Free (5/13) Return to Thrush Green by Miss Read Page A

when Miss Fogerty entered her classroom she found that the fish tank had sprung a leak, and that the three goldfish (named Freeman, Hardy and Willis by the adoring class), were gasping in a bare inch of water.
    Miss Fogerty rushed for a bucket of water, and the net to catch the luckless fish, and spent a busy ten minutes on this errand of mercy and mopping up the floor and cupboard.
    The children were entranced at the mess and added to the confusion by trying to help with their handkerchiefs, hastily-removed socks, and any other unsuitable piece of material which they could press into service. The amount of water which had come from one small tank was prodigious, and seemed to spread right across the room as well as flooding the cupboard below it. Naturally, it was the cupboard holding piles of new exercise books, the term's supply of coloured gummed squares, now living up to their name, tissue-paper, drawing paper, and thick paper used for painting. It was all most vexatious, and Miss Watson would not be pleased when she had to beg for more supplies, thought poor Agnes, wringing out the floorcloth.
    She took her class across the playground, to the main building for morning prayers, and was obliged to postpone her account of the disaster until after assembly. Usually, she and Miss Watson had a minute or two together before Miss Fogerty seated herself at the ancient upright piano. Neither Miss Watson, nor any other member of the staff over the past ten years, seemed to have learned to play the piano, so that Miss Fogerty was obliged to face the music every morning.
    Today Miss Watson was called to the telephone, and arrived a few minutes late. However, she faced the children with her usual calm smile, and prayers began.
    Miss Fogerty noted that the hymn was not one of her favourites.
Raindrops are our diamonds
And the morning dew,
While for shining sapphires
We've the speedwell blue.
    What was more, the thing was in four flats, a key which Miss Fogerty detested. However, she did her best, noticing yet again how sharp the older children's voices became towards the end of the hymn.
    As the children were led away to their classrooms, Agnes told her headmistress of her misfortune.
    'How tiresome,' said Miss Watson, 'and it would be dreadfully wasteful to have to throw away so much good material! I think you had better spread out the sheets separately, Agnes dear, and dry them as best you can. We simply can't waste things.'

    And easier said than done, thought Agnes rebelliously, as she crossed the playground. There were mighty few places to spread hundreds of sheets of wet paper in her classroom, and every time the door opened they would blow to the floor, and the children would rush to collect them, as well Miss Watson knew. There had been a chiding note too in her headmistress's voice, which annoyed her usually submissive assistant. Did she think that she had purposely damaged the fish tank? Good heavens, surely she wasn't being accused of wilful damage, or even of neglect? It was simply an act of God, well, perhaps not of God, thought Agnes hurriedly. He cared for all creatures after all, and must grieve for those poor fish who had been almost literally at their last gasp. No, it was a Complete Accident, she told herself firmly, and the only thing to db was to borrow another tank immediately for the poor things, and to endeavour to get her excited children into a calmer state of mind, ready for a good morning's work.
    Consequently, it was not until cold mutton with jacket potatoes, followed by pink blancmange, had been dispatched that Miss Fogerty was at liberty to take out Isobel's letter in the peace of her empty classroom and read the news.
    It gave her much food for thought, and distracted her attention for a while from her damp surroundings.
    She was contemplating a move, Isobel wrote. Now that she was alone it seemed silly to keep up such a large house. The fuel bills alone were horrifying. The garden was far too big, and