How to kill your husband (and other handy household hints) by Lette Kathy 1958-

Author:Lette, Kathy, 1958-
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Married women -- Fiction, Judicial error -- Fiction, Women prisoners -- Fiction, Mariticide -- Fiction, Judicial error, Mariticide, Married women, Women prisoners
ISBN: 9780743248068
Publisher: London : Simon & Schuster
Published: 2006-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

1 3. Unhappily Ever After

r art of my job as Head of Year Six was to create a ‘happy work climate’. Unfortunately, in most staffrooms the work climate is damp with high wind approaching. Having to check the teacher roster first thing didn’t do much to brighten the day. If there were any absences I had to assign the duties to other disgruntled staff members. Teachers break into two groups — the Sneerers and the Okayers. The Chalk and Talk teachers nearly always fall into the sighing and sneering d suppose so’ category.

But Perdita, her smile cement-rendered onto her face, now had a permanent excuse, d would, but I’m just soooo busy going over your work,’ she said today, in answer to my request to cover playground duty at break, d know it’s a little embarrassing to have your classwork checked by a fellow member of staff, but Claude — Mr Scroope — did insist we make it inspection-proof. And it’s best to keep the old boy happy. As I’m a people person. I’m willing to help you out.’ She gave a long-suffering sigh.

The minging staffroom, with its rusting chrome sink and threadbare armchairs, is situated directly behind the children’s dining hall. Positioned as it is at the back of the cafeteria, it’s nicknamed ‘the Bacteria’. Well, the Bacteria was now buzzing with activity as teachers milled about making last-minute cups of tea and coffee before the bell rang. Perdita’s reply had been loud enough to ensure maximum overhearing. The graveyard of apple cores in the cluttered ashtrays, the grape-cluster skeletons, the glove of banana peel on the floor and being belittled in front of my colleagues — this must be why I became a teacher. 1 just couldn’t resist the glamour of it all.

I drank in air languid with kids’ wet shoes and marmite sandwiches, feigned a shrug, then diverted the curiosity of the other teachers by sharing my latest batch of biology homework. 'Benign is what you can’t wait to be when you’re eight,’ I read aloud, to mild tittering.

But inside I was seething. I had begged Mr Scroope to reconsider, but obsessed with the impending inspection, he just kept repeating his order, like a Dalek. ‘The Inspectors are coming. Perdita must supervise your lessons. The Inspectors are coming.’

And so my free time after school was spent in my rival’s classroom which she had cluttered with cuddly toys, gonks, ornamental flowers and ‘amusing’ signs of the type sold in shops called Bitz or Nick nacks. Red pen in hand and dotting all her Fs with smiley faces, she excised all the frivolity from my class notes, replacing fun phrases with obfuscatory jargon about ‘building team commitment to action’ and ‘clarifying individual roles and responsibilities’. How deftly this Hackademic turned my simply worded educational aims ‘meeting yesterday’s challenges tomorrow’ into meaningless drivel about aiming to ‘grow skills

in speedy problem-solving ideas’ and ‘barrier breakdowns’. Whatever the hell that meant. The woman’s course notes were so convoluted that I would just

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