Lance - part 2

It isn’t long before Lance is transferred to my tutor group; we are moving to a vertical grouping system for Year 7-9 and the fact that Lance doesn’t seem to have encountered much trouble in English has prompted the Head of Year to suggest he is taken under ‘Beth Werrett’s wing’. And so, ironically, having managed to keep Lance out of detention in my subject I end up having to keep him in detention as one of my tutees Chantal. This is not school policy, it’s my policy. I have communicated to his teachers that if he is too disruptive to teach he is to be escorted not to Time Out but next door to me. And, in turn, my tutees know that if they end up coming to me and ‘wasting my time’ in following things up they will do the time after school.

And so it is that Lance is with me on a Friday after school, alongside a couple of Y7s who haven’t done their homework and ‘My Boy’ Jack a Y8 with potential to go either way. I call him ‘My Boy’ because he has been with me since Y7 and I have tried to foster a sense of belonging and responsibility in him. He came up from his primary school with a terrible reputation and so far I have, with the support of his teachers, managed to keep him on the straight and narrow. Tony, my colleague and friend next door,  and I have embraced the strategy of familiarity through semantics. It is amazing just how effective it is. We always call difficult pupils ‘our’ as is the West Country way and we have incorporated it in to our banter with the children. “Ms Werrett, I’ve had ‘Our Josh’ this morning and you wouldn’t believe the amount of work he did - you’d be impressed.” says Tony, beaming at ‘Our Josh’. Or on duty, as a group approaches, ‘Here she comes! It’s our Michaela! Nice to see her smiling!’ Michaela smiles on cue, out of embarrassment if not secret delight. 

‘My Boy’ Jack slinks in to the room, throwing Lance a sideways glance. It’s interesting body language, not direct, confrontational eye contact just a shy ‘shufty’. Lance is top dog. Lance is just the sort of role model Jack has been waiting for a personal introduction to and I am wary of them striking up any kind of allegiance. They get on quietly with their tasks and I work my way through a list chores until I have run out things to do in the classroom and have a stack of things that need delivering elsewhere, photocopying or picking up. I look at the boys working and am reluctant to leave them but I must get on. Eventually I decide to take Lance with me. I ask Jack to help the Y7s if they get stuck and instruct them to ask him if they do and then set off up to the Maths corridor with Lance in tow. 

“So what are you doing tonight then?” I ask “Anything exciting lined up?” He looks a bit taken off guard and then composes himself and replies “Oh, you know, I’ll probably go down the pub with me bother and his mates.” 

“How old’s your brother?” 

“Eighteen.” 

“Oh yes. Do you like going out with them?” 

“Yeah.” he says unconvincingly “We’ll probably get drunk and have a laugh.” he continues. He is grinning but his mouth is weak and his pale blue eyes are flat. I get a flash of him in the pub, the butt of his brother’s mates jokes and pranks, drinking a shandy perhaps, a Billy Casper to the big bad Judd. I don’t know where it comes from but the vision and the feeling is fast, almost blinding like a sudden shaft of bright sunlight or even the sudden burst of noise and light through the heavy pub door on a cold dark night. And then the door closes. Lance bolsters his reply with further tales of boys bravado but I sense he knows I have seen his vulnerability.

In English, by contrast, Lance seems more settled. He has stopped his silent, observation of my every move and has joined Danny and Chantal in answering questions though he doesn’t share their conscientious note-taking. He can be king in my class, not the little brother, he knows his stuff but likes to pretend he doesn’t, he stretches and postures and tries to feign nonchalance but his eyes twinkle and he can’t resist to tease. 

“There's been a death in the opposite house” I read

“As lately as to-day.

I know it by the numb look

Such houses have alway.

Let’s just look at the opening what’s happening here?” I ask.

“Somebody’s died...?” David postulates.

“Yes...and...”

There is silence

“Why are the houses described as being ‘numb’, that’s an usual description for a house isn’t it, ‘numb’,why has Emily Dickinson chosen that word do you think?”

“I know this sounds stupid but...” starts Chantal

“Yes?”

“No!” she folds in embarrassment.

“Go on, try it out.” I coax.

“No, it’s stupid Miss.” she says, peeping from behind her fingers “Forget it.”

“I said lots of stupid things in my English lessons.” I admit, “Don’t worry.”

“Well, is that, like how the people are feeling, numb? After the person dying like?”

‘Good!” 

It’s hard to believe how far this class have come, from raving madness to my mini scholars.

“And what about the next section...

The neighbors rustle in and out,

The doctor drives away.

A window opens like a pod,

Abrupt, mechanically;

Somebody flings a mattress out,--

The children hurry by;

...what’s going on there do you think? Lance?”

“Err...” he takes a long pause. “...are the neighbours looting the place because some bloke has died...?”

I look at him and know he knows, then have to turn to the board to suppress a smile under the guise of adding another note to the class brainstorm. His wit has bypassed the new-found seriousness of the class but it’s all I can do to hold in a blurt of laughter.

On Monday there’s a message from the office to see whether Lance is in registration. It’s not unusual for him to be late and so I am unconcerned until I find out that his mother has been in to the office and the police. Lance hasn’t been home all night. 

At twenty past ten, as Year 7 are settling down to writing their Lighthouse poems up for display, I spot Lance moseying past my “In” door, on his way to the refectory. I slip out quickly. “Hey! Come here!” He diverts my way. He looks tired and even more pale than usual, his eyes are dark and slightly red. “Where have you been?” I ask “Everyone’s looking for you. What’s this about you not going home last night?”

“Oh, I stayed over Toby’s”

“Didn’t you think to tell your mum? She’s been worried sick.” 

“She didn’t even know until this morning, she wasn’t even there last night, she staying over with some bloke”. And now he doesn’t seem vulnerable, he doesn’t seem angry, he seems just resigned to life. His mother coming in has been an embarrassment, an unexpected and inconvenient intervention.

“You had better get up to the office and at least tell them you’re here and safe.”

He wheels round and starts towards the office.

“Oi!” I call, he stops and turns around, his rucksack sliding off his left shoulder.

“Wanna hug!” I smile.

He smirks and then trots off.