Free The Teacher's Secret by Suzanne Leal Page B

mimes out the actions: a half-circle for sunshine, hands stretched out for moonlight, twinkling fingers for good times and a bit of arm- and hand-twisting for the boogie.
    By the end, it’s bordering on a fiasco, and for Terry, there’s always magic in that. So he lets them go for a bit until he calls them back to order.
    ‘Steady on,’ he tells them. ‘Steady on.’ Then he waits for the place to quieten down before he hands the mic to Laurie so she can sign off and send the kids back to their classes.
    Laurie carries the microphone back to the lectern and tries to push it back into the holder. Once she’s got it, she yells into it, her voice so unexpectedly loud it makes even Terry jump. ‘Students,’ she says, ‘your behaviour is unacceptable. You are not in a school disco, you are in your school assembly and I expect you to show some respect for your teachers and for your school. From now on, during assembly, I will expect only to see and hear quiet singing without any actions. At your disco you can dance, but at your assembly I expect more appropriate behaviour.’
    The student body stare up in astonishment. Beside her, Terry struggles to keep his expression neutral. He can’t trust himself to look at her, and staring down at all the little faces in front of him will only make him more irate. Instead, he chooses a point at the far end of the hall and keeps his eyes fixed on it.
    Laurie keeps talking but he doesn’t hear any of it. Only when the kindergarten kids stand up and file out of the hall does he register that the assembly’s over and he should get off the stage to retrieve his class.
    He mulls over it as he walks the kids back to the demountable.A year of it, he thinks. How the hell is he going to manage a year of this woman?
    Back in the classroom, Kurt sticks up a hand. ‘Mr P,’ he asks, ‘how come we aren’t allowed to do the actions at assembly anymore?’
    Terry considers how to answer that one. Because Laurie Mathews is an uptight upstart with no sense of humour. His lips twitch with the urge to blurt it out.
    ‘Ms Mathews thinks it makes you too rowdy. She thinks assemblies should be quiet, genteel affairs.’
    Kurt keeps his hand up. ‘What do you reckon, sir?’
    Terry pulls at his ear. Bugger it. ‘Actually, Kurt, I really like songs with actions,’ he says.
    A murmur ripples through the class as Cody shoots up his hand. ‘So, Mr P, does that mean we can still do actions at assembly because you’re in charge of singing and that, or does that mean we can only do them when Miss Mathews is away?’
    Terry cocks his head to one side. ‘I’d say that’s a watching brief at this stage. That’s what I’d be saying.’ And there’s no follow-up on that, even though he’s pretty sure none of them knows what he’s talking about. He makes a mental note to explain it next lesson: a watching brief—something to look out for when you’ve got no bloody idea what’s going on.

Nina
    As she turns into Colin’s street that afternoon, Nina sees Jen’s car parked outside the house. Good. She loves Steve’s sister as much as she does his dad.
    The two of them—Colin and Jen—are sitting at the kitchen table. When Colin sees her, he stands up to give her a kiss. ‘Sit yourself down while I make you a cuppa,’ he says.
    Nina gives him a hug before she turns to Jen. ‘Hi, stranger.’
    Jen’s face crinkles up. ‘Hi, yourself.’
    In the backyard, Emily is playing with Jen’s little girl, Yvette. With only fifteen weeks between them, the cousins could pass for twins.
    As Nina slips into a seat beside Jen, Colin says, ‘So give us the update.’
    Nina laughs. ‘The update?’ she says. ‘Not much—I think that’s the update.’
    On the kitchen table is a pile of cork coasters. Colin puts one in front of Nina then places a cup of coffee on top of it.
    ‘There you go, love.’ As always, the coffee is instant and, as always, he has added sugar to it, even though Nina only takes