05 Please Sir! by Jack Sheffield Read Free Book Online

and boys, back to our health education lesson … Now, who can remember, what are the bowels?’
    Benjamin Roberts immediately raised his hand. ‘A, E, I, O, U,’ he shouted eagerly.
    Jo sighed deeply. ‘A good try, Benjamin,’ she said, ‘but … actually …’
    In the High Street, Ruby had enjoyed a relaxing morning in Diane’s Hair Salon. After deciding on a cut-price ‘Farrah Fawcett’, she had set off back to school wearing her favourite headscarf and feeling as though she had just got eight draws on Littlewood’s pools. Although it crossed her mind that Farrah Fawcett didn’t have to mop the hall floor and put the dining tables out, she was grateful that her caretaker’s contract had been increased by an extra four hours per week and she knew the money would come in handy to feed her large family.
    Finally, at half past twelve, Ruby hung up her overall in the caretaker’s store, tightened the knot on her headscarf and tapped lightly on the open staff-room door. ‘’Scuse me, Miss Evans,’ she said.
    Vera looked up from her Daily Telegraph crossword. ‘That’s all right, Ruby,’ said Vera. ‘I was just studying this anagram.’
    For a moment, Ruby was puzzled. She hadn’t seen Ted the postman deliver any anagrams that morning.
    ‘Ah’ll be getting off, if it please, Miss Evans,’ said Ruby. ‘Ah need t’check on my Ronnie.’
    ‘Why is that, Ruby?’
    ‘’E’s got one o’ them colds that men get.’
    ‘I see,’ said Vera. ‘So … just a sniffle then.’
    ‘That’s reight, Miss Evans.’
    ‘Any sign of a job on the horizon?’
    ‘My Ronnie’ll never knuckle down an’ get a proper job, Miss Evans. It’s not in ‘is nature,’ said Ruby. ‘Ah know that now.’
    ‘Oh dear, Ruby, I’m so sorry.’
    Ruby shook her head. ‘Sometimes ah wish’e would sling’is’ook, but then ah took’im f’better o’ worse, so ah’m stuck wi’ ’im.’
    ‘But how do you,’ Vera searched for the right word, ‘… feel about him, Ruby?’
    ‘Well … ah do luv ’im, Miss Evans – allus’ave, allus will. M’mother used t’say y’can’t pick who y’love, it picks you.’
    Vera smiled. ‘She’s a wise lady, Ruby.’
    ‘She is that … Well, ah’ll be off then, Miss Evans. See y’later.’
    ‘OK, Ruby.’ Vera shook her head sadly and wondered what would become of her downtrodden friend. She really did need something to cheer her up.
    Ruby was deep in thought as she walked down the cobbled school drive. The distant forest at the foot of the Hambleton hills glowed with autumn gold but Ruby was too preoccupied to notice. She knew that her unemployed husband, Ronnie, would continue to drink the same considerable volume of beer regardless of the cost. To make matters worse, there was talk that Miss Golightly in the General Stores & Newsagent was about to raise the price of a loaf of bread to thirty-one pence. The outlook for Ruby and her family looked bleak. As she closed the school gates and turned towards home, Jo Hunter and Vera watched her from the staff-room window.
    ‘I feel so sorry for Ruby,’ said Jo sadly.
    ‘So do I,’ said Vera. ‘She needs something to lift her spirits.’
    Our forty-eight-year-old caretaker was married to unemployed Ronnie, whose life revolved around his racing pigeons, the bookmaker and Tetley’s bitter. They had six children. ‘The first’n’ last were accidents but ah love’em all,’ she had once said. Her elder son, thirty-year-old Andy, was in the army and her eldest daughter, twenty-eight-year-old Racquel, lived in York with her husband, a factory storeman. Racquel worked as a packer in the Joseph Rowntree chocolate factory and every Friday she delivered a free bag of Lion bars to her mother. ‘’Ere’s y’little treat, Mam,’ Racquel would say and Ruby would give her a hug and an expectant look. ‘An’ no, Mam, ah’m not pregnant.’ Then Ruby would go into her cluttered kitchen to make a mug of tea and pray that one day she