take a deep breath and say, “Good morning, everyone!” and the cross-legged children would reply, “Good morning, Mr Barrington!” or, in Ryan’s case, “Good morning, Mr Bummington!”
But on this particular morning he only had to say it once. And everyone, even Ryan, went quiet.
Because after he said it once, Mr Carter, who had been facing the wall adjusting his jacket, turned round.
He did look like a head teacher – he had short, neat hair and was dressed in a black suit with a black tie (very much done up properly, right to the top button) – but also a tiny bit like a gangster. There was an air of menace about him. His eyes, which were also black, were narrowed and his head was moving slowly round like a searchlight in a prison camp.
Silence.
When he did eventually speak, it was very slowly and deeply. It was as if Batman had walked on to the school stage and said, “Good morning, everybody …”
Although, as it turned out, Mr Carter was Scottish. And so far there has not been a Scottish Batman. Having said that, the accent did somehow make his voice even more frightening. There was a pause when the whole school seemed too scared to reply.
Mr Carter blinked slowly and then repeated, just a little louder.
“I said, Good morning, everybody …”
And then, too quickly, falling over each other to say it, the whole school replied:
“Good … good … morn … morning … good … ing … yes … good morning … morning good … Mr Car … Mr … ter … Carter!”
Mr Carter looked into the crowd of children and said, “Yes. Well. We can work on that.” He left another long pause. You could almost hear the sound of the children starting to sweat. Then …
“This school. It has a reputation, doesn’t it? What is that reputation for?”
All the children either looked confused, scared or at the ground. Mr Carter nodded to himself, as if expecting no answer.
“Well, I’ll tell you, shall I? RUBBISHNESS.” He said this word much louder than the others. Which is why I’ve written it in capitals. He said it so much louder that some of the Year Ones began to cry.
This didn’t seem to worry Mr Carter, who continued: “It has a fine, longstanding reputation for being rubbish. It really has won all the awards that don’t exist for not being very good. And there’s a problem with that, isn’t there? Do you know what that problem is, Bracket Wood?”
Apart from the odd Year One sob, silence reigned in the assembly hall.
Miss Gerard, who had very big curly hair, and teeth that always looked a bit like she’d drunk too much red wine the night before – and who was standing just behind Mr Carter – leant over and whispered, “Sorry, Headmaster, are you expecting answers to all these questions? Because I think the children are a little confus—”
“I’ll tell you,” said Mr Carter as if Miss Gerard wasn’t there at all. “It’s not you. It’s not a problem for you. You can go on being rubbish, and then you can go to a rubbish secondary school and your life can turn out – guess what? – rubbish. That’s fine. That’s up to you. No. The problem, Bracket Wood, is with me.”
He put his hands together in a praying position and placed them in front of his face.
“Because I’m. Not. Rubbish,” he said, jutting his hands downwards with each word. “I have turned round every single school I’ve ever run. Every single school I’ve ever run has ended up with an OFFHEAD rating of Outstanding. And I’m not going to let this school, clearly the worst that I’ve ever had to work in, tarnish my one hundred per cent reputation. Is that CLEAR?”
Still no one spoke, although at least now there was a response – a lot of children’s heads nodded furiously.
“Good. The staff will be pinning notices round the school this morning with a whole series of new rules that I wish to be followed to the LETTER.”
Mr Carter began to leave, then paused and turned his searchlight glare on the assembled children.
“Oh! And one more thing. This school. It also has a bit of a reputation, doesn’t it, for pranks? It’s known all across the land – well, the borough – for being a no-go zone for teachers who can’t deal with pranks. Fire extinguishers let off into dinner trays, butter spread dangerously on the floor outside the staff room, teachers –” and here Mr Carter glanced round at Mr Barrington – “unwittingly humiliated by words written on their foreheads.”
Mr Barrington looked down.
“Not any more,” said Mr Carter in an icy tone. “If anything like that happens, the perpetrator will be rooted out and punished immediately and severely. From now on, Bracket Wood School is operating a zero-tolerance policy on pranks.”
As Mr Carter said this, his eyes seemed to narrow even further and go a shade darker. Like some old portraits, his eyes seemed to stare directly at you wherever you were in the room.
So every child in that assembly hall felt terrified, as if he was speaking specifically to them.
But, if you’d looked very, very closely, you would have realised that Mr Carter was, in fact, staring at and speaking to one pupil in particular – Ryan Ward.
“What you gonna do, Ryan? What?” said Stirling.
“Yes, what, Ryan, what?” said Scarlet.
Stirling and Scarlet were brother and sister. They were not in Year Six. They were in Years Three and Two. Most of their time was spent bothering Fred and Ellie Stone about computers and video games, but they bumped into Ryan coming out of assembly and couldn’t contain their curiosity.
“What do you mean, iBabies?” Which was their nickname because they were young and obsessed with technology.
“Well,” said Scarlet, “you’re the naughtiest boy in the school!” She said it without any sense that this was a bad thing, more with a great sense of awe.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Ryan, smiling bashfully.
“You are,” said Stirling. “We had a poll on BuzzyBee.”
“That would be some obscure website that no one else has ever heard of?”
“Yes!” said Scarlet.
“So not a very big poll, then?”
“Oh,” said Stirling. “I suppose not. Just me and Scarlet and our mum voted. But you won, anyway. You were voted Naughtiest Boy in Bracket Wood History.”
“And Best Prankster too!” said Scarlet.
“So …” said Dionna, appearing in the corridor behind them, “if that’s the case, Ryan, the new head’s thrown you down a challenge and a half, I’d say.”
“OK, OK. Well, don’t worry …” He bent his head down. The others bent theirs too. Ryan lowered his voice. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do—”
“I’m going to tell you what you’re not going to do, Ryan!” said Mr Barrington. “You’re not going to be stopping to have a chat in school corridors any more!”
He raised a piece of paper, which he began to stick to the school notice board with drawing pins. He was doing it with