The Home Corner Read Online Free

I said, a small wisp of apprehension flickering up my chest, like a tiny plume of smoke.
    Mrs Crieff stopped talking and looked at me. I looked down at her desktop. It was the sort you might imagine a Newton’s Cradle perched upon, and an intercom for communicating with your secretary. It seemed to represent achievement, in some way.
    ‘So, tell me,’ she prompted. ‘Looking at this list, Luisa: can you tell me if there are any particular skills here you would like to develop? To improve upon? Which could be your first, if you like, goal ?’
    I refocused on the piece of paper.
    ‘A goal . . .’ I said. I thought of the netball posts at my old high school, the school I had left under a cloud, and the words seemed to lift off the page and float around.
    ‘Well,’ I said, ‘my housekeeping skills could probably do with a bit of . . .’
    ‘Ha!’ Mrs Crieff interrupted, a little mirthlessly. ‘Now, when we say housekeeping skills , Luisa, we’re not expecting you to do the hoovering and mop the floors! That’s the janitor’s job, of course. That’s Mr Raeburn’s job.’
    ‘Mr Raeburn ?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Crieff, sternly. ‘Housekeeping skills,’ she continued, ‘in a classroom context, are things like tidying up the work areas. Making sure the scissors go back in the box: that sort of thing. No, Mrs Baxter and I were thinking more in terms of personal skills. Things that can be developed in your work as a classroom assistant. That we can perhaps . . . help you to foster, Luisa. Professionally.’
    ‘Of course. Well . . .’
    I could feel my heart beating. I wondered about the things Miss Ford might have highlighted as personal skills. I cast my eyes down the list again. 
    Diplomacy
    Ability to work on own initiative
    Mediating skills
    Punctuality 
    Well, I was already being diplomatic: being diplomatic seemed to be more of a hindrance than a skill. And I didn’t know what was meant by mediating skills. And I was not a punctual person: I seemed, lately, to have lost that ability.
    ‘Ability to work on my own initiative?’ I suggested, like someone querying a dish on a menu.
    ‘OK,’ Mrs Crieff replied in an upbeat voice, and writing this down. ‘Super. So, could we make that your first goal? Your first little aim in the post? Your project, if you like, for the rest of term, leading up to Christmas? Which will be upon us, I’m afraid to say, in the blink of an eye.’
    ‘I know,’ I said, and we both fell silent. I thought of Christmas – of the roast turkey my parents and I would be sharing with my grandmother and my Uncle Rob and Aunty Doreen and all their successful children – and I suddenly felt very tired, as if I could just lie down on Mrs Crieff’s wiry, pan-scourer floor tiles and go to sleep. Mrs Crieff was rising from her seat now, though. ‘So . . .’ she was saying, moving  forwards and upwards and knocking together her plastic files and bits of paper, like a newscaster coming to the end of a bulletin. I took this as my cue to stand up and pull my coat on; to begin my return back down to the Portakabin. ‘So, I’m intrigued,’ Mrs Crieff said as we both approached the door. ‘What was it about working in a school, Luisa, that particularly appealed to you? I didn’t get a chance to ask you at our interview because it was all such a . . . rush. However.’
    And she stopped talking.
    ‘Well,’ I replied. I was aware of all the thoughts in my head taking off and scattering into the air, like a flock of startled birds. I felt bereft of anything to tell Mrs Crieff about my interest in the job; anything that was not, in some way, a lie. It appeals to me because it fills an absence ,I felt like saying; it’s an alternative to doing what I was supposed to have done. I looked out through the window and down at the school playground, at the flimsy grey-walled Portakabin to which I would be returning. The lollipop man was slowly battling past it in his fluorescent