Free The Children's Writer by Gary Crew Page A

couldn’t. Not with her so sick, not with her needing me. That’s how I learned to wait, and listen. And do as I was told.
    Lootie turned in the bed. ‘Everything went wrong,’ she said. ‘As soon as I arrived, Michael, the principal, the man you met at the garden party, asked me into his office. He told me that Miss Svenson wasn’t coming in. She was sick. I would have to take the class by myself. I said that was fine, but then he dropped the bombshell. Not only that, the school had a call from Sebastian’s girl Eve, to say that “due to unforeseen circumstances” he was coming. Today! He was due on Thursday. I hadn’t prepared the boys. I wanted to tell them about him beforehand, read them some extracts from his novels, put his visit in a context, get them thinking about questions. But I couldn’t. I had to focus on teaching what Svenson had phoned in. Maths. Phonics. Blah, blah. It was awful. The boys were really bad. I had no authority at all.
    ‘Sebastian turned up about two o’clock. He came to the classroom door with Eve. She gave me a wave and then disappeared into the staff room. But he came in. He looked just the same, in that baggy suit and bow tie, and I introduced him to the boys. I told them that he was a famous children’s writer and how privileged they were to have him pay them a visit and then he sat down at the teacher’s table out front and said, “My dears…what would you like to ask me?”
    ‘Bad start, I know, but the boys made it worse. They were already silly, as I said, not having their proper teacher there, then one started giggling and dropped his pencil and then they all started dropping pencils and staring under the table where Sebastian sat and then they all started giggling.
    ‘The first question this boy Liam asked was, “Why are you wearing different coloured socks?” and Sebastian said, “Because Y’s a crooked letter. Let’s have another question.” And the next boy, Angelo, said, “If you’re so famous, how come you’re in our classroom. Are you a teacher?”
    ‘I could see that Sebastian was uncomfortable, so I moved to the front of the room and said, “Now boys, let’s have some questions about writing. Anyone?”
    ‘There was silence, then more giggling, then Robert said, “If you’re so famous, how come we never heard of you?”
    ‘I could see disaster just around the corner so I said, “Mr Chanteleer was due to come on Thursday and I was going to introduce you to his books before he came. But…”
    ‘Sebastian cut me off. “Perhaps my books are too hard for you?” he said to them. “I didn’t write Noddy , you know.”
    ‘That shut them up. None of them would know who Noddy was, but they sure read the insult in his tone.
    “‘So,” Sebastian said, “Since you don’t want to ask me any real questions, I’ll tell you something about myself…” And he told them about how he was born in Sussex and how his father died when he was a boy, and how hard he had to work to be a writer, and how writing wasn’t easy and that sort of thing. I can’t say whether they were too bored to interrupt or just couldn’t be bothered because it was late in the afternoon and they had football training but they let him talk until the bell went and then all raced for the door.
    ‘I didn’t know what to do, so I thanked Sebastian for coming and apologised for the boys’ behaviour. “Children are revolting,” he said. “You’ll work that out soon enough. Let’s get out of here. Eve can take us for a drink.”’
    Her grip on my hand tightened. ‘Charlie,’ she said, ‘my head was spinning. He would never have talked like that if the boys had shown some manners. Why would they be so rude?’
    This was a hard question and best deflected. So I said, ‘And you went to the pub? That’s how come you were late?’
    ‘I had a couple of chardonnays,’ she said. ‘I felt terrible.’
    ‘Have a shower,’ I said. ‘I’ll get your dinner. We all have bad