Trouble at the Little Village School by Gervase Phinn Page B

news,’ said Mr Gribbon.
    ‘She will be calling in at school later this week. Her name is Mrs Pugh. Perhaps I might leave you to look after her and show her the ropes? I have an education officer coming in for the morning on Thursday and then Mrs Atticus’s college tutor and the school nurse visiting on the Friday, so I will be pretty much tied up.’
    ‘No problem, Mrs Devine,’ replied the caretaker. He strode off down the corridor with a spring in his step, keen to enlighten the school secretary with the good news about the part-time cleaner and his assured future.

Chapter 5
    On Thursday Ms Tricklebank arrived to spend a morning in the school. She had spoken to Elisabeth following the governors’ meeting and asked if she might visit Barton-in-the Dale to get to know the staff and pupils and learn something about the school. Of course, Elisabeth realised that there was another agenda for the visit, namely to assess the quality of the education. The senior education officer would no doubt be visiting Urebank as well, to judge that school and make comparisons. It was therefore important, as Elisabeth told the teachers at the staff meeting and the children in the school assembly, that the visitor gained a favourable impression. At the staff meeting the teachers looked anxious.
    ‘What is she like?’ asked Mrs Robertshaw.
    ‘Well, I’ve only met her once at the governors’ meeting,’ replied Elisabeth, ‘and to be frank she is a bit of an unknown quantity. She said very little at the meeting and kept things pretty close to her chest. She’s not a person given to much smiling. Rather a stern and forbidding woman if first impressions are anything to go by.’
    ‘Sounds frightening,’ observed Miss Brakespeare, giving a slight shudder.
    ‘I’m sure that when she sees what we have achieved here, meets the children and looks at the work they are doing,’ said Elisabeth, ‘she will leave very impressed.’
    It was Mr Gribbon who first saw Ms Tricklebank on the Thursday morning. He observed a dumpy, red-faced woman with a rather intense expression on her face standing by the school gate watching the children as they filed up the path.
    ‘Morning,’ he said, approaching her.
    ‘Good morning,’ she replied.
    ‘Are you from County Hall?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I think I am expected.’
    ‘I’m Mr Gribbon, the caretaker.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘Well, come along,’ he said. ‘Don’t stand out here in the cold. I’ll show you what’s what.’
    ‘Perhaps I might see the head teacher first,’ said the senior education officer.
    ‘Oh, she’ll see you later,’ he told her. ‘That’s if she can fit you in. She’s very busy this morning. She teaches during the day and has important visitors to see at lunchtime. She’s asked me to look after you.’
    ‘Really?’
    As Ms Tricklebank followed the caretaker up the school path, he continued to talk non-stop. ‘’Course, it’s an old school as you can see and it takes a lot of cleaning, I can tell you. Dust gets everywhere and we have a problem with cockroaches. They come out from under the skirting boards at night. You get used to them. They’re bloody difficult to kill are cockroaches, I can tell you. They can live for a month without food. ’Course in a school they’ve got plenty to go at what with the kiddies dropping crisps and sweets and I don’t know what, and the teachers are as bad. I put this poison powder down the corridors every night then sweep up the bodies before school.’ He chuckled. ‘For the cockroaches that is, not the teachers.’
    ‘If I might—’ began Ms Tricklebank.
    ‘You’re not allergical to cockroaches are you?’ the caretaker asked.
    ‘Interesting as this is,’ started Ms Tricklebank, ‘I think I really must—’
    The caretaker continued obliviously. ‘You’re all right up ladders, are you? Because some of the shelves are high up. I deal with the floors and the boiler of course. You’ll be