Free Small Island by Andrea Levy

a branch. Until, in one instant, it stopped as if, suddenly, all the parrots had expired or taken flight. The principal was making her entrance, parting girls to her left, to her right, like Moses through the Red Sea. She was tall and broad with a top lip that carried such a profusion of dark hair that the impression she gave was of a man in an all-too-inadequate disguise. She walked with dainty yet lumbering steps – full of feminine grace that nevertheless shook the floor beneath us. And following on behind in the gap that her ample gait created were five teachers. In the shadow of this colossal woman those attendants looked as flimsy and puny as leaves blown in by the wind. The teachers mounted the stage and faced we new girls. They were all white women but their complexions ranged – as white people’s tend to do – through varying shades of pink depending on how long they had been on the island. The principal carried a seasoned ruddy glow on her cheeks while others bore the blotchy roaring-red of newcomers.
    A smile should light up a face so that a person might seem friendly and kindly disposed to those they are smiling at. Unfortunately the principal, Miss Morgan, had a smile that was so unfamiliar to her face that it had an opposite effect – rather like the leer of a church gargoyle, it made her look sinister. She first smiled after the words, ‘Welcome, girls, to our teacher-training school. You have a hard yet stimulating three years of study ahead. If each of you attends to your work with diligence and courage I am sure you will get on well with us here.’ Her voice rang with a soft, gentle lilt as if soon to break into song, yet her smile made me recoil. But it was during her second grin, after the register of names had been taken by her bashful deputy, that I made the contrary vow never to do anything that would cause her to smile on me directly.
    Miss Morgan was not an Englishwoman as the other teachers were, her country of origin was Wales – a corner in Britain famous for its coal, its capital city Cardiff, and for being where clouds tip excess rain before moving on to the pastures of England. While the five teachers seated themselves delicately upon the chairs provided on the stage, the principal paced stately to the piano and lowered her substantial backside on to the shaky stool. For a brief moment she paused as if in prayer – her hands splayed chord-shaped over the keys – before we new girls were ordered, by some imperceptible yet demanding movement of her eyebrow, to stand. She began to play, thumping out the chords to the hymn ‘Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise’. While thrashing and beating the instrument into a tune, her hair, which had sat as neat as if cast in resin, gradually began to give up one lock. The rogue hair shook looser with every note until the passion of her playing let it fall free over her forehead. ‘Most blessed, most glorious, the ancient of days’. With one mighty voice we new girls sang along, fired by the emotion of her performance and the vigorous quivering of the fallen lock. ‘Almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise’.
    Michael was holding his closed hand out to me. This fully grown man with stubble hair piercing the skin of his chin was grinning on me as a schoolboy would. Opening his hand he revealed, resting in his palm, an ink-black scorpion, its tail erect and curled. I wanted to warn him of the danger of its murderous sting, but no words would come. I moved to strike the insect from his palm but my arm was being pulled away. Someone had my wrist clasped in their hand as tight as vine round a tree.
    I had never had such a rude awakening. The cover on my bed was pulled back. I could not for a moment remember where I had laid my head to sleep. I was revealed half naked on the mattress – my nightdress rolled and twisted at my waist with the movement of my dreams. I was being pulled so hard I could do nothing but follow. My feet fumbled for solid