Thank You Mrs.Searle

 

 

    We stood in front of her, the three of us, shirts out, buttons missing, grass stains on our knees, sullen. 

    Mrs.Searle our newly appointed year 5 teacher, had kept us back after school, on a Friday can you believe it?

    We’d all three, myself, Peter and Neil, failed to hand in our book assignment. 

      Neil had a ‘Barney Rubble’ look about him, Peter was the tallest, blond from his Dutch heritage and was by far the most confident boy I knew.  Me, I was the runt of the litter, shortish and skinny. If I was ever bored, I would count my ribs, which stuck out of my puny chest, like dinner plates on a dish rack. 

    Pete’s father had his own spray painting business in the back streets of Nundah, near the rail tracks. We’d often ride there after school and play tiggy or brandy in the vacant lot next door. 

    Neil’s claim to fame was climbing up the rugby goals on the back oval, after a dare from Peter. He shinnied himself up to the conversion post and with no hesitation spear dived onto the hard summer-baked earth below, where upon landing he let out a yelping scream unlike anything I’d ever heard before. I thought he’d broken a leg or something. 

    But as it turned out, what actually happened was that he’d failed to keep his mouth shut as he jumped and so when he landed he bit the very tip of his tongue, right off. 

    Blood filled his mouth and sprayed all over, us as he howled at the top of his lungs. He stopped and spat a small piece of pink grissle onto the dirt at our feet and continued howling and walking around while holding onto his tongue. 

    So here we were awaiting our sentence, outside the teachers office. We fidgeted and elbowed each other, it was hot in the airless corridor. 

    I could see the dome of the girls catholic school across the street, through the smudged window pane. The school yard was empty, save a few teachers who were making their way lazily to their cars in the car park below. 

     “How was the look on Zelco’s face when I shoved that hot pie into his fat head,” Peter recounted. 

I laughed uproariously at the memory of it. 

       At the big lunch break earlier in the day we were scoffing down our tuck shop lunch beside the handball courts. Greg who was sitting near us, was struggling with a hot pie he’d just bought from the pie truck on the side street. The hot mince was dribbling down his hands and on to his wrists and burning him. Greg was a bit intellectually disadvantaged and was losing his shit over this pie, which was falling apart and continuing to scald him.     

     He jumped up and threw the pie on the ground and stood with tears smearing his red cheeks and greasy meat and pastry was all down his shirt and arms. 

     Zelco, who was sitting watching it all with glee, started pointing and laughing at Greg.  “What a bloody retard,” he snickered. 

    Peter jumped up and with one swift movement, he scooped the pie out of the dirt, grabbed Zelco by his greasy mullet and shoved the demolished pie, into the very surprised Zelco’s face. 

    Zelco screamed and swore in Yugoslavian and the rest of us laughed at the spectacle of it all. I was awestruck with admiration at the speed with which Pete jumped to Greg’s defence. 

     “I’ll never forget the look on Peckerdicks face,” I smiled. Peckertitch was Zelco’s last name, you can guess the rest. 

      “Right you boys, shouted Mrs.Searle, from the doorway to her office, let’s go!”

      Peter and Neil giggled as I jumped up in alarm, I’d been daydreaming about those catholic girls on the netball courts at the weekend , a game I’d pretended not to watch. 

     “Let’s get you three down to the library. We’re keeping Miss.Randal back, so get a move on!” she barked. 

     Mrs.Searle was somewhere between the ages of 60 and 100. She wore these baggy flowery dresses that old ladies wore back then and she smelt old. She was short and squat with truckers shoulders and tuck shop arms. She had a red spectacled face that gave her the look of always being pissed off. 

      We made our way down the red-painted concrete stairs. I hated those stairs, I’d been pushed down them in grade three, I hadn’t broken anything, but I had developed an unhealthy fear of them and of Martin Shorrock, the psychopath who’d ankle tapped me as a joke. 

     Get a move on you lot,” yapped Mrs.Searle, who was herding us down another corridor, like we were sheep about to be dipped. 

     The library was annexed onto the old original school as an extension back in the 50’s. The school was over 100 years old, red brick with yellow grouting, it was dark and windy in the Winter, but a cool respite from the playground in Summers.  

     Miss.Randal was waiting at the open door of the library for us, her pen clicking incessantly in her hand, her lips tightened in a grimace across her overbite, when she caught sight of us. 

     “Hello Mrs.Searle,” chirped Miss Randal, totally ignoring us. 

“Thanks Karen, sorry for keeping you back,” Mrs.Searle replied perfunctorily. 

     “Ok boys, spoke  Miss Randal, in an I’ve said this more than 100 times today tone. “I’ve made up 3 library cards for you already, as I couldn’t find you in the system. “There’s a paper pocket in the front of each book. When you’ve chosen one, I’ll stamp a date on the pocket and one month from that date the book is due back,” she said. 

     “The fiction section is to your right and it’s the two racks in the corner,” she went on to tell us, as she stared at nothing in particular, through her horn rimmed spectacles. 

     Mrs.Searle caught us yawning and frowned. “ Ok boys, she yelled, up an at ‘em! Hurry up now, you’ve got 10 minutes, make it snappy.” she glowered menacingly at us through her squinty, piggy eyes and we ran to the shelves tout suite. 

    We were supposed to have loaned a book out last month and done a book report. That had never happened. 

    We split up and started to peruse the book shelves, our heads on the side, as we read the titles. Moby Dick, Treasure Island, Five in Smugglers Cove, Five go to Smugglers Top...

    Pete and Neil both grabbed a book and started to head back to the library desk. My stomach twisted as I anguished over which book to pick. They all looked and sounded pretty exciting, but I didn’t want to pick a dud. I’d never read a proper book.  

     I felt an urgency grip my penis, that’d be right I thought, I needed to pee, badly. I crossed my legs and fidgeted discreetly with the knob of my penis through my shorts pocket. 

      ‘Huckleberry Finn, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Alice in Wonderland’...I grabbed Five in Smugglers Cove and hobbled to the front desk, while everyone glared at me. 

   “Ok boys I want you to read your the book you chose over the weekend and then I want you to write me a brief outline of the book and what you thought of it and what you learnt from it.” said Searle

     “I want one foolscap page minimum and I want it on my desk first thing Monday morning, before the start of class. And don’t forget to put a margin on the side in red, so that I can write my comments.  No buts, what ifs or can’ts are to pass your lips, do you hear me?” she crowed. 

      “Yes Mrs.Searle we chimed together in harmony. 

“Good, now get out of my sight, she said, you’ve wasted enough of mine and Miss.Randal’s time. I’ll  see you Monday morning bright and early with your assignments in hand. Oh and  before you go, you can apologise to Miss.Randal and promise there’ll be no repeating of this tardy behaviour.”

    “Sorry Miss.Randal,” we harmonised again. “It won’t happen again Miss.”

Miss.Randal looked bored and stared at her nails. 

     We backed out of the room and ran back up the stairs for our bags. As we gathered our stuff, we sneaked a look at each other’s books. Pete had grabbed ‘Moby Dick,’ which we sniggered about. Neil had a well worn copy of a book titled ‘Charlottes Web.’ 

    I wasn’t actually sure that Neil could even read, not a whole book at any rate and not in just 2 days. 

   “I hate that bitch, spat Peter, who was red in the face. Can you believe it, it’s past 4 o’clock, I’ve missed ‘Gilligan’s Island’ by now. 

“Yeah,” groaned Neil, this really sucks, hey?

     I stayed quiet, hanging on to my piss and hoping no one had noticed me squirming. We shuffled down to the bike stands and I threw my bag onto my shoulders with my stowed book and shouted bye to Peter and Neil. 

     I threw my leg over the bar of the shiny Malvern Star as Pete yelled back, “See ya Mundy shit for brains,” and Neil snickered. 

     Once I was on my bike I forgot about peeing, the wind cooled my hot face and I smiled with anticipation at the thought of the weekend. 

      It’s years later now, but every now and then I think back to that day, that fateful afternoon in the library, with the very prickly Mrs.Searle and the officious Miss.Randal.  

     I loved that book it turns out and I fell in love with reading. In the summer holidays at the end of that year of ‘72, I read 16 or 17 books. I’ve been a reader ever since. 

      I never thanked Mrs.Searle. Years later I looked her name up in the phone book with no luck. I didn’t know her Christian name. 

     There’s so many people since then, that have come and gone in my life, but Mrs.Searle will always stand out as one of the most pivotal. 

     I wonder to myself sometimes if I’ve ever had the same influence on anyone in my life as much as Mrs.Searle did on mine. 

     I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but it made me a better student and I have such fond memories of hiding away somewhere and losing myself in a sea of words. 

    So anyways, thank you Mrs.Searle, wherever you are now. Thank you for being tough on me, but always fair. Thank you for the legacy that you so unwittingly passed onto me.  

      Thank you , thank you, thank you!:-)