The Staff Room
Alison’s phone called to her with a robotic ringtone her that told it was a message from her SETI What’s App group.
Ignore it, she told herself. Her phone was at the bottom of her bag and she was in a hurry.
“Be-be, Be-be…” He was greasy-haired, acne-spotted and lank of frame. He was also sufficiently higher up the stairwell, that she might ignore him, except her phone called out to her again. A distinctive robotic whistle echoed through the stairwell. What was up with SETI today? And why now, when this particular student was in earshot?
“Be-Be Beep Beep,” the youth echoed. He was grinning at her as he lounged against the noticeboard at the top of the stairs, exactly halfway between the chemistry corridor and the staff room.
Ignore Him. Alison told herself, but after so many steps she was also slightly out of breath, so was forced to pause. I’m out of breath because I’m short, and I’ve just climbed fours flights of stairs. It’s got nothing to do with me being fat.
And I’m not that fat, she told herself. Still, she wanted to saunter carefree into the sanctuary of the staff room with its chocolate HobNobs and Nescafé coffee, but instead her body forced her to breathe and in doing so her eyes betrayed her.
She glanced at the boy. Leonard Jenkins. Lenny to his friends. ‘Jesus Jenkins!’ to the staff. Always at the back of 11A, feet up on a chair, destined to fail his GCSEs. His failure was not even one of the borderline cases that kept Mr Foster the deputy-head fretting about school rankings and Ofsted ratings. No, this boy would probably spend the next two years smoking on a bus stop calling insults at tidy old ladies, then maybe if he did not get into trouble the army might be persuaded to take him, except his daddy would probably find him a cushy apprenticeship on a trading floor somewhere. No doubt his arrogant ignorance would work wonders in the world of high finance. So good luck to him and in the meantime she was still his teacher, so with a sinking heart she said:
“Jenkins, what are you doing here?”
“Wot?” he replied, all attitude and insolence.
“Leonard Jenkins?”
“Lenny,” he replied with mock emphasis. “Lenny Jenkins, Prof Be-Beep…” he said and then with a fake apology and a point. “Soz. Double Chem. You know what I mean. Prof?”
How dare he? Only the very stupid ones used her nickname to her face: Professor Be-Beep. Alison counted her life in decades, ten years as a kid, ten years at school, ten years studying for a PhD is Astrophysics and Digital Astronomy, ten years travelling the globe between Dark Skies sites, and the world’s largest telescopes. Then when her mum got sick - two years teaching at a private boy’s boarding school, two years that felt like ten. And a nick-name derived from the numerous papers and articles she had authored for SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life Institute.
Prof Be-Beep indeed! What was wrong in believing life beyond this planet was a statistical certainty? It was just a case of finding it in such a vast cosmos which was the tricky bit.
“Why aren’t you waiting for your teacher in class?”
“Can’t go in Prof, someone left the gas taps open. Prof opened the windows, but we’re waiting for the room to clear.”
With the briefest of glares, and a stamp which said you are a bug who I crush underfoot, she strode across the landing her nose in the air. At that moment her phone rang once again with its loud and distinctive ringtone. Behind her Johnson or Jenkins guffawed loudly, and Alison desperately grabbed the staff room door handle and swung into what she expected was the safety beyond, only to find the staffroom quiet and tense, all the teachers were clustered around Mr McCreedy, the head groundsman. As she watched somebody handing him a coffee, her phone rang again.
“Two sugars,” he said automatically. She had set a robot-call alarm for her SETI WhatsApp group, all of whom were based in Arizona. One or two of the staff glanced at her in surprise, most still focused on McCreedy.
Someone else offered him a chocolate Hobnob - he refused. Alison reached in to grab the packet as someone passed it back. She felt guilty to have been so possessively greedy, but the packet looked almost empty. She glanced and saw there was another pack on the shelf next to the sugar. Only that was an orange packet, the plain Hobnobs, Alison was holding what was possibly the last chocolate hobnob in the staffroom. She glanced down at her lack of waistline. Maybe she should not be eating chocolate.
The robot whistled again, louder, more insistently. Now all the others were glaring at her.
“Okay, I’ll switch it off,” she apologised, putting the last chocolate hobnob carefully on the side. Now she realised they had all seen her take the last biscuit. Maybe she should give it to Mr McCreedy. He was as pale as a sheet which very unusual for a man who never normally ventured in doors…
Her phone called again - Really what was up with SETI? Was it not four in the morning in California?
As she dug in her bag to find her phone, Mr Foster burst into the room. He too looked flustered and bewildered. “He’s right, they’re gone. Four of the five mature oaks on the riverside have disappeared.”
Trees, thought Alison, blown down? She skirted around the group to the kettle. Others were asking questions.
When had it happened? Last night.
Was the river blocked? No.
Can we get some logs for the great hall?
Was it the council’s job to clear the mess?
No, no, because there were no logs, there was no mess.
By this time Alison had silenced her phone and poured herself a Nescafé and was considering dunking the last chocolate HobNob. What if it melted?
“The river’s clear, there’re no logs, there’s nothing to be cleared - the trees are gone.” The bell rang even as Mr Foster elaborated: “Nothing at all, just as Mr McCreedy said, the trees have simply disappeared and left nasty great holes at the side of the pitch. Mr McCreedy, did you see anything?”
“No, Mr Foster, nothing - they’re just gone.” He looked like he should still be sitting down but he had jumped to attention when Foster spoke his name.
The bell sounded a second time.
“That’s the bell everyone, get to class - just tell the students the trees were diseased… Tell them the Council…” Mr Foster paused, no doubt he was already drafting a letter to parents.
“Tell ‘em the ‘wee folk took ‘em,” that was Mrs Peters, A-level Psychology, Irish, liked to think she was a wit, now she glanced pityingly at Alison, “or maybe it was ‘em lil’ green men?”
Alison turned back to the kettle, pretending she had not heard as she gulped another mouthful of coffee, then threw the remainder of the drink down the sink. The cold water on her hands as she rinsed the cup was soothing.
So what if she had a city lawyer for a husband and three sons, Eileen Peters had only graduated 2.1 from Swansea University - wherever that was - who was she to sneer?
“We’ll need to rope the holes off McCreedy - can’t have any of the students falling in…” Mr Foster was saying.
Poor man, thought Alison. The groundsman had looked pale before; now he looked like someone had asked him to dig his own grave.
“I’ll come give you a hand,” She heard herself say.
“I don’t have my A-level crew until 11.15,” She said for Foster’s benefit.
“I could do with the exercise.” She added to forestall the doubt in McCreedy’s eye.
“Okay I’ll get the tape and some sticks. I’ll meet you by the river, Professor.”
