Foreign Affairs Read Free Page A

arms as the rest of the class waited in delicious trepidation. Would he give her the stick? Would he make her stand in the corner? And
if he did, would she tell on Patrick McKeown? There’d be wigs on the green then. They sat enjoying every minute of the drama.
    ‘I said I let it fall, Sir.’ Rachel’s voice had a wobble in it and to her horror she could feel tears at the back of her eyes.
    ‘Stand in the corner for being out of your chair, Rachel Stapleton, and the rest of you get ready to give me the answers to your sums,’ the Master instructed, glaring at Rachel as
she went over to the corner by the door. He was very annoyed with her, she knew, and he would not speak to her for the rest of the day. He would go home and tell her mother that their daughter was
a disobedient child and how could he expect the rest of the school to obey him if his own daughter wouldn’t?
    Plop . . . plop plop plop. Big tears fell on to her shiny patent shoes as she stood with her back to the rest of the class and heard them calling out the answers to their sums, Patrick
McKeown’s voice the loudest of them all. She had been so looking forward to today. To the party. To the bell going early because they were having a half-day. To running home to her mother
with the news that they were off school until the first of September. It was going to be one of her happy days and now it was ruined.
    She heard her father say, ‘Very good, Room 4, now tidy up your bags, I’m letting you off twenty minutes early because Miss O’Connor is not in. Walk quietly, now,’ he
warned, ‘or I’ll change my mind. Rachel Stapleton, stay in the corner please until you hear the bell go.’ There was silence until he left the room and then a frantic scrabbling as
bags were packed at speed, the sooner to get out of the schoolhouse. Rachel stood with her back to them. At least the ordeal would soon be over and she didn’t mind waiting in the corner on
her own. Patrick McKeown and his pals would be gone by the time she got out of school.
    A sharp stabbing pain in her bottom made Rachel yelp in pain.
    ‘Shut up, ya stupid cow, that’s just so ya don’t forget me,’ Patrick McKeown hissed as he brandished his compass at her. Just for good measure he stabbed her with it once
more and then he was gone, followed by the rest of them, leaving her crying, in the hollow emptiness of the big classroom. Rachel hated Patrick McKeown with all her might and many was the night she
went to bed and planned delicious revenge upon him. But much as Rachel hated her vicious classmate, she hated her father far more.
    Theresa Stapleton shook the flour off her hands and placed the apple crumble in the oven. She smiled to herself. Apple crumble was Ronan and Rachel’s favourite dessert
and they’d relish it. She put the kettle on to boil, made herself a cup of tea and drank it standing at the sink looking out into the garden. It really was a beautiful day, she thought. One
of the best so far this summer. A perfect day to be starting your school holidays. Maybe she’d pack up a picnic for tea and the three of them would go off down a country lane and find a nice
field with a shady tree to sit under. She wouldn’t even bother to bring the paper, Theresa decided as she glanced at the headlines. She wanted to forget about the troubles of the world.
Although it was good to see that President Johnson had signed a Civil Rights Act, containing the most sweeping civil rights law in the history of the US. Her eyes slid down the columns. There was
trouble in Algeria, an army leader rebelling against Ben Bella’s rule.
    Enough! she decided. She didn’t want to read bad news today. She wasn’t in the humour for it. Usually Theresa was an avid reader of her husband’s
Irish Times
, mentally
doing the Crosaire while he was at school. She wouldn’t dream of putting down the answers. William would have a fit. It was his habit to sit with his crossword in the evening after