8 8 The school was a relatively modern building in honey-coloured brick with an orange pantile roof and large picture windows. It was surrounded by fields and rocky outcrops and backed by a friendly belt of larch and spruce trees which climbed towards the high moors. Everything about it looked clean and well tended. I, the school inspector, arrived just before morning playtime and heard the squealing and laughing of small children as they ran and played in the schoolyard.
I was just about to enter the main door when a very distressed-looking little girl of about five or six, her face wet with weeping and her cheeks smeared where little hands had tried to wipe away the tears, tugged at my jacket.
‘They’ve all got big sticks!’ she wailed piteously.
‘Who’s got big sticks?’ I asked, surprised.
‘All on ’em. They’ve all got big sticks!’
‘Well, they shouldn’t have big sticks,’ I replied.
‘I want a big stick!’ she cried, sniffing and sobbing, her little body shaking in anguish.
‘No, you can’t have a big stick. It’s very dangerous.’
‘I want a big stick!’ she cried. ‘I want a big stick!’
‘You could hurt somebody with a big stick,’ I said.
‘But they’ve all got big sticks!’ she howled again. ‘They’ve all got ’em.’
At this point the headteacher appeared from the direction of the playground.
‘Whatever is it, Maxine?’ she asked, gently pulling the little body towards her like a hen might comfort a chick.
The small child clutching her began to moan and groan again pitifully. ‘I want a big stick, Miss Bentley,’ she moaned. ‘They’ve all got big sticks.’
‘Of course you can have one,’ the headteacher replied, wiping away the little girl’s tears. ‘You weren’t there when I gave everybody one. You don’t think I’d leave you out, Maxine, do you? You come with me and I’ll get you one, a nice big one. How about that? I won’t be a moment, Mr Phinn.’
‘A big stick?’ I murmured. ‘You’re giving this little girl a big stick?’
The headteacher gave a great grin before replying, ‘She means a biscuit.’
