Spencer's List by Lissa Evans

Author:Lissa Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141938752
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-08-11T04:00:00+00:00

13

The precipitation that rattled softly against the classroom window wasn’t really snow – the tiny white flakes were actually jagged pieces of ice which stung when they hit bare skin – but it looked enough like snow to have utterly distracted a class of ten-year-olds who were supposed to be engaged in botany-related artwork. Heads were craned towards the window, voices more usually dripping with infant ennui raised in thrilled speculation about sledging and death by frostbite.

‘Will we be snowed in all night, Miss?’ asked a small girl, hope in her voice.

‘All right’ said Fran, bowing to the inevitable. ‘Put the tops back on the paint pots very carefully –’ she watched hawkishly while this was done ‘– and now slowly and without running you can go over to the window and have a look.’

There was immediate chaos, twenty-two chairs shoved backwards in unison, twenty-two voices raised in instant conversation. Fran stood aside as they stampeded past. It had been too cold to take the class outside, and instead she had been supervising the creation of a Christmas frieze, messily involving gold and silver paint and a couple of bin bags full of autumn leaves, dried and kept for this very purpose. She was not particularly happy with the result so far – the paint was too runny and, far from festively illustrating their delicate skeletal structure, the frieze was a jumble of leaf-shaped blotches and unintentional fingerprints. This was partly the fault of the children’s own teacher, a self-styled art expert who had urged her to let the class experiment with the correct thickness of paint (‘it’s important for them to grasp the point of your request’) and then abdicated all responsibility for the ensuing mess (‘it was just a suggestion’). He was sitting in the corner now, flipping through a copy of British Trees and looking bored.

Fran joined the children by the window.

Through the icy rain, the farm looked bleak and shuttered. Hagwood was battening down the hatches for winter, stepping up its provision of indoor activities and laying off part-time staff. Porky was the only visible animal, standing by his trough with his ears blowing in front of him like pennants. As she watched he took an excited step forward, snout raised, and a few seconds later Barry came round the corner of the hen house with a laden bucket, his head dipped against the wind.

‘That man’s going to feed the pig,’ said Fran, ever alert for educational possibilities.

‘What man?’

‘What’s he going to give him?’

‘What pig?’

‘He’s going to give him some hard little chunks, a bit like biscuits but not sweet. They’re called pig nuts and they’re very crunchy and full of vitamins.’

As she spoke, Barry slipped in a patch of mud and fell over, distributing pig nuts over a wide area. There was a shout of delighted laughter from the class and he looked up to see twenty-three pairs of eyes watching his ignominy. Fran turned away and clapped her hands.

‘OK, let’s get back to work.’

‘Oh Miss, we want to see him pick them all up.

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