Also by Anne Fine

You can visit Anne Fine’s website www.annefine.co.uk

Contents

1 In which we are introduced to Lancelot, Miss Mirabelle and Flossie the cow

2 In which Miss Mirabelle tells a Giant Whopper

3 In which the terrible, terrible secret hangs heavily over all

4 In which Mrs Spicer sees a great improvement all round, and is delighted

5 In which Lance’s granny is totally disgusted

6 In which we all watch dear Flossie save the day

1
In which we are introduced to Lancelot, Miss Mirabelle and Flossie the Cow

Lance sat on the wooden fence that ran round the meadow, watching the cows and worrying as usual about his teacher, Miss Mirabelle. Two feet away, Flossie his favourite burped gently, flicked her long raggedy tail, and watched him anxiously.

‘It’s no good, Flossie,’ said Lance. ‘Things aren’t getting better. They are getting worse.’

Flossie shook her big heavy head and looked, if possible, even more anxious than before.

‘If she’s not careful,’ Lance warned, ‘she’s going to lose her job. She’ll get the sack. Why, she spent almost half an hour this morning just staring out of the window sucking her pencil. There was practically a riot at the back of the classroom.’

Flossie turned round and ambled off towards the ragged bit of fence that was so good for back-scratching.

Left to himself, Lance sighed and stared up at the vast bowl of sky.

‘She ought to try to do better,’ he told the clouds above him. ‘She’s always writing it on other people’s reports. She ought to try it herself. She should pull her socks up. She should get a grip. We can’t go on like this. It’s beyond a joke.’

Behind him another cow burped, rather more rudely than Flossie.

‘All right for you.’ Lance scowled. ‘You never had to go to school. You don’t know what it can be like.’

Lance remembered only too well what school was like before Miss Mirabelle came.

First there was Mr Rushman. Terrifying! He spoke so softly you could hardly hear, and then, as soon as you did something wrong because you hadn’t heard, he shouted at you that you ought to listen.

No one was sorry when he left the school.

Then there was Mrs Maloney. She seemed to think they were all idiots. She spoke so loud and clear and slow, and said everything she had to say at least a dozen times, and everything they did was so easy-peasy that everyone was driven half mad with boredom.

There was great relief all round when Mrs Maloney moved back down to Infants.

Then there was Mr Hubert. He talked all the time. Nobody else got a word in edgeways. They never did anything. They just watched him talk. He talked about what they were going to do, but took so long talking they never did it.

Then he broke both legs falling off his motorbike. They all signed the card to the hospital, but nobody cried. They just felt a little bit sorry for the nurses.

And then, like an angel, Miss Mirabelle came. One morning they were all fiddling about at their tables or hanging around the windowsills wondering who was going to take them, when in stepped a vision in a flowery dress, with golden hair piled high and tumbling down, and silver bell earrings that tinkled as she moved, and scarlet fingernails and bare brown legs. And on her dainty feet the vision wore the brightest, greenest shoes, with frills round the edges and bows on top, and the highest heels ever seen at Wallisdean Park School.

‘I am Miss Mirabelle,’ the vision said. ‘Get off those windowsills. Stop fiddling about. Plonk your bums straight down on your little chairs, and listen to me.’

Extraordinary!

Half the class slid off the windowsills and crept to their seats. The other half stopped fiddling. There was absolute silence. Everyone stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, as Miss Mirabelle hitched up her flowery skirts, perched on the very edge of the teacher’s desk, crossed her legs elegantly at the knee, and told them:

‘I am your new teacher, and I think I should tell you right at the start that I can stand practically anything in the world, but I can’t stand sniffers.’

She reached in her capacious woven bag and pulled out a huge box of paper tissues.

‘I’ll put these here,’ she said.

She placed the box ceremoniously on the front of her desk.

‘At the first sign of a sniff, or a snuffle, or even a bit of a blocked nose, you are to come up here, take a tissue, and blow!’

She rose dramatically, and pointed to the cupboard at the back of the classroom.

‘Sniffers will be sent to sit in there, out of sight and out of hearing. I’m sorry, but there it is. I just can’t help it. Sniffers bring out the murderess in me.’

Then suddenly she smiled and, swinging round, began to write the date very neatly on the board, just like any other teacher in the world.

Her back safely turned, everyone took the chance to glance at their friends, and nudge their neighbours. Deborah even whispered to Lance.

‘What do you think of her?’

‘She’s different.’ Lance shook his head. ‘She certainly is different.’

And he was right. Miss Mirabelle certainly was different. She started the school day with a Wake You Up Sing Song. Her silver bell earrings tinkled when she laughed. And every so often during the morning she reached into her capacious woven bag and, pulling out an exquisite little pearl knife and an apple, she peeled off the skin in one long perfect coil, sliced up the apple thinly, and popped each delicate sliver into her perfect red mouth.

Lance watched. It made a change, he thought, from watching teachers mark books, or go round the class, or write on the board. Miss Mirabelle was different, she was exotic, she promised adventure. Lance longed for adventure, and he hoped she would stay.

But would she be able to stay different? Lance wasn’t sure. He’d seen the head-teacher take Miss Mirabelle aside after lunch, point first at Miss Mirabelle’s high heels, then at the wooden floor in the hall. Mrs Spicer was worrying about pockmarks on her nice boards.

That’s it for the shoes, then, thought Lance sadly. He knew Mrs Spicer’s little talks. Mrs Spicer was a dragon. The high heels would end up in the bottom of Miss Mirabelle’s closet. Tomorrow she’d be in flatties, or clumpies, like all the other teachers.

But she wasn’t. The next day the amazing Miss Mirabelle turned up in the very same shoes.

The whisper ran round like wildfire.

‘Wait till Mrs Spicer sees!’

Lance peeped at Miss Mirabelle. She didn’t look worried. Cheerfully she called them into line and marched them smartly down the corridor towards the hall. But what would happen when Mrs Spicer saw her sail through the big swing doors wearing the same fancy shoes?

Would Miss Mirabelle be told off? Sent out? Ordered home?

Lance was a bag of nerves. He imagined Mrs Spicer glancing up from her song book as the clatter of high heels came closer and closer along the corridor. He imagined her face darkening and her mouth drawing as tight as a purse string. He imagined her look of rage as Miss Mirabelle stepped on her precious wooden floor.

He was so nervous he would have liked to close his eyes as they went through the swing doors. Good thing he had to look to see where he was going. For otherwise he would have missed the sight of the amazing Miss Mirabelle reaching down, delicately flipping off first one shoe, then the other, and dangling them elegantly from her fingertips as she picked her way barefoot across the hall, settled herself neatly on her canvas chair, looked up and smiled.

Mrs Spicer was livid. She was so furious she got the title of the song mixed up. She was so furious she lost her place twice during the notices. She was so furious she stumbled on her clumpy shoes on her way out of the hall, leaving a scuff mark on her precious floor.

Miss Mirabelle smiled. Then she turned sweetly to her class.

‘Come along, then,’ she said. ‘I think the show is over. Time to start on the work now.’

And that was another thing – the work. Work with Miss Mirabelle was different, too. Sometimes, when they were all doing something together, Miss Mirabelle would suddenly sigh, and complain:

‘This is so boring. I am very bored.’

Often the class agreed. Someone would ask:

‘Why do we do it, then?’

Miss Mirabelle would roll her eyes, and shrug.

‘If you don’t, you might grow up ignorant. I suppose being ignorant is even more boring than doing this.’

Sometimes they argued with her.

‘This isn’t boring.’

‘It’s not boring at all.’

‘I’m really interested.’

‘I could do this all day.’

Miss Mirabelle never minded them arguing. (That was another thing that made her different.) Sometimes she’d sit back and listen to what they had to say. Sometimes she’d look amazed, as if they were a pack of lunatics. Sometimes she’d simply lose interest, cup her head on her hands, and stare out of the window while the discussion turned into a riot around her.

Oh, she took some getting used to, did Miss Mirabelle. Admittedly she was nowhere near as terrifying as Mr Rushman, or as boring as Mrs Maloney, or as fond of her own voice as Mr Hubert. But she could certainly make them all jump.

For one thing, she’d lied to them right at the start. She’d said she could stand practically anything in the world except sniffers, but it just wasn’t true. There were a million things she couldn’t stand. Hardly a day went by when Lance did not lean over the fence on his way home from school and, patting Flossie till the dust flew up in clouds, tell her:

‘Miss Mirabelle can’t stand people who lick their fingers before they turn over the pages of a book.’

Or:

‘Miss Mirabelle can’t stand people who snigger when someone says they have to go to the lavatory.’

Or:

‘Miss Mirabelle can’t stand people who fuss when a wasp flies in the classroom.’

Whatever it was Miss Mirabelle couldn’t stand, Flossie would look as concerned as usual. Pushing her great head closer, she’d almost butt poor Lance off the fence.

‘She hasn’t much patience,’ Lance confessed. ‘She shouldn’t really be a teacher. She’s not quite right for the job. She went berserk when I forgot my gym shoes. She went mad when Deborah bent down the corner of her page, to mark her place. She took a fit when Sundeep dropped pencil sharpenings on the floor.’

He scratched Flossie’s ears as hard as he could, to please her. Her hide was so tough that it was hard work.

‘I’m not sure she’ll keep the job,’ he said sadly. ‘Not if she doesn’t change her attitude . . .’

The idea of Miss Mirabelle leaving filled him with gloom. He’d suffered Mr Rushman, and Mrs Maloney, and Mr Hubert. He knew what school could be like.

It was as if Flossie wanted to shake him out of his black mood. She tossed her head, throwing poor Lance off balance once again.

‘Really,’ Lance insisted. ‘Mrs Spicer has been suspicious of Miss Mirabelle ever since that business of the high-heeled shoes. She watches her terribly closely. Miss Mirabelle is in danger.’

He patted Flossie’s flank and, not for the first time, wished with all his heart that Flossie had been born, not a cow, but a horse. Lance longed for a horse. He longed for adventure. He longed for unknown countries he could ride across, and dragons he could fight, and damsels in distress he could rescue. Oh, Lance loved Flossie. Of course he did. He’d loved her since he first saw her, twenty minutes old, lying in deep straw, steaming, with damp and curly hair, and the farmer had said: ‘Choose a name,’ and Lance had called out: ‘Flossie!’

Then he had sat on the wooden bars of the cow stall and watched as Big Buttercup licked her lovely newborn calf.

After a bit, little Flossie began to struggle to her feet.

Lance held his breath, willing her on. She tried so hard. Her spindly legs wobbled, letting her down time and again. But in the end she made it.

Lance was thrilled. He went back day after day, to watch Flossie grow. He carried water and shovelled cow-cake for all the cattle on the farm, but Flossie was his favourite. He talked to her while she sniffed curiously at his pockets and butted him with her head to try and make him play, and followed him round the field. He told her everything, and kept on telling as the months went by, and Flossie grew and grew, till finally she was vast, enormous, bigger than Lance, almost as big as a car, with huge brown, anxious, motherly eyes.

So Lance loved her dearly. He always would.

But she was only a cow. Cows weren’t exotic. They weren’t different. And they didn’t promise adventure. You couldn’t go righting wrongs, killing dragons, rescuing damsels in distress with a cow.

Let’s face it, cows aren’t even very bright.

Oh, Lance could still tell all his troubles to Flossie. She was still perfect for that. But it would be foolish to expect any more.

He took the shortcut home across the meadow, jumping the big brown cowpats and singing the song his friends always sang when somebody carelessly put their foot in one.

Which would you rather?

Run a mile,

Jump a stile,

Or eat a country pancake?

He wasn’t daft. Though he was hungry now, and ready for tea, he’d run the mile or jump the stile!

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