Miss Purdy's Class Read Online Free PDF Page B

been the one playing the piano during assembly.
    ‘She makes the children count whenever she gets lost,’ Millie whispered. ‘They only ever give her Form One and they spend half the day counting out loud. She writes where they’ve got to on the board and when she loses her thread they start again from there.’
    ‘Well, at least when they go into Form Two they’ll be able to count!’ Gwen grinned.
    A little later the rounded lady in the blue and green blouse whom Gwen had noticed during assembly came in and shook Gwen’s hand warmly.
    ‘Welcome to the school.’ Gwen felt the plump hand in hers. She couldn’t help noticing that the woman’s nails were green underneath. She must have been doing painting with the children, Gwen thought. She looked up into a round, rather plain face, which was full of life.
    ‘I’m Lily Drysdale.’ The woman’s eyes shone. ‘I hope you’ll be happy here, dear.’
    ‘She looks a bit dotty,’ Millie said, when the woman had moved on, ‘but she’s completely on the ball. And she’s a real poppet. Nothing she wouldn’t do for the children – especially the ones most in need.’ Millie leaned closer and whispered behind her hand. ‘And things aren’t quite what you might think. I’ve heard she lives with a man – a lover !’
    ‘What – you mean they’re not married?’ Gwen giggled. The woman was so old and so odd looking!
    ‘ Miss Drysdale!’ Millie whispered. ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it? I think she’s one of these arty types. I admire her really – the way she is with the children. I could never be like that. I wish I could. I always wanted to be a teacher, from when I was little.’ She looked curiously at Gwen. ‘Did you?’
    ‘Not really,’ Gwen admitted. ‘I thought I’d better do something . Couldn’t stomach nursing and I thought secretarial work sounded so dull. Oh dear –’ she laughed – ‘that doesn’t make me sound very dedicated, does it?’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Millie said. ‘By the way, I do like your frock. What a lovely colour! It won’t stay clean for long here!’
    Millie told Gwen that her ‘friend’ Lance was a teacher as well. ‘I met him at the Martineau Club – on the Bristol Road. Oh, you must come some time. It’s the teacher’s club – Lance teaches at a secondary school. He’s a dream. Oh!’ Millie caught sight of the ring on Gwen’s finger. ‘You’re engaged ?’
    ‘We’re marrying in August.’ Gwen smiled at her enthusiasm. ‘Edwin’s a clergyman.’
    ‘Oh.’ Millie sounded less enthusiastic. Gwen wondered whether to her a man of the cloth would seem the height of dullness.
    ‘But he’s very . . . well –’ she searched for a word to sum up Edwin – ‘ jolly really.’
    When Gwen went in to take the afternoon register, she was struck afresh by the pallid, undernourished look of many of her charges. The class that looked back at her in Worcester had been mostly bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked children, who after dinner would have come in fresh from playing in the field behind the school. She felt a pang of pity for these urban juniors, cooped up between grimy rows of houses. Already, in the afternoon register, she noticed one absence.
    ‘Lucy Fernandez?’
    Silence.
    ‘The cripple’s got lost on the way,’ Jack Ellis jeered.
    There were sniggers round the class.
    ‘Enough!’ Gwen reprimanded sharply. ‘Has anyone seen her?’
    ‘No, Miss,’ the class droned.
    The afternoon seemed to go on and on. There was no hint of brightness in the day; cloud and smoke lay in a pall over the city. They sat in dreary greyness until Gwen was forced to turn the lights on. She stood in front of the rows of desks and tried to hold the class’s attention by reading them a book about the Romans in Britain. Often, when she looked up, Ron Parks was picking at his thumbs or grinning at the boy next door. Joseph Phillips, who was right in the middle, stared down at his desk top, his eyebrows pulled into a