The policeman appears just before PE and just after Henry’s buried Tiny Tim in the sandpit. He stands to the side of the playground and watches us. I put up my hand to speak to him, but Mr Dent’s in no mood to let me off. He’s wearing a tennis skirt over very tiny shorts and nothing else. Not even any trainers.
‘Onto the pitch, let’s have a quick once around.’
We stumble into a line and jog slowly round the football pitch. Mr Dent thunders up and down beside us. We pass the goal, and Henry points at it, raising his eyebrows. The crossbar’s gone, and one of the side posts seems to have been carved.
A totem pole?
‘Come on, you lot,’ shouts Mr Dent, bouncing from one foot to the other. He runs off the football pitch and back into the school yard. We follow, all at different speeds.
Ricky’s at the front. He’s got white shorts on and his little skinny legs show up as blue next to the white. I notice because Mr Dent’s legs are dark brown, as if every bottle of instant tan in the town has found its way onto his skin.
‘Halt!’ he shouts. Gratefully, I stop and suck in a few mouthfuls of air. ‘Right, line up.’
Henry pushes himself in next to me. Ricky bounces up and down at one end, and the rest of the class forms a sort of line. It’s a line in the same way that a ‘W’ is a line. A look of extreme irritation crosses Mr Dent’s face.
‘A line. What’s a line? Boys?’
Henry sticks up his hand.
‘Yes – Waters?’
‘It’s a thing that goes straight between two points, or maybe it’s a line that joins point A and point B – or would it…’
‘Yes, get on with it then.’
We try again. This time it’s more of an ‘S’.
Mr Dent’s not normally scary, but today he’s got a wild look in his eye, like we’re not children. It’s as if he sees us as something else. It worries me because it looks like Mum and Miss Primrose. I look over to the policeman. He’s leaning on the fence, watching the girls dance around a stack of road cones, and tapping his foot out of time to the thumpy bird calls floating out of the CD player balanced on the staffroom window.
‘Two lines,’ barks Mr Dent, and unlocks the PE cupboard. We do better this time, although I wish I was standing in the back row.
‘Catch,’ he shouts, throwing blue swimming floats at us. ‘Come on, quick! One each.’
I grab one, only slightly gnawed, and hold it to my chest. Surely he’s not thinking of taking us swimming. It’s freezing and there isn’t time…and we haven’t got our swimming kits; we do swimming in the autumn term.
‘Sir, Mr Dent, sir?’ says Ricky. putting up his hand. ‘Mum says I can’t go swimming at the moment, because of my ears.’
Mr Dent turns and glares.
‘Swimming? Who said anything about swimming?’
A minute later and we’re back on the football pitch, standing in four lines of six and one of five, banked together like bottles in a crate.
Mr Dent’s dragged some old things from the back of the PE cupboard. A white pointy-ended pole, a boxing helmet and a really heavy metal disc. Ricky’s carrying the disc, but he can hardly lift it above his knees.
I get to carry the boxing helmet. It’s old and crunchy and hasn’t been on anyone’s head for a long time. I can’t imagine why Mr Dent wants it.
He holds his hand out. ‘Helmet, Sam.’ I pass it, and he pulls it over his sandy, stubbly hair. The straps are too short and they crack as he does up the buckle. It’s a squeeze, but he manages it.
He looks like someone wearing a sandal on their head.
‘Right, boys, close ranks.’
We shuffle, and once again I wish I was standing in the back row. He pulls the people on the sides into the middle, until we’re packed together like sardines.
‘Sir?’ says Henry.
Mr Dent glares at him. ‘Ever thrown a javelin? Boy?’
‘Yes, Mr Dent, sir,’ says Henry. ‘On sports day, the foam ones.’
‘Foam ones!’ Mr Dent laughs. ‘They’re not javelins! They’re marshmallows. This, boy, this, is a javelin.’ Mr Dent throws the white pointy stick over our heads and it buries itself inches deep in the grass, vibrating along its whole length. We turn and stare.
‘Looks fun,’ says Ricky.
No one else looks much like it’s fun. Most people look scared and Will’s bottom lip’s wobbling.
‘So, ever heard of a turtle as a means of defence, eh?’
I imagine the terrapins at the zoo and wonder if they could defend themselves against Mr Dent.
‘Raise your shields!’ he cries.
No one moves.
‘Your shields, boys.’ He grabs the polystyrene float from Henry’s hands. ‘These.’
I put my feeble float between myself and the sky. Henry does the same, although because he’s so much taller, there’s a gap.
Mr Dent walks behind us and pulls the javelin out of the grass.
‘Defend yourselves!’ he shouts, walking back round to the front. We pull closer together.
He trots out from the football pitch, taking the javelin, then almost without looking, he turns on his heel and launches the javelin straight towards us.
Only Will doesn’t break rank. The rest of us scatter to the sides and the javelin quivers to a halt in the turf right next to his ankle.