Cupboard Love!

Being the youngest and the only unmarried teacher of the feminine gender in an all boys’ Senior Secondary School, automatically bestows upon one the title of ‘femme fatale’. It matters not whether one looks like the local buzzard that drapes itself sleepily over the nearby moth eaten tree, or whether one closely resembles a divine angel descended from the heavens above. By sheer virtue of being a young lady, one becomes the designated Queen of the Walk.

And so it was with me, when I entered the hallowed portals of St Columba’s School. From being a supremely ordinary mortal, I inexplicably found myself the cynosure of all eyes. Correction – all eyes 18 years of age and below, that happened to belong to the masculine species of humanity. In a matter of hours I found  that I had no dearth of offers when it came to carrying my bag, I was greeted with regularity (and re-regularity) and the careful courteousness that surrounded me, left me in no doubt that I was a national treasure that the boys were not about to lose!

 I had walked into paradise unannounced!

The downside of all this adulation, however, is that the boys do not necessarily take one seriously. It’s all very well to be the stuff dreams are made of, but discipline in class is quite another matter. Instead of focusing on the sonorous sounds of Shakespeare or the equally portentous ‘Lord of the Flies’, their only aim in life is to attract the attention of their new-found diva. Whether the attention is negative or positive is not the question. Attention is attention. Period.

And so it transpired. On the one hand there was yours truly doing her utmost to turn the young philistines before her into aficionados of the English language, and on the other hand, there were 45 young gentlemen(?) equally determined to give into every one of her charms but this! And so the tug-of-war went, with each day resulting in battle honours equally drawn.

Gradually, however, persistence prevailed and a slow but steady semblance of discipline began to descend upon the classroom. 45 pairs of eyes would gaze with deep devotion upon the object of their affections and do their level best to let a few fragments of knowledge and education pierce the psychedelic colours of their youthful imaginations that were running wild. With a supreme sense of triumph, I gazed upon the vanquished foe and thought about how I had proved myself right to my Principal. That my tall (and ridiculous) claims of “I’ll manage them” were actually beginning to take on some vague manifestation of truth!

Until the peaceful bliss of the moment was torn asunder by the sounds of a squabble that had broken out. Two of the ‘heroes’ of my class were facing each other, ready to do battle. Apparently there was a bitter rivalry on between the two, over the attentions of a young lady they both fancied and it had surfaced at the most unlikely of moments – and places.

Like any teacher worth her salt, I was certainly not going to accept this direct challenge to my already tenuous authority. So, I drew myself up to my regal height of five feet two and a half inches (the two and a half are very important) and pointed an imperious finger at the door. “OUT!” Have you ever noticed how monosyllables craft themselves into authority personified? The two culprits quietly crept out the door.

And there they stood for the next ten minutes – sentinels of the portal, trying hard to look like they were completely unaffected by the unwelcome attention they were being subjected to. Every few minutes I would check on their presence and find them firmly installed – one on either side of the classroom door. 

Until, suddenly, I couldn’t! Imagine my surprise when I glanced in their direction, only to find that they had somehow achieved the impossible and managed to dematerialize! In the blink of an eye they had succeeded in doing what generations of schoolboys have wished was possible. They had vanished without a trace.

Highly perplexed, I hastened towards the door to unravel this mystery, when, to my horror, I found myself face-to-face with the one person in the world I did not want present at that moment – the Principal! Now that’s not to say that Bro Philip Pinto is by any means a monster. Quite the contrary. He is one of the most charming, erudite people I know and is firmly ranked among my ten favourite people in all the world.. But when one is struggling to ascertain the unknown whereabouts of two missing students, the Principal is not the person that comes to mind as being the one you want on the scene of the crime!

However, I had not come into contact with 45 criminals for more than a month, without some of their survival skills rubbing off on me. Adopting a perfectly insouciant expression, I continued towards the door – and my fate - as if nothing was amiss in my world. Affecting a look of unaffected pleasure, I politely (and innocently) greeted my superior and inquired after his health, fully expecting him to withdraw once he saw how impeccably mannered my class was (did I mention that they were all doing extremely creditable imitations of statues carved from pure granite – Bro Pinto has that effect upon his students). 

So you can imagine my surprise when, instead of departing, he proceeded to lean casually against the door and return my inquiry! As if that weren’t bad enough, he then inquired after each member of my family, turn by excruciating turn, and even proceeded to ask about the health of my pet canine! 

Did he depart after that?  Not on your life! Brother continued to steadily stand there while he surveyed the class in a leisurely manner and then courteously asked me about the progress of the boys as well!

 You could have knocked me down with a feather! What on earth was prompting this unsolicited solicitude?! The poor man was obviously suffering from a bout of temporary dementia! 

Ten whole minutes passed in this fashion. Bro Pinto moved from one topic to another calmly and unhurriedly, while I did an internal war dance of impatience and wished the man were any place but there! But having been brought up to never contradict one’s seniors (or use physical violence – not that one could in any case – six feet versus five feet two and a half inches……!) I patiently waited for the ordeal to come to an end.

And come to an end it finally did. Brother righted himself, left the door to its own devices, and gravely wished me a ‘good day’. I doubt I have ever returned a greeting with such alacrity! I couldn’t wait for the man to leave! And leave he did. 

But not before doing something strange. 

Right behind Brother, in the little cubbyhole in which he had been standing, stood a huge, vintage cupboard. As he turned to depart, Brother reached across, and gently tapped on the door and said what distinctly sounded like the words “You can come out now”. He then did his own little disappearing act – moving off with swift, ground covering strides that totally belied the slow motion happenings of the previous minutes!

And that’s when the miracle occurred. 

Like the Phoenix rising from the proverbial ashes, the cupboard door slowly and infinitesimally inched open and out stepped two of the most woebegone creatures it has ever been my misfortune to see! Have I mentioned that this incident occurred in the month of May – the hottest month of the Indian summer? Who/what stepped out of that cupboard defies description. All one could see was two vaguely human forms made indistinguishable by the copious amounts of perspiration flowing off them in veritable rivulets, doubled over as they gasped for life-giving air! “Whoop, Whoop” they went, struggling for breath, whilst simultaneously mopping their dripping brows. Their faces had turned a fascinating shade of puce and as they painfully straightened up, it dawned on me that I had found my missing protagonists!

Now, under normal circumstances I am a veritable fount of compassion. But that day had tested me beyond endurance. The struggle to stay outwardly calm while dying a thousand deaths inside, and then finding that the answer to my prayers of deliverance lay only six feet away, behind two wooden closed doors that they had disappeared behind like two jackrabbits heading down the nearest warren at the first sign of danger (read Bro Pinto), was a little too much for even my gentle nature (?!) to bear. Once again, drawing myself up to my full height of five feet two inches, I caught both culprits by the nape of their necks and, displaying the strength given only to those driven to extremes of emotion, shook them as if they weighed a mere two pounds instead of the combined three hundred odd that they did in reality!

Oh my poor boys. What an ordeal they had suffered! The final ignominy was to be rattled like a rag doll by a diminutive lady not even half their size!! How much more humiliation can a young stallion suffer? The last I saw of them for that day was two dots disappearing into the horizon!!

It happened generations ago but there are some stories that are both timeless in their telling and priceless in their recollection. This happens to be one such tale. Don’t you agree?!