Every Friday morning the school gathered for Assembly, and today marked Neill's first time presenting. He entered the front of the hall with an air of grandeur, in a deep resplendent blue suit, complemented by his blonde hair swept in a fresh washed texture as always, filling the hall with the smoothness and charisma of a seasoned politician ('but a nice one, a really nice one,' Natalia thought) as he offered sincere thanks to everyone for making him feel so welcome in his first week.
'Where I come from,' he declared, 'we pronounce an A where you pronounce a U. Where you say ooh, I say ahh!'
The hall tittered.
'So, if I tell you the door's shut, I do not mean that it's fouled itself.'
Hoots of laughter scattered now, as he continued:
'But rest assured if I say I want to sack you, I'm talking of a no-job... not what the boys think,' as the school erupted into laughter with some turning faces of disbelief, as he finished:
'I'm sure we'll adjust to the dialect differences, along with new positive differences I plan to bring to Thornwood!'
Half the hall's eyebrows were raised by his risqué humour including Natalia's, who couldn't help observing the teachers standing at the sides. Some smiled whilst others like Mr Cohen frowned at the floor upon his 'suck/sack' joke. Had they already had words? Was Cohen on his way out?
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Over the next week, it seemed everyone was remarking on the exuberant new Head, whose raucous laughter would be heard daily from somewhere in the building or grounds, rousing everyone else like a Mexican wave across the school.
'He lets you call him Neill,' cawed Bernard at morning form; 'God he's so different from Neary!' joined in Luke, as Ryan added: 'Mrs Williams sent me up to Neill for detention, but he chucked me a Mars bar and told me to clear off!'
Year 10 boys were guffawing incredulously in the playground: 'We shat our pants when Neill caught us smoking up by the fence. But he came up to us and asked for a light!'
Another day, two Year 9 girls passed Natalia in a corridor, chattering excitedly: 'Mrs Williams confiscated my lipstick at break, but Neill came up, started doing the waltz with her, tossed the lipstick back to me and gave her a hug and a peck on the forehead!'
'What! He's mad!'
'Mrs Williams just looked stunned! Don't think she's been kissed for a century!'
'What like Sleeping Beauty?'
'More like Creeping Snooty.'
'Bleating Fat Booty!'
They tailed off into squeals of laughter.
Natalia observed these moments from the sidelines like a mesmerised spectator of a celebrity or comedian on a TV screen, someone who had the ability of bringing delight to the most hardened pupils and primmest staff alike. Everywhere Neill went, his aura seemed to dazzle the corridor traffic to clear a path for him like Moses parting the Red Sea, high-fived by pupils greeting 'aye up!' to his attempted response in Yorkshire dialect 'aye ooop!' that would elicit a chorus of giggles.
Even the staff couldn't resist discussing his unconventional ways. 'I don't think that's going to bother Neill!' laughed Mrs Coleman, when Miss Doris frowned over a deadline missed for a local Children in Need bake-sale fundraiser. Another time, Neill was spotted in animated conversation with at least five female teachers around him, comically lauding up one of them as she posed her frumpy legs Vogue-style, exhorting: 'What do you mean you can't do Hollywood! You're built like a hourglass!' as they shrieked in laughter.
As the bell rang for the end of the school day, Natalia's gaze would linger on Neill's sleek black Mercedes as it disappeared out of the school driveway, her feet instinctively following the path his tyres had traced. She couldn't help but wonder about that enthralling man inside the black pinprick that now accelerated to the dual carriageway, heading back to his wife and family she imagined, who in her perception were unfathomably blessed to have such an exuberant character for their own: a performer of sorts, brimming with gaiety, larger than life!
The following Tuesday Natalia spied Neill through the doors down the corridor, loitering with the posse from the other Year 11 form class. Well-dressed in another fetching dark grey suit, ebullient and smiley - talking with the popular girls Alana, toothy Gemma and Aisha Mutanga, sporting her salon-coiffed Afro. Bet Neill's in his element, she thought as she watched him, stroking everyone with his gaze, hypnotising with his patter, as now he slunk away with a softly frowning, back-to-business expression, coming toward the doors right toward Natalia.
Her face went down and her heartbeat up, knowing their paths were about to cross.
He opened the door and held it open for her to come through, with a mystically unsaid hello on his face.
'Thanks,' she smiled back as she stepped into the gap, and as she brushed against his jacket, his gaze fell right upon the coldsore by her lip, and he uttered:
'Winter winds? Or has someone been blowing?'
She stared mortified, as her fingers flew up over it.
'Yeah, just from the cold. It's going.'
'Ohh!' he replied slyly, 'just like old Cohen!'
She couldn't suppress a smirk starting.
'Well if you want a poem,' she said, rising to his bait, 'I loathed ever having to know him.'
'Ha!' he chortled, and walked on.
Showman smiles for the posh girls, and that embarrassing comment for her. As she walked on to lessons, she thought of what a bizarre character Neill was in the education scene. How did he get away with it? Was this school so lowly, so desperate for a gentrifying, Queen's English big fish like him that it was turning a blind eye to his ashtray-scented office, his his overly familiar gestures with hesitant staff members, and his blatant sexual innuendos, even in front of the students?
Yet there was no doubt that Thornwood's credibility was on the rise. The next day unfamiliar faces were seen coming and going from the school, who must be prospective staff for interviews, Natalia thought, as an energetic young woman in a pinstripe suit descended the stairs smelling of peach and vanilla. What subject would she be teaching? And later a looming, silver-haired gentleman in black, carrying a satchel, giving a deep 'good afternoon' and Dickensian cock of his head as Natalia gawped up at his sheer height.
The creeping, visual promise of metamorphosis lowered Natalia's dread for PE that Thursday morning. Whilst the boys went out for football on the field with Mr Winterbrook, the girls went to the gym for Netball. Normally she would detest being knocked from pillar to post by the wiry bodies of the other girls, namely the bulldog-like Lisa McGann who would utter 'sorry, little 'un!' but today, Natalia gazed into space in reverie.
Luxton blew the whistle, making Natalia jump.
'Earth to Natalia! Not woken up yet?'
Blowing for her own time being up, Natalia grinned to herself, as the game proceeded, and she reminisced of Neill agreeing with her, that 'Luxton's past it!' Was Luxton looking tenser today than usual?
Changed from PE, Natalia headed up to fritter break-time alone in the warm IT suite, but remembering she'd left her scarf back in the changing rooms, she headed back to get it before it was handed into lost property.
Her stomach lurched when coming out onto the staircase, she caught sight of a descending bustle of teachers led by the jogging and whistling Neill in a cream-coloured suit. As the other teachers filtered around Natalia and bustled down the stairs in chit-chat, Neill slowed and disappeared right behind her, his whistling fading into off-key tunelessness and ceasing completely.
Expecting him to manoeuvre and overtake her like the others, Natalia slowing for a second to allow it, he stayed behind her like a wasp trained on a jar of syrup. She hastened her pace, not daring to look round for fear of losing her footing or or have him collide into her like a freight train.
Then, in a moment so subtle yet unmistakeable, she felt her left pigtail lightly flick up and land down again.
She felt a blush begin to spread over her cheeks as they reached the bottom of the stairs, and he advanced to the door they were both headed for.
He opened and motioned politely for her to go first.
He had not said hello - he had said it with a flick of her pigtail - so she replied only with a tilt of her head she walked through.
He continued walking behind her to the next doors - and she felt him do the same to her right pigtail.
Just as she reached to pull open the next doors, she flashed round with a nervous smile. 'What?' she whispered as though they were co-conspirators.
'Are you going to PE?' in a low gravelly tone back at her.
'No - just to get my scarf...'
He produced an envelope from his pocket. 'Do the honours, executioness, and hand this to Mrs Luxton. Saves me having to see the troglodyte ever again.'
'Er, oh?' as her hand came out nervously.
'You're right, you need something to keep your neck warm,' he murmured as his faintly bemused eyes roamed momentarily to her pigtails.
Then he drew his hand across his throat. 'Meanwhile think of poor Luxton's. Tomorrow's Friday 13th, unlucky for some!'
He turned and shot back off. Natalia looked down at the envelope, swallowing hard. Was she really about to hand over something that finalised Luxton's firing? She longed to open and read it!
With heart racing, she stepped forward to Luxton in the gym.
'Miss, Neill asked me to hand you this, I don't know what it is,' as Luxton took it, frowning.
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For the rest of the day Natalia still felt the flinch on the roots of her hair where her pigtails, flicked by Neill, remained like a tiny ghost, whilst Luxton got it in the neck for real.
It all felt so naughty, so unbelievable, like someone surreptitiously slipping you a sweet in church, someone who dares to offer you a sugar rush when you are supposed to be praying to be fed a piece of tasteless wafer.
She had a permanent grin on her face all evening - eyes staring at Coronation Street or rather straight through it - till her mum noticed:
'God yeah, now that is a laugh. Who the heck did Gail Platt's hair?'
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What's Neill got up his sleeve next? Continue reading Chapter 6, Archery Quivers!
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