In a Class of His Own Read Online Free Page B

scandal hit my family.
    Andy
had always been popular in the secondary school in which he taught,
especially with the female pupils. He was young and even I could see,
from a sisterly point of view, that he was good-looking. Then the
bombshell
struck. A pupil had made allegations that Andy had been having a
relationship with her. The news hit the headlines with a vengeance,
in both our hometown and in the national press. Of course
investigations had been carried out. Andy was suspended from teaching
and was, to our relief, eventually cleared. But by then the rot had
set in. He’d become completely disillusioned with the education
system and made the decision to move abroad. He’d travelled for a
while and had finally settled in Spain. But the whole thing had
changed him. It changed everyone in the family. He was Mum’s
favourite and the scandal had all but destroyed her. She’d always
been overly concerned with what the neighbours thought. And, of
course, there had been the hate mail. It had poured through the
letterbox like the deluge of filth it was.
    Eventually
my parents had sold up the old family home and had moved here, to
this quiet market town
in north Herefordshire. Neither of them had ever been quite the same
again. For me, what was even worse, was the sneaking suspicion that
Andy wasn’t the innocent he claimed to be. He had always been an
incorrigible flirt and far too friendly with his pupils –
especially the girls.
    After
tidying fruitlessly for a little while longer, I admitted to myself
that I couldn’t delay the inevitable anymore; it was time to go
home. As I entered my parents’ bungalow, I could hear laughter
coming from the lounge. Curious, I poked my head around the door.
    “Nicola!”
said Mum in a gin and tonic soaked voice, “You’re home at last.
We were getting so worried, it’s getting so late. Come and meet our
new neighbour.”
    I went into the lounge.
Dad was standing by the coal-effect gas fire with a beaming smile on
his face. I wondered if he too had been at the gin. Mum and a woman
of ample proportions were sitting side by side on the sofa.
    “This
is Joyce Carter,” Mum said. “She’s just moved in next door.”
    The
bungalow next to Mum and Dad’s had been empty
for some time, with a sold sign hanging at a drunken angle. I knew it
had worried Mum to have it empty but that she’d also been fretting
about who was going to move in.
    The
stranger stood up,
“I only popped in to introduce myself and ask what day the rubbish
was collected. Your Mum and Dad asked me in for a drink and I’ve
been here ever since!”
    Joyce Carter had kind
eyes and a set of chins which wobbled as she spoke. She was wearing a
kaftan of some description, in a lurid crimson. She made quite a
contrast to my neatly dressed and frail looking mother.
    “Joyce
has been telling us that her granddaughter goes to your school,
Nicola.” Dad was topping up his guest’s glass as he spoke. “What
was her name again, Joyce?”
    “Katy,”
she answered and sat back on the sofa. “She’s in Mr. Sexton’s
class. Soon be going to big school. Doesn’t time fly? I can
remember her when she was just a bump. She loves that Mr. Sexton,
he’s ever such a card she says, telling jokes and what not.”
    I
shook my head at Dad’s offer of a drink and perched on the arm of a
chair. “He’s certainly very popular with his pupils,”
I agreed. I knew Katy. A tall girl, who struggled with her maths.
    “We
don’t have any grandchildren,” sighed my mother. I raised my
eyebrows at Dad who grinned back in sympathy. This was a familiar
refrain. “Nicola is too busy with her career and our son Andrew is
in Spain. I don’t know when we’ll see him again.”
    “You
should go there for a holiday, Betty.” Joyce patted my mother’s
arm. “It’s hardly a difficult journey nowadays. Go for the
winter; do you the world of good.”
    As Joyce said this, an
echo of exactly the sort of thing I’d been suggesting, I