The school was a huddle of single-Storey inter-linked, brick buildings with large windows and flat roofs on which the most distinguishable features were the squat water tanks. Around it was a generous playground area with one section set aside for the teachers’ cars; all the marked-out spaces were occupied. Guy parked near the main entrance and went in search of the head’s office.
Beside a glass-paned hatch marked Reception he found a bell-push, which he pressed. The glass was frosted but he could see someone moving about inside; yet two or three minutes passed before the hatch slid open. The woman behind it held a clutch of forms in her hand and could hardly spare a moment to glance up from the file she was checking. When Guy asked to see the head, she pushed a strand of greying hair back from her face and sighed.
‘Parent, are you? He’s not meeting parents till four o’clock. Didn’t you read the circular?’
Guy decided that being a parent was not the best idea.
‘I’m here on behalf of the Public Health Department,’ he lied cheerfully. It was not such a big lie either. He was doing Mary’s work for her as he hadn’t managed to tell her about the beetles that morning. ‘We’ve had information about a couple of beetles being kept in one of your classrooms.’
‘That’ll be Miss Tumstall. Regular zoo, that classroom. Is there something wrong?’
‘I’d just like to see them, that’s all,’ he said almost apologetically. ‘No, I don’t imagine there’s anything wrong, but we have to check.’
‘Well, the head’s busy and I’m up to my eyes, but if you can find your own way to the classroom…. Second corridor on your right, third door along.’
‘Thanks.’
Schools were a strange world of their own, he thought as he counted the doors, and quite unlike anything outside. Even the sounds were different — that unceasing concert of chattering voices in the background, the whispers, the mock groans and stifled laughter, the chairs scraping over wood-block floors, the teachers’ persistent questions and the mumbled answers… He hadn’t really once been part of that life himself, had he? And the smelclass="underline" why did schools always have a special smell?
He found the right door and was about to open it when from inside he heard a class of very young children — perhaps no older than six or seven years of age — beginning to chant an old nursery rhyme which he recognised. He stopped abruptly to listen.
Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, your children are gone,
All but the little one under a stone,
Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home.
They spoke the last line very softly. Through a glass panel in the door he could see the young teacher conducting them, mouthing the words with them. When they had finished they sat wide-eyed and silent.
The teacher broke the silence. ‘And we can imagine the little baby ladybird hiding under the stone,’ she was telling them as Guy went into the room. ‘But that’s just a story because ladybirds are really beetles, lovely tiny beetles, and what does that mean?’ A scattering of hands went up. ‘Yes, Joan?’
‘Beetles don’t have babies like we do,’ Joan said promptly. ‘They lay eggs, and the e^s grow into worms… and..
"And what happens then?’ But she noticed Guy. ‘Oh, we’ve a visitor!’
‘Miss Tumstall? Fin Guy Archer from the Public Health Department. I believe you’re keeping a couple of unusually large beetles here in a jar.’
‘Yes, d’you want to see them?'' She seemed surprised. ‘Just a minute, 111 tell the children. They’ll be very excited.’
Guy watched her as she talked to the class. She was very lively and obviously gifted with the ability to infect them with her own enthusiasm. Her face was full of expression: rather narrow but with high cheek-bones, big brown eyes and a nose that was slighdy prominent, though not too much; he could easily imagine her starring in some major historical film. She was certainly beautiful enough. He found himself speculating— there in the classroom — what she would look like if she left that rich brown hair free instead of keeping it combed back into a tail held in place by an ordinary rubber band.
‘Now, who 'is going to escort Mr Archer round our menagerie?’
A scattering of hands went up. ‘Lise! Lise, me!’
‘Joan, then. Because it was Joan who found the beetles, wasn’t it?’
The little girl, very self-conscious, led Guy to the rear of the classroom, where several hutches were displayed along a wide shelf. ‘ ’Course, we don’t always keep ’em in here,’ she informed Guy. ‘We take ’em out sometimes. That’s our gerbil. We call him Joe.’
In the hutches were one gerbil and two rabbits, all seemingly contented with their lot. Next along the shelf was a large glass sweet-jar of the kind shops use. It contained some pebbles, sand and fragments of wood, together with a fresh cabbage leaf and two motionless objects which looked like coloured stones: beetles.
‘Giant ladybirds,’ Joan said. ‘ ’Course we only call ’em that. We’re not sure.’
Guy experienced that familiar tightening of Ms stomach muscles as he bent down to inspect them through the glass. The dark green spots against a hard pink background were immediately recognisable, though it was true they had no antlers nor the usual yellow patches.
‘We’re not certain what to feed them on, if anything at all,’ Lise explained cheerfully, and loud enough for the class to hear. ‘I’ve checked in the books. It seems some beetles do eat and others don’t.’
‘Did you manage to find this variety in your books?’ ‘No, ’fraid not,’ she admitted. ‘D’you know what they are? We think they’re a bit like big ladybirds because of the spots, but they could be scarabs, from the pictures. I don’t really know much about these things.’
‘You didn’t see the public health poster?’
‘Yes, but these are quite different!’ she exclaimed. ‘For one thing, where are the antlers?’
He shook his head. That colouring was too similar to that of the beetles on Mary’s desk for him to be happy leaving them there with all the children around. Kath, too, was probably in one of the other classrooms along the corridor. It would be stupid to take such a risk.
i’m sorry, I must take them away to be checked, Miss Turnstall,’ he told her, trying not to sound too brutal about it.
‘Lise,’ she said. ‘All the children call me Lise. Can you bring them back if they’re harmless?’ i’ll do my very best,’ he promised, meaning it. Turning to the class, Lise announced the sad news that their pet beetles were being ‘taken into custody’, as she pot it. ‘But Guy here seems such a nice man,’ she added, her eyes challenging him, i’m sure he’ll look after them, won’t you, Guy? And next time he comes here he’ll be able to tell us what they’re called.’
‘Yes, I hope to do that.’ Seeking all their expectant faces before him, he felt some more reassurance was necessary. ‘So will you lend them to me? Please?’
It was decided he should keep them in their jar rather than attempt to transfer them into the biscuit tin he had brought in his briefcase. The metal screw-top closed it securely, though Lise explained that she had punched some air-holes in it. She came out into the corridor with him.
i’m trying to foster a love of nature in these town children, and some respect for the world we live in,’ she told him, keeping her voice down, i don’t want them frightened.’
‘Nor do I, but there’s no harm in taking precautions. You said it was Joan who found the beetles. D’you know where?’