“Mr Westfield’s putting the whole school in detention for two hours? What? All of you? Every single one?”
This is not the reaction I expected from him upon being informed his daughter’s lined up for serious punishment at school. In only her second year of school too. Astonishment, yes, disappointment, yes, but what looks suspiciously like delight, no. It’s not funny.
At least Mummy reacted to the news suitably, and predictably. Shocked eyebrows, frowns, pursed lips, words like no, awful, serious, distressing, innocent ones, not to blame, don’t worry. I worried what Daddy would say and she told me not to, that she would explain it to him in her own time, and then she said to me and Rosie, “Don’t tell him the minute he walks in the door. Let him relax a bit after work. It will all be all right.”
Well of course Miss Big Mouth was never going to be able to contain herself, was she? Daddy was on the top step, still actually outside the back door, when she yelled her usual, “Daddy’s home!” and then, “Tee’s going to get detention and so’s everybody at school! If I was there I’d have it too!”
His face was blank, so she added, “That means everybody gets made to stay after school for two hours!”
When he still looked like he didn’t understand, she had the nerve to turn to me for reassurance. “That’s right, isn’t it Tee? For punishment for what happened at the gala?”
What was I supposed to say? She’s just plain unbelievable sometimes.
So now it’s all been explained to him, and he still hasn’t got any further than the kitchen. He’s clearly not taking the situation seriously at all. Mummy has her hands clasped in front of her and is wearing her Bothered Face as if she’s in trouble as well.
“Tessa says he told them he’s never done it on this scale before. He gave them all a lecture in Assembly on Monday, didn’t he, love? And he said he wanted the guilty party, or parties, because he thinks there’s more than one child involved, to own up by Wednesday. But no-one did, did they, Tessa?”
I shake my head.
“He told them that any confessions could be made in confidence, but today he called a special Assembly. It was early this morning, wasn’t it, Tessa, so you all missed your first lesson?”
Nod the head this time.
“He’s really upset no-one’s admitted to it. So this is what he’s decided to do. They all have to go back to the school tomorrow from two till four.”
And keep quiet and write lines, he said. He made us sit on the floor and he moved his lectern so that it was right at the edge of the stage, and then he brought out that wooden box thing the really little kids like me stand on when we do a reading. When he stood on it and beat his cane on the lectern in time to his words he wasn’t tubby, friendly Mr Westfield any more – he was giant, severe and distinctly unfriendly Mr Westfield. You will all write lines, his deepest voice and the tapping cane told us, that will impress upon you the importance of honesty and the dangers of silly pranks.
“It’s not a good sign,” Mum’s saying, “that he feels the need to carry out collective punishment. I do wish those naughty kids who were responsible would do the right thing. It’s so unfair on these little ones who’ve done nothing wrong.”
My mother is doing what mothers do and defending her young, but my father is chortling, grinning, picking up his briefcase from the floor and then squeezing my shoulder as he passes. “Well, I’m going to get changed and have a beer on the verandah. You have to admit the incident was a class act and that that gala will be one that goes into the annals of history. Don’t worry love. Those who know who it was will put pressure on the culprits, or split on them, then you won’t get the detention after all. It’s a tactic.”
Maybe. I hope so, because Mr Westfield won’t find out anything from me for sure.
Mum has turned her head to immediate, pressing matters and is identifying suitable potatoes in the vegetable rack and Dad’s whistling one of his non-tunes down in their bedroom and Rosie’s bolted off and is practising cartwheels on the lawn and they’re all confident I know nothing more than they do while the whole thing plays over and over in my mind.