our teacher, Mrs. P––, is difficult to please. I do my best to keep her happy, but I come up short. I try hard with my weekly news stories, but my spelling is not great, and my writing style is erratic. My mind wanders off when I write, and my pencil follows suit. Mrs. P–– has pupils that she clearly likes, and several that she really does not care for. I think I am in the latter group. Most of the time I shrug off her sarky comments and snippy scolding. However, one day, I feel that she has been overly harsh with her marking. She’s given me a miserly six out of ten for a piece that I spent a lot of time on, and I want to protest. She has written, “What has happened to your writing?” at the end of my work. After class, I get in the queue at her desk to register my dissatisfaction with her assessment. I point to her comment and say,  “Sorry, Miss, I can’t read this.” She huffs and tuts, and says her writing is perfectly clear, and mutters, “Anyway, what has happened to your writing?” I shrug, and walk back to my desk, satisfied with my small win.  It is around this time that we have a fire along the back fence of next door’s garden, adjacent to the alley way and on the border of an old council dump. This provides me with another small win as I finally have a picture pinned up on our classroom display: “There was a fire in Susan’s road”, says the neatly-written caption. I’ve attempted to portray the scene, but a fence on fire is not that dramatic, and there has been a certain amount of artistic licence. The huge red and orange flames are a bit of an exaggeration, and the startled looks on the faces of the firemen are probably misrepresented. 

This summer, several girls in my class all have the same dress: gingham pattern, Peter Pan collar, full skirt, it comes in different pastel shades. D— has yellow, L–– has green, B–– has blue, and H–– has pink. It can be purchased from a ladies’ magazine – Woman, I think. I want to have one of these pretty dresses, and ask my mum: “I don’t give a tuppenny damn what the other girls in your class are wearing. Why buy something when you have something perfectly nice that is homemade?”  So, I make do with my red-and-white striped shift dress with the appliquéd daisies around the hem. 

Assembly is our start to the day. Once we have hung our coats on our allotted pegs, we can file into the classroom for Mrs. P–– to take the register. We then all file out again across the playground, into the main building and school hall for assembly. Mr. K–– is our Headmaster; he is well-liked, but I am a little scared of him. We have turquoise-coloured hymn books for assemblies, but I’m always losing mine, and have to share. We sit, cross-legged, with our teachers keeping a careful eye on us. Mrs. P–– sings along heartily as Mrs. H–– hammers away at the piano. Mr. K–– can play the piano, too, and I think he’s much better than Mrs. H––. I like the hymns. “He who would valiant be” is one of the best. I’m not quite sure what it means to be a pilgrim, but I get the gist, and think I might like to be a pilgrim when I grow up. Assemblies are always a bit of a struggle, since, a) it is hard to sit still for twenty minutes, and b) Mrs. P–– is on the look out for fidgeting, so I’m frequently scolded for wriggling during Mr. K––’s announcements. We are often asked to pray for The Troubles in Northern Ireland to be over soon. I’m not too sure what is happening, but it sounds very serious, and I’m sad for the people who live there. 

Every morning we have to work on maths and writing. Maths is hard for me: the numbers seem to jumble together and make no sense. We are learning times tables, I can manage up to eight times, but nine alludes me. I find writing tedious: making my loops and strokes just so seems a waste of my time and I fidget my way through our lessons. Mrs. P–– only has to look at me with her unique blend of long-sufferance and condescension to get me to comply with her no-fidget rule. Every afternoon we have some kind of creative activity: painting, singing, sewing. I’m getting the hang of cross-stitch, but I’m not a good singer. Painting seems to be what I am best at, and for the May school fete, I want to enter one of my efforts into the art competition. It is a circus scene that I have laboured over. The image I have in my head is impossible to put on to paper, no matter how hard I try. I cannot get the perspective right, and the elephant seems to be standing on the ringmaster’s head, which cannot be comfortable. I’ve been frustrated to tears and my mum has had to rescue the painting from the bin. I’m glad she does, as I win second prize. Although, I think the judges have taken pity on me, or perhaps they are just dull-witted when it comes to seven-year-old artwork. Clearly a painting with such an appalling lack of talent deserves to be put in the dustbin, not on the wall.

Whilst my artistic talents are in question, my poetry appreciation is not. Mrs P––  introduces us to “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats”. I’m hypnotised and enthralled, and for once I don’t fidget. I’m drawn in by these stories and characters, masterfully depicted by a master of language and rhyme. My favourite is “Growltiger’s Last Stand”: it’s a bittersweet story of a pirate moggy who gets his comeuppance. He ends up having to walk the plank: “Ker-flip, ker-flop.” I feel conflicted I like this idea of justice, but I’m also sorry for Growltiger, who is probably not as bad as his made out and is nice to his granny. I’m hoping that he can swim, and given that he is pirate, I’m assuming he can. I buy a copy of the book with my pocket money and begin to memorise the poems.