02 Mister Teacher Read Online Free Page B

an insult to the whole team. Also, Shane had the letters H-A-R-D tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand and this tended to command respect. As Trevor reduced Shane’s scalp to the appearance of a plucked chicken, he reflected that, if you valued your kneecaps, it was wise always to agree with Shane.
    At twenty past seven, Beth’s pale-blue Volkswagen Beetle pulled into the High Street. She climbed out, locked her car, caught sight of me outside the village hall and waved . As she walked towards me, a light breeze tugged at her pale-cream summer dress and outlined her slim, athletic figure. A wisp of honey-blonde hair trailed across her cheek and accentuated her perfect English beauty. She looked simply wonderful. A cool silk scarf that exactly matched the colour of her green eyes was thrown casually across her tanned shoulders and her smile, as usual, made me feel weak at the knees.
    ‘Hello, Jack.’ She reached up to peck me on the cheek and the scent of Rive Gauche perfume lingered.
    ‘You look lovely,’ I said. ‘Then again, you always do.’
    She smiled and we walked in to find a seat.
    By half past seven, Ragley village hall was packed and latecomers were each given a folding picnic chair and told to fill up the aisles. As usual, Ruby and Ronnie Smith and their family were on the front row. Beth and I found two spare seats on the third row behind Vera Evans and her brother, the Revd Joseph Evans. As the lights went down, Beth slipped her hand into mine and, once again, contentment filled my heart.
    The curtains opened and Troy Phoenix, the local entertainer from Easington, strutted out onto the stage like a turkey cock into an avian harem. Troy, whose real name was Norman Barraclough, was on good form. Deep down in his heart he knew he was destined to star at the London Palladium, and that these village audiences worshipped the ground he walked on. As he strode to the middle of the stage, microphone in hand, he knew he looked a million dollars in his imitation gold lamé suit. However, as Troy’s day job was delivering fresh fish in his little white van, sadly his suit smelled strongly of Whitby haddock.
    ‘Ah can smell fish,’ said Ronnie Smith, on the front row.
    ‘Shurrup an’ be’ave y’self!’ whispered Ruby, who could also smell fish, but didn’t want to cause a scene. Next to her, Natasha and Sharon stared in admiration at Troy’s Boomtown Rats hairstyle, John Travolta shirt and four-inch, Cuban-heeled, white boots. The Christmas tinsel Troy’s grandmother had sewn around the turn-ups of his thirty-two-inch flares sparkled in the single spotlight, fixed to the roof beam by Timothy Pratt.
    That afternoon Timothy, or Tidy Tim as he was known in the village, had been busy in the back room of Pratt’s Hardware Emporium, and he was intensely proud of his plywood ‘clapometer’. It was mounted on a table at the back of the stage, flanked by two primitive microphones. A maze of wires wound their way to a flickering metal dial, fixed to a semicircle of timber painted bright red and graduated around its circumference. A small ripple of applause caused the small arrow to move to number 1 on the scale. A few extra cheers moved the arrow further to number 2. Timothy Pratt guessed that nothing short of a Russian atomic bomb would persuade the arrow to reach number 100 at the top of the scale.
    Troy stood, feet astride, and shook his shoulder-length hair.
    Sharon almost swooned.
    ‘Good evenin’, pop fans, an’ welcome t’Talent Night. Ah’m ’ere in person t’entertain you, the one an’ only, sex-on-legs, Troy Phoenix!’
    A small smattering of applause, led by Ruby’s daughters, rippled round the hall.
    Troy swelled out his puny chest and felt proud that his Cuban heels enhanced his height to five feet six inches. Then he gyrated his pelvis. This was clearly his Elvis impersonation but, sadly, he looked more like a vertically challenged fishmonger with haemorrhoids.
    Sharon, Ruby and Ronnie