Wisps of Cloud Read Online Free

level along with the administration block while above them was Karla's syndicate with another five classrooms that faced the top playground. This included an assembly hall across an asphalt court with the five junior classrooms built in a 'L' shape around a grass field. Access between the two floors of the main block was via an internal stairwell that led down to a corridor, staffroom and other resource rooms. This was only used by pupils in wet weather , for when the weather was fine they had to use an exterior zigzag path that connected the two playground levels.
    In late August, the final southern hemisphere winter month, the weather was atrocious with a freezing southerly storm buffeting the city. Once in a generation snow fell on the hills and the school playground was coated in a light coating for the first time in living memory. The children were excited but parents and staff not amused when it turned to slush and replaced by hail. Four days of keeping the four hundred children inside and warm was telling on everyone. Raincoats and gumboots went missing, children slipped on wet floors and the medical room was filled by children suffering from minor injuries or soaked after slipping on the zigzag.
    By three-thirty on Thursday most of the children had gone home with only a few waiting in the administration block foyer for the rain to stop or parents to arrive. On the floor above, Karla was sitting in her office that was adjacent to her classroom, doing administrative work. She was tired, couldn't concentrate on the computer monitor and was about to stop and call it a day when the door opened and a sobbing woman burst in.
    It was Chrissy Ancell who taught a Year 3 class in her syndicate. Chrissy's position at Tui Park was the first in her career and Karla had originally been on the selection committee who had chosen her from over forty applicants. Her qualifications, personality and the fact that they wanted a newly registered teacher had swung the appointment in the teacher's favour. In Karla's opinion it had been a good choice for Chrissy proved to be one her most conscientious team members who had a flare for art and knew more than any of them about the new computer system installed throughout the school.
    She stood and waved the distressed teacher into the only armchair in the room and pulled up a stool beside her to sit on. She handed out a tissue and waited a moment while the sobbing woman wiped her eyes. "What is it Chrissy?" she asked.
    "This!" Chrissy blinked away tears and handed Karla a child's exercise book.
    Karla glanced at the cover that was in pristine condition and read the child's name, Stephanie McKay and grimaced. Stephanie was a bright but somewhat nervous little girl who excelled in most school subjects except perhaps physical education. The problem wouldn't be with the child herself but her overbearing mother, Pauline McKay who was a lawyer in the city. She opened the exercise book to the latest work that Stephanie had done. This was a four page imaginary story written in the girl's quite neat handwriting. Chrissy had marked the work in the school's prescribed manner with ticks in the margin, a few symbols to indicate spelling or grammatical errors and seven or eight more difficult misspelt words corrected. At the bottom Chrissy had stuck on a colourful sticker and a small comment saying how good the story was. Probably the only thing she could see that could be wrong was that Chrissy used a red biro for her marking.
    "So it is not Stephanie but her mother who is the problem?" she asked.
    "She's a bitch," Chrissy retorted and briefly explained the problem.
    Karla nodded and stood up. "And where is Mrs McKay now?"
    "In the corridor muttering about a scarf that Stephanie has lost. Poor little girl does nothing wrong but I now know why she's so nervy and timid in physical education. I told her mother I was coming to you."
    Karla nodded at a second door in the office that led directly into her own