Bell Time: Bell Time Series, #1

1

THE END

Itype the final words with a flourish, then shout,

‘Yes!’

Pressing play on my music app, Gloria Gaynor kicks in, so I leap to my feet and attempt to victory-dance around my bar stool. Sixty-eight thousand words of faeries, castles and assassins: DONE, baby! My dance move repertoire is limited and I end up playing invisible maracas around my ears. Then I fist pump the lampshade and the lightbulb swings precariously, dust motes swirling through the air.

‘Go!’ I cry dramatically, pointing at my yellowing, off-white door.

I’m about to add in a wiggle of my hips for effect, moving my arm out to the side and pointing to the beat, but I nearly knock my laptop over and hastily shunt it further into the rickety table. It’s served me for ten years and a loud sneeze might cause it to restart. Danger averted, I grab my phone and snap a picture of my document screen, sending it to my Whatsapp VIPs. Katie, my sister, responds first.

Katie: Well done. Too bad you didn’t come with us. Look at the view!

She sends me a photo of our family tent, pitched a little lopsided as usual, with a random dog in the foreground. She’s a bit obsessed with dogs. I remember the last time we went camping, she kept fussing over the dog from our neighbour’s tent, and every time I saw it, it was peeing against our windbreak. There have been many August bank holidays where the weather definitely wasn’t as good as this, but it’s typical that the heatwave is the one I opt out from. The feeling of Missing Out acts like a stealthy pinprick to my balloon of success; it starts to deflate and I hurry to repair the damage.

I finished my first draft.

Yes, I’ve not gone anywhere all summer, and my flat is still in need of replastering/redecorating/demolishing and rebuilding, but I’ve achieved my goal and now there is a young adult fantasy novel that previously existed only in my head.

Maybe if I’d gone camping, it would have rained anyway.

My phone lights up: this time it’s the WC girls’ group. It’s short for Whidlock County girls, but yes, we chose a toilet door sign for our icon just to be cool. Over time the group has dwindled to just me, Deena and Clare, the two friends I’ve held onto from school. They’re both in London now, something I try not to feel jealous about.

Deena: Yes! You did it. Well done Cassandra xx

Deena’s always joking that I’m like Jane Austen’s wannabe sister. It’s useful having friends who did A Level English just so they appreciate period dramas.

Clare: Fantastic achievement Jen. Can’t wait to read it! Xx

I smile and put my phone down on the table. The cursor on the laptop blinks at me, like it can’t quite believe it either. This is the first time I’ve finished a complete draft.

I look out of my dingy flat window to see the bright blue sky. I’ll be back in work tomorrow when the new school term starts, and then it’ll probably rain for six weeks’ straight.

I head outside for a walk in the not-so-scenic streets, determined to get at least a bit more vitamin D before the autumn kicks in. If there was a heat map of the world showing where I’ve made the most steps, Whidlock would look like an inferno contained in a postage stamp, because I’ve pretty much lived here my whole life.

It’s weird when you’re in a place which hasn’t changed, but you’ve grown up and become someone else... Or at least, some modified version of yourself. It means that everywhere you walk, you tread on the off-cuts of your past, and then you realise they’re still part of the fabric of your life.

When I see the salon where my mum used to work, I can still smell the sulphuric, throat-clogging mousse, and feel the silky cover-up garment she would whip around me and fasten at the back of my neck.

‘Remember, I’m the only person allowed to touch your hair,’ she would say, wearing her own hair in her naturally tight curls and refusing me every time I asked for her to relax or straighten mine. She would style my afro curls but she told me to take pride in my hair, rather than wishing it was different.

For a bleak moment, I wonder if my mum would have been proud of me now. What would she have said about my first draft? As an artist, she would have understood the uphill struggle of getting to this ending. If she had read it, would she see herself in the ethereal mother who disappears?

There’s no point thinking thoughts like this. Time to focus on happier things. I grin, remembering my cardboard cylinder package that arrived this morning. It makes going back to school tomorrow bearable ‒ just.

WHIDLOCK COUNTY IS a 1960s concrete monstrosity that brands itself as a high school, when in reality it’s a comp with more holes in the roof than the local golf course. It smells of bleach (the aggressive kind that chokes up your throat) and is somehow designed so that the smallest amount of natural light can filter through the grubby windows, making the harsh tube lighting a necessity. It makes my flat look half-decent, the way that a moped makes a three-wheeled car look preferable. (In England, a roof is essential for any transportation device, because no one likes drowning. Besides that, you need an engine with more power than a clogged-up Hoover.)

There are barely any cars in the car park; I always like to arrive early on the first day of term. I walk on autopilot through the quiet corridors. I could probably do this blindfolded. I was a pupil here, and now I’m a teacher.

My classroom is narrow with enough desks for fifteen students, so around half the usual size. There’s a door at either end ‒the heavy type that swings open and crashes against the wall on the other side‒ and the walls are painted the same orange as Fanta. Between the draught and tiny radiators, the room always stays about five degrees colder than anywhere else. Yes, it actually used to be a corridor, but when your school has no money, desperate times call for desperate measures.

I open my tube package, and pull out the Magic Bullet for all my life problems.

It’s the perfect cat poster. Cute striped kitten with added 80s neon headband, arms stretched above its head, jumping off the ground with the word ‘Believe’ emblazoned across the top. It embodies my positive-thinking philosophy and will goad my boss, Geoff. He says he’s a realist; I say he’s the dwarf whose name rhymes with ‘Dumpy’. I unroll the shiny paper and smooth it into position on the wall, pressing my fingers over the lumps of Blu-tack. My classroom walls are jam-packed, but I’m giving this new addition a prime spot.

This is how I cope as a young teacher in a struggling school: cat posters. And enough tea and biscuits to outdo even my grandparents’ church, which had a monthly delivery of fifteen kilos of custard creams. Given that they were a fairly small, tight community, that’s a high ratio of packets per head, and for a biscuit which I personally feel has been long over-rated.

The door opens. Thinking it must be Geoff, I immediately spin around, waving jazz hands with a gleeful grin.

‘Ta da!’

It isn’t Geoff.

Standing well over six feet in an immaculate suit, blue pinstripe shirt and tie, a man stands in the doorway, with the shocked look of someone who’s just walked in on the dinner ladies’ fundraiser performance of Chicago. He’s pale; perhaps the shock has blanched him. I quickly lower my arms and attempt to recalibrate. I haven’t seen a good-looking guy on site since the fire brigade visited last term, due to the mischievous (that’s Whidlock code for delinquent) Year 7s who used bunsen burners to melt a laminated wall chart of the Periodic table.

‘Sorry, I thought you were Geoff.’

I give what I hope is an endearing smile (side note‒ my smile is often cited as one of my best features, thanks to several years of braces torture), but he doesn’t return it. Instead, his grey eyes flicker from the cat poster to each of the other walls of my classroom. I’ve built up five years of colourful displays which I think work with the bright backdrop quite well. I think that’s lost on him, though, judging by the way he’s assessing them in a three-second inclination of his head.

‘Is this a classroom?’

He’s got dark hair and the sort of lean frame that makes him look athletic, like a runner. New recruit for the PE department? PE teachers don’t wear suits though.

I blink.

‘Yes. I’m Jen. I teach English.’

Ordinarily I would hold out my hand, but he’s looking at me as if I said I teach Martian. It’s as if he’s walked out of an Armani advert ‒dark hair, clean shaven, chiselled jaw. Maybe I’ve overdosed on caffeine and I’m hallucinating. English teachers have very over-active imaginations. But as the minutes pass, he’s still staring at me, and I become more self-conscious of my skinny jeans and heart print patterned T-shirt. I wonder if I even look like a teacher to him; I probably look like I’m on the way to a gig. I could probably still pass for a student. He could be anywhere between 25 and 35. It feels slightly incongruous that he’s in Whidlock County, where most kids’ families are on state benefits and where staff appearances divide neatly into two categories: too frayed to care or already mid-nervous breakdown. I’m not sure which I fall into.

‘Jen... What is that short for? Jenny or Jennifer?’ he leans forward slightly, looming about a foot taller than me. Hair included.

Feeling slightly annoyed with the level of scrutiny this stranger is subjecting me to, I shift backwards a little.

‘Jennifer.’

No one calls me that.

‘I thought this was a corridor.’

He’s looking left and right as if he’s about to cross a road.

‘Actually, it was once... I used to have a locker here when I was a student.’

‘You were a student here?’ his eyes lock onto me again. His unflinching stare pins me like a lopsided cat poster to the wall.

‘Yes, funny, isn’t it?’

He still isn’t smiling. It’s the first day of the school year, and we’ve just had six weeks off, and there are no kids in school because it’s a training day. If you can’t smile at this point, then you must be VERY hard to please.

‘And your name is...?’ I finally ask.

‘Michael.’

‘Not Mike or Mikey then?’ I attempt a joke.

He raises an eyebrow.

‘No.’

‘Mickey?’

He straightens his shoulders and brushes imaginary dust from the front of his suit. ‘I was looking for Geoff. Do you know that clock is wrong?’

I follow his gaze to where the clock is frozen at six thirty.

‘I need to change the battery.’ I mentally add this to my to-do list. ‘I’m not looking forward to setting my alarm tomorrow!’

‘I hate getting up late,’ he says bluntly. Ouch. ‘You can get more done in the morning when no one’s around. What time do they open the building?’

Colin, the caretaker who lives in a house at the edge of the site, seems to be here at all hours, his keys jangling on his belt. He’s always carrying materials to burn in his incinerator in the backyard. His philosophy: get there before the Year 7s. The eco committee has slowly started introducing more recycling, but Whidlock’s carbon footprint rivals New York.

‘Seven thirty I think.’

‘It’s cold in here.’

Wow, this guy is a machine gun. He makes Geoff look like the Believe kitten.

‘Yes, it is a bit of an ice box. I’ve got my booster heater for the winter.’ I nudge my toe towards my rickety oil radiator; I don’t make contact or it will fall over. He wrinkles his nose.

‘How do I get to Geoff’s room?’

I can see him assessing the different doorways at either end of my classroom. His gaze is quick, analytical, like it could slice me in two. It’s true that it’s probably the quickest way to the department through my room, but I don’t want him to think he can march through when I’m teaching.

‘Well, I don’t mind if you want to go through here today. You can go out through the other door. But usually you’d have to go round the long way, outside,’ I nod towards the window, which is covered in grime, and then a protective security grille. Beyond that, you can just about see the path leading to the main entrance of the block, which has a corrugated roof so that the rain gushes off and creates an ideally-placed fountain for Year 8 boys to stand under and soak themselves on a wet day.

‘Right.’

I keep meaning to clean that window. Or mention it to the janitor. Ah, well. I give it one last appraisal, then turn back to find that Michael is striding towards the door and is gone before I can say anything else. I’m not sure what just happened, but I feel the heat of my cheeks with my palms. Maybe he’s another emissary from Inspire to Achieve, the private company who are responsible for making sure our school doesn’t get shut down. Hopefully he’ll find Geoff, my Head of Department, ask a few pointless questions, then disappear and leave us to get on with the real work here. These suited professionals look polished, but are about as much use as a fire drill during your free lesson when it comes to turning a failing school around. I just want to do my job, in my corridor-converted-classroom that makes you feel like you’ve been Tangoed, because it’s all I’ve got.

I guess I was hoping that by this stage in my life I would have bought my own place and found a guy who was not either intensely obsessive or basically indifferent to me. Oh, and published a novel. Given that I rent a bedsit and the last date I went on was over a year ago, I’m not doing too well on these life goals. But I have spent many hours creating colourful, vibrant displays ‒ it’s the artistic gene I inherited from my mum.

I wonder how many hours of my life I’ve spent in this room.

A depressing amount.

Last year was probably the second worst year of my life. No, make it the third worst. In first place: the year my mum died. In second place: the year before she died, when she left us to go to Jamaica. Then last year, I moved into the bedsit, my school was put on the ‘red list’, and the Head decided it was time to retire. So that’s in third place in my rank order of Worst Years Ever.

It’s no wonder I haven’t been on a date; my own family probably needs to ID-check me against my passport because I’ve been buried under mounds of paperwork. So much of the ‘support’ visits and check-ups just sap all the joy out of teaching. When I look at my display boards with my favourite book covers, fanning out like a rainbow, it lifts my spirits. And the cat poster...  Perfect.

By this time next year, I will have saved enough for a deposit on a house with a garden. Maybe I’ll get a real cat. Neither intensely obsessive, nor basically indifferent. Just someone for company. And I will have redrafted my story so that it’s ready to send out into the world.

I’ve got this. Believe.

2

Iretrieve my Little Miss Sunshine mug from its secret hiding place in the filing cabinet (side note‒ we teachers are the worst for ‘borrowing’ things, and never giving them back. Then normalising our behaviour. Then justifying it. And now, even as an English teacher, I’m not even sure I could give you anything close to a dictionary definition of ‘theft’). The cabinets in the staffroom are never opened by any of us, so it's a good bonus storage space which I’m borrowing. I grab a teabag and fill the cup while others bustle around, stocking up the fridge with cartons of milk and lunch boxes, some of which probably have padlocks on. It’s always lovely to see everyone again and catch up after six weeks of holidays, lie-ins, day trips, and trying to avoid thinking about school in any way, shape or form.

‘Jen!’

My best friend Steph, pushing the staff training smart-casual dress code to the limit with flip flops and a bright pink sundress, squishes me in a warm hug as I try to put my tea down to avoid it spilling everywhere.

‘Steph, I loved all your photos. I’m so jealous.’

She looks fantastic, as always, with her shining brown eyes and pixie haircut. Her rich brown skin exudes sunshine. She evaluates me with a frown.

‘Jen, you’ve got to start travelling more. You should have come with me!’

I stir my teabag round the mug. I’d decided that I needed to save and write, not spend a load of cash on expensive flights, but now I’m wondering if I made the right choice. The school year’s starting again and summer’s the best opportunity to travel.

‘Maybe next year.’

Something else to add to my list. Ignoring the niggle of self-doubt, I grab my small bottle of (labelled) milk from the fridge, already crowded enough that moving one thing makes the whole shelf wobble.

‘How’s your writing?’

At least I have good news on that.

‘I finished my first draft.’ I can’t help the smug smile. I’ve been talking about my story to Steph for months.

‘Awesome! When am I going to see it on Amazon?’

I roll my eyes.

‘When you’ve set me up a crowdfunder and made a generous donation.’

It would be great if someone decided to foot the bill so that my Alice in Wonderland mash-up with an assassin who falls in love with her target could be enjoyed by more people than just me.

‘Quick! The new head’s about to make a speech!’ Sue from the Maths department hisses at us through the doorway.

‘Can’t even finish a conversation, let alone a novel,’ I moan, dumping the tea bag in the bin and hurrying into the seating area.

‘Good morning everyone,’ the crisp tones of Janet Patchell, deputy head, cut through the murmuring chatter. She’s wearing her familiar blue two-piece suit. ‘I’d like to hand over to our new head, David Clark.’

‘Thank you, Janet.’

I look at his familiar snake-oil-salesman smile and try not to frown too severely. It’s been eight years but he hasn’t changed a bit. He’s impossibly young to be a Head; he’s barely ten years older than me and there’s something desperately teenage about his dark hair, waxed into position, clean shaven jaw and smooth cheeks. It suddenly feels like I am seventeen again, sitting in the History classroom, with the wet-behind-the-ears teacher-training version of David Clark shuffling his papers and reading out my notes on the French Revolution. Same smarmy hair, probably a cheaper brand of wax than his executive Head salary would afford him now.

I remember he played us some clips from the History channel and I could tell he’d never studied the topic, because he kept getting the dates mixed up and forgetting one of the three core values (liberty, equality, fraternity, come on David, this is on the pub quiz syllabus, never mind the Bachelor’s degree). There was actually a fourth value: death. I wrote about it in an essay, which I found photocopied as a handout a few years later. He’d been using it with all his GCSE classes.

Only instead of my name at the top, it was his.

Now he’s here to save my school. And he’s packing double the wax.

‘Whidlock County is a school that’s always been close to my heart. I came here as a pupil, and in my first teaching post, before I moved to Cassley High. When I heard that the school was struggling and in danger of closing, I knew it was time for me to give something back.’

My eyes roll before I can even stop them. And they’re twitching for a few more laps, held back only by some extreme mental discipline that Derren Brown would be proud of. It would have been great if he had just done his job properly when he was here as a teacher ten years ago, rather than painting himself as the saviour now.

‘I’ve been sent here by our regional consortium, Inspire to Achieve, along with a few of my hand-picked leading practitioners: Joseph Vermont, to work in the Maths department, and Michael Chase, to work in the English department.’

I was right: Michael is another sharp-suited professional sent by the consultants, who earn more than three average staff put together. Only this time, he’s going to be in the same department as me.

Joseph and Michael step forward to flank David. The three of them together look like they’re posing for a Gillette commercial. I wouldn’t be surprised if they all had matching cufflinks with the ‘Inspire to Achieve’ logo branded on them. I stifle a snort, making a slight sound. Michael stares at me and I look away quickly. Those razor eyes look like they could read minds. I need to keep my imagination on a tighter leash.

‘We are here to raise standards,’ David continues, in a tone that initially sounds collaborative, but which rapidly solidifies into the kind of top-down collaboration constructed from reinforced concrete. Tyranny. ‘We