In the Key of Genius: The Extraordinary Life of Derek Paravicini by Adam Ockelford

Author:Adam Ockelford [Ockelford, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Biography
ISBN: 9781407010762
Google: K54-efoxgScC
Amazon: B0038LB4R6
Barnesnoble: B0038LB4R6
Goodreads: 16559083
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2007-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

In the Public Eye

‘ADAM. ADAM!’ MAGGY’S voice rang out as she walked down the corridor towards the small hall. ‘Will you get the men to sort these cables out, now!’

‘Sorry,’ I said quietly to Lucy Pilkington, with whom I’d been discussing how to handle things after break. ‘I’d better go and see what’s up.’

I pushed open the door from the hall and peered into the lobby where three corridors and a flight of stairs leading up to the first floor all converged. Lina’s classroom and a cloakroom lay just beyond. But all these familiar features passed me by as I momentarily froze with horror at the sight that met my eyes. Where a quarter of an hour before there had been a clear walkway, the floor was now scarcely visible beneath coils of thick grey cables, some of which were connected to large lights on stands, while others disappeared towards electrical sockets up the corridor where Maggy was standing. One even snaked its way out of an open window. Worst of all, a particularly large light was half blocking the entrance to Lina’s classroom. On hearing Maggy’s voice she too had put her head round the door, and she glared at me tight-lipped. ‘You promised us there would be no disruption. The children wouldn’t even notice what was going on, you said. And now look at this. It’ll be break time in a couple of minutes.’

She was right to be concerned. Very soon, twenty or so pairs of unseeing feet would be at a high risk of becoming ensnared in the tangle of wires. The men who had left them there had temporarily disappeared and we couldn’t hope to shift them all ourselves before the bell went.

I could think of only one thing to do. Take up position on point duty. But Maggy, practical as ever, was ahead of me – already directing Lina and Lucy to strategic locations around the web and stationing herself by the stairs, ready to warn children to wait for help. I moved to the middle of the circle of cables and stood, rather like a benign spider, ready to assist them in getting across. They would need to be particularly careful to avoid the lights that were enmeshed in the wires like giant stick insects.

Needless to say, when they arrived, the children weren’t fazed at all – indeed, many of them were fascinated to feel just how thick the cables were and track them up the corridor, to get some idea of the dimensions of the lights perched on their large metallic stands and to manipulate the shutters to see how they worked. It reminded me of the situation a few months before when, following the infamous hurricane that had struck the south of England, a number of large trees had been uprooted in and around the school grounds: a natural calamity, for sure, but one which presented a unique learning opportunity for children with no sight. Until then their experience of a

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