Free Maxwell's Retirement by M. J. Trow Page A

it back in the drawer. As an aide-memoire he wrote a Post-it note to himself and stuck it on the top of his desk. He left the room, a bewildered Al Pacino as Serpico looking at him in disbelief from his poster on the wall.
    Seconds later, he was back. Perhaps ‘Phone in top right-hand drawer’ was a little obvious. So, instead, he wrote ‘custard, rhs’. He was pretty sure this would not alert anyone to the presence of what he understood was called a blackberry in hisdesk. On another wall, The Duke in
The Shootist
was already cocking his forty-five.
    A few strides along the corridor and he was with Ten Oh Zed Pea.
    ‘Damian.’ The Head of Sixth Form collared the smallest boy in the class, a pasty-faced weasel who would have looked more at home in Year Five. ‘Stand out here, could you, dear boy?’
    Damian pointed silently to himself.
    ‘Yes, Damian. You. That’s right. First one foot, then the other. Good. Good.’
    The hapless lad had reached the front. Anything could happen now and Ten Oh Zed Pea were more than up for it; they had just had two hours of General Science.
    ‘Now, Damian,’ Maxwell broke every rule in the Modern Teachers’ Handbook by placing his hand lightly on the boy’s shoulder in order to position him, metaphorically, somewhere in central Europe. ‘You are Serbia. All right?’
    Damian didn’t have a clue, but if Mr Maxwell said so, it must be all right.
    ‘Jake.’
    A lumbering lout with pecs like body armour clambered to his feet.
    ‘Here, dear boy, front and centre.’
    Jake complied and even let Maxwell place him alongside Damian.
    ‘Right, you two. Face each other.’
    They did, Damian frowning into Jake’s chest,Jake looking into the middle distance over Damian’s head. There were giggles all round.
    ‘I was going to ask,’ Maxwell said, ‘what differences you notice here, boys and girls, but I see you are way ahead of me. Damian,’ he turned to the lad. ‘You have upset Jake here. You are Serbia, remember, and you’re possibly responsible for the murder of Jake’s archduke, Franz Ferdinand. Jake – who as you have all worked out by now, I’m sure, is Austria – of course is much bigger than you. He’s upset. You’re going to get it. What do you do?’
    ‘Run!’ half the class shouted, hoping to see blood on the mat.
    ‘There’s only one way to settle it.’ Maxwell, to the delight of the class, had turned into Harry Hill, climbing on his desk. ‘Fight!’
    The rest of Ten Oh Zed Pea joined in with a will, but Maxwell’s hand was already in the air for quiet.
    ‘Or …’ he beckoned Luke forward. The boy was in fact bigger than Jake, but probably slower on the turns. He stood him next to Damian. ‘Now you’ve got a mate,’ he said. ‘Serbia, say hello to Mother Russia.’
    ‘Mother?’ Luke was going through his most macho phase.
    ‘Figure of speech, dear boy,’ Maxwell calmed him. ‘Figure of speech. Father, if you prefer.’
    ‘He’ll never be a father!’ a class wag piped up.
    ‘Quite,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘Mother it is, then. Now, Jake,’ the Great Man turned to Austria. ‘Not so easy now, is it? What do you do?’
    ‘Er … I get a mate too,’ the boy said.
    ‘You’ll never have a mate.’ The wag was on good, if repetitive form today.
    ‘Excellent, Jake. You’ve got realpolitik written all over you. Who do you want?’
    ‘Er … Jimbo.’
    ‘Jimbo!’ Maxwell echoed. ‘Excellent choice.’ He waited until the lad was in position alongside Jake. ‘Germany stands with Austria. How do you feel now, Damian?’
    The little lad looked at Luke alongside him. He looked at the two opposite. All in all, he didn’t like the odds. ‘Are there any more mates allowed?’ he asked.
    ‘There are indeed,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘Who would you like to be France?’
    ‘Um … Tommy.’
    Poilou
would have been better, but that would have gone over the class’s heads and anyway, there wasn’t a
poilou
in Ten Oh Zed Pea.
    As Tommy made his way to