03 Dear Teacher Read Free Page A

ex-Barnsley boy. There was definitely something about him that you couldn’t help but like.
    After lunch, back in the staff-room, Vera was reading the front page of her
Daily Telegraph
and shaking her head in dismay. Mr Mark Carlisle, the education secretary, was considering the introduction of a Continental-style school day starting at 8.00 a.m. and closing at 2.00 p.m. as part of the government cuts of £600 million per year. Also, the Yorkshire Ripper had claimed his twelfth victim in Bradford and had sent a tape recording to George Oldfield , head of the CID in West Yorkshire, taunting the police in a Wearside accent.
    ‘What a world we live in,’ said Vera in despair. ‘It can’t get worse.’
    But at that moment it suddenly did … much worse!
    Anne came into the staff-room, white as a sheet. ‘Jack … everybody … I’ve just seen a mouse … a big mouse!’
    Jo and Sally immediately lifted their feet off the floor and Vera leapt towards her metal filing cabinet and pulled out her ‘Telephone in emergencies’ folder.
    ‘Where was it?’ I asked.
    ‘Walking bold as brass into Ruby the caretaker’s cupboard, so I slammed the door and locked it,’ said Anne.
    ‘We need to ring the pest controller at County Hall immediately, Mr Sheffield,’ said Vera.
    I nodded and smiled grimly. Vera was wonderful in emergencies. ‘Thanks, Vera. We’ll do it now.’
    Thirty minutes later a dirty green, rusty old van pulled up in the school car park. The words ‘Maurice Ackroyd, PEST CONTROLLER ’ were crudely painted on the side of the van. I walked out to meet him.
    ‘ ’Ow do,’ said Maurice. ‘Ah’m Maurice the Mouseman from Pest Control.’ His huge front teeth and wispy moustache reinforced my belief that Maurice was born for this vocation. He was a small, unshaven, wiry man wearing a battered flat cap, in spite of the hot weather, and a filthy collarless long-sleeved shirt with the cuffs firmly double-buttoned. His baggy cord trousers were held up with a length of baling twine and his trouser-leg bottoms were tucked firmly into his socks. A pair of shabby steel-toe-capped builder’s boots completed the ensemble.
    ‘Hello, er, Maurice,’ I said. ‘Thanks for coming. I think we’ve got a mouse.’
    Maurice sucked air through his teeth and then shook his head. ‘ ’Owd on, ’owd on, not so ’asty, Mr Sheffield. It could be rats, tha knaws,’ he said with a hopeful glint in his eye.
    ‘Rats! I hope not,’ I said in alarm.
    ‘Rats is everywhere, Mr Sheffield – y’never far from a rat,’ said Maurice, nodding in a very knowing way.
    ‘But we should have to close the school … and it’s the first day of term.’ I could already see the headline in the
Easington Herald & Pioneer
.
    ‘Don’t fret, Mr Sheffield: ’elp is at ’and,’ said Maurice with false modesty, while stroking the words ‘PEST CONTROLLER’ on the side of his van with obvious affection. Then he leaned back and surveyed the school building like Clint Eastwood before a gunfight. ‘Ah allus start by giving it two coats o’ lookin’ over. Y’gotta think like t’little buggers afore y’catch ’em.’
    ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I said.
    ‘Ah come from a long line o’ rodent-catchers, tha knaws. Rodents ’ave allus run in our family,’ said Maurice proudly.
    ‘Oh, that’s good,’ I said unconvincingly.
    He wrinkled up his pointed nose and sniffed the air. ‘We use t’psychol’gy,’ he added proudly.
    ‘I see,’ I said … but I didn’t.
    Afternoon lessons were haunted by the thought that I would have to shut the school and it was a gloomy group of teachers who assembled in the staff-room at afternoon playtime to hear the verdict of Maurice the Mouseman.
    ‘It’s norra rat,’ proclaimed Maurice.
    ‘That’s a relief,’ said Anne. ‘So I presume it’s a mouse.’
    ‘It’s a mouse, all reight,’ he said. ‘Ah caught a glimpse of it in t’caretaker’s cupboard.’
    Suddenly Tony Ackroyd appeared at the