designated by different, faded-colour, fraying fabric bands worn diagonally across our chests. The team achieving most points gained a gold star at the end of each session. At close of term, the team with most stars won a silver cup. I couldn’t get very excited about it – I’m not big on sports and this lack of competitive spirit displayed itself early.
I was Red-team, lined up to do a somersault on the thick rubber mats, redolent of plimsolls, socks and sweaty children. Greens were doing skipping and Blues were climbing the wall bars. I was heading into my forward roll – “Chins into necks.” – when Margaret Claryn, snub of nose, loud of mouth, good at games and invariably first to clamber to the top of the wooden wall bars, for some reason lost her grip.
She was pretty high up, the bars extended to just below the ceiling of the vaulted hall. In seeming slow motion, mouth agape in a scream as yet unuttered, the upper part of her body began to peel outwards from the wall. Mrs Groom, shiny silver whistle clamped between her teeth and emitting small panicky toots as she ran, started from the opposite side of the hall to try and prevent the inevitable. She wasn’t moving fast enough.
There wasn’t time to think. I nipped back off the mat and skimmed it across the floor to where it was needed, at the same time trying to slow Margaret down as she fell. This was in an entirely different league from anything I’d ever done before so I really don’t know how successful I was. She landed awkwardly twisted and with a sickening thud but on the mat, not the parquet floor. An agonising, red-hot pain shot through her arm and my head and I promptly threw up.
An ambulance was called for Margaret – wide-eyed and shaking, with her arm strapped across her chest. Mr. Jones, the caretaker, arrived with mop and bucket, Mrs Groom herded my team-mates away and I was taken upstairs to the headmistress’s study while they phoned my mother to come and collect me. Everyone was shaken by the accident, puzzled too. They thought I’d shown lightening reflexes in flinging the mat across the room. Miss Macpharlane, the headmistress, told my mother on the phone that I’d acted amazingly promptly and, were it not for my action, Margaret would probably have hurt herself far more.
What puzzled them though was that the mats were so heavy, they were normally only hauled around by Mr Jones. While we waited for my mother to come and collect me, I was given a cup of hot sweet tea and a staff-room biscuit. Miss Macpharlane even switched on one bar of her electric fire because my teeth were chattering. I felt dizzy and sore and my head was thumping deeply and unpleasantly.
Miss Macpharlane was a canny Scottish lady. Tall and stooping, with glasses chained round her neck, she never put her arms in her cardigans but wore them draped over her thin shoulders from whence they were constantly slipping. She had a gentle, elongated face like an amiable horse, with large nostrils that flared fascinatingly as she spoke and a genuine love and understanding of her small charges. She was just a little Strange herself, but I don’t think she knew it. She simply trusted her instincts a lot and extended, to staff and children alike, an empathy that permeated the entire school producing excellent atmosphere and results.
However, she was a very long way from daft, and sheer logic dictated I could scarcely have lifted the heavy mat, let alone flung it all the way across the width of the hall. Yet there was no doubt it had happened nor that I was involved. She wanted to question me further but I didn’t think this was a good idea. I didn’t know quite how I’d done it either and I hated that it had made me feel so poorly. I just wanted my mother to come and take me home. Miss M watched me thoughtfully as I sipped my tea, eyes downcast and teeth chattering chummily on the china cup which I was clasping with two hands, trying to warm up a little.
“Bit better?” she