Free Discworld 26 - The Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett Page B

in a quiet
and fascinated semicircle around her. It was the sort of old-fashioned image Madam Frout
hated, as if the children were Supplicants around some sort of Altar of Knowledge.
No one had said anything. All the watching children, and Miss Susan, made it clear in polite
silence that they were waiting for her to go away.
She'd flounced back into the corridor and the door had clicked shut behind her. Then she
noticed the long, crude arrow that was still vibrating in the opposite wall.
Madam Frout had looked at the door, with its familiar green paint, and then back at the arrow.
Which had gone .
She transferred Jason to Miss Susan's class. It had been a cruel thing to do, but Madam Frout
considered that there was now some kind of undeclared war going on.
     
 
  
If children were weapons, Jason would have been banned by international treaty. Jason had
doting parents and an attention span of minus several seconds, except when it came to
inventive cruelty to small furry animals, when he could be quite patient. Jason kicked,
punched, bit and spat. His artwork had even frightened the life out of Miss Smith, who could
generally find something nice to say about any child. He was definitely a boy with special
needs. In the view of the staff room, these began with an exorcism.
Madam Frout had stooped to listening at the keyhole. She had heard Jason's first tantrum of
the day, and then silence. She couldn't quite make out what Miss Susan said next.
When she found an excuse to venture into the classroom half an hour later, Jason was helping
two little girls to make a cardboard rabbit.
Later his parents said they were amazed at the change, although apparently now he would
only go to sleep with the light on.
Madam Frout tried to question her newest teacher. After all, glowing references were all very
well, but she was an employee, after all. The trouble was, Susan had a way of saying things to
her, Madam Frout had found, so that she went away feeling quite satisfied and only realized
that she hadn't really had a proper answer at all when she was back in her office, by which
time it was always too late.
And it continued to be too late because suddenly the school had a waiting list. Parents were
fighting to get their children enrolled in Miss Susan's class. As for some of the stories they
brought home... well, everyone knew children had such vivid imaginations, didn't they? Even
so, there was this essay by Richenda Higgs. Madam Frout fumbled for her glasses, which she
was too vain to wear all the time and kept on a string around her neck, and looked at it again.
In its entirety, it read:
A man with all bones came to talk to us he was not scarey at all, he had a big white hors. We
pared the hors. He had a sighyve. He told us interesting things and to be careful when
crosing the road.
Madam Frout handed the paper across the desk to Miss
Susan, who looked at it gravely. She pulled out a red pencil, made a few little alterations,
then handed it back.
'Well?' said Madam Frout.
'Yes, she's not very good at punctuation, I'm afraid. A good attempt at “scythe”, though.'
'Who... What's this about a big white horse in the classroom?' Madam Frout managed.
Miss Susan looked at her pityingly and said, 'Madam, who could possibly bring a horse into a
classroom? We're up two flights of stairs here.'
Madam Frout was not going to be deterred this time. She held up another short essay.
     
 
  
Today we were talked at by Mr Slumph who he is a bogeyman but he is nice now. He tole us
what to do abot the other kind. You can put the blanket ove your head but it is bettr if you put
it ove the bogeymans head then he think he do not exist and he is vanishs. He tole us lots of
stores abot people he jump out on and he said sins Miss is our teachr he think no bogeymen
will be in our houses bcos one thing a bogey dos not like is Miss finding him.
'Bogeymen, Susan?' said Madam Frout.
'What imaginations