Read Lair for Free Online Page B

excitedly to each other as they lowered their long-stemmed nets into the murky water. It wasn't very often that their school organized a day out at Epping Forest's Conservation Centre, so it was a special treat for them. All under eleven years of age, not many truly appreciated the lessons on the woodland's abounding wildlife taught by the Centre, but with the ever-growing threat to the natural environment, it was judged to be a worthy aim to inst il in them a respect for nature rather than a deep knowledge of it. That was why the Centre was prefixed with the title "Conservation' and not
    "Nature'. Outside pressure from primary schools and colleges whose pupils attended the Centre meant lessons had to be orientated towards future examinations, but the tutors' main purpose was still to make the children more ecologically aware.

    Jenny Hanmer was one of the Centre's four tutors, and it was her class that had gathered around one side of the water's edge. Because a whole section of the pond was overshadowed by the forest, the bottom was choked with dead leaves covered with a purple scum due to sulphur bacteria, making its depths very dark and its vegetation restricted to algae and a few clumps of starwort. Nevertheless, the oxygen-scarce water still contained many forms of life: water-lice, tubifex worms and blood worms; mosquito larvae and rat-tailed maggots; pond skaters, water crickets and water beetles. Jenny had described all these creatures to the children in the classroom. Now she wanted her pupils to discover them for themselves in the much bigger, outdoor classroom.
    It was exciting for them to 'fish' in this way and even more fun when they studied their samples under a microscope back at the Centre.

    "Careful now," Jenny called out to one adventurous nine-year-old whose name she didn't remember, and who was stretching out precariously over the water in order to net an interesting looking insect. She regretted never getting to really know her pupils individually, but it was almost impossible with so many different schools visiting every week, each class made up of twenty-five to thirty-five children. Some of the older groups, those taking "O' levels or CSE exams, would take longer and often concurrent day courses, and it was possible to build up something of a relationship with them; but not with the younger pupils, although she found them more fun.

    "It's all right, Miss, I can reach," the boy said, his net extended to its limit.

    "Patrick, will you step back!" The sharp command came from the boy's schoolteacher, a small, round woman whose eyes never seemed to agree in which direction to look; Jenny could have sworn she was talking to a boy innocently standing well away from the pond's edge.

    The guilty Patrick took a grudging step backwards, disappointment evident in his face. "I won't be able to get it now," he complained.

    "Look," Jenny said, pointing at a small insect skimming across the surface of the water. That's a water skater, the one I told you about back in the classroom. We won't be seeing much more of him now the colder weather is on its way."

    She smiled as the children followed her pointing finger with their eyes and exclaimed triumphantly when they caught sight of the swift-darting insect. It was fine to talk about such animal life in the detached atmosphere of a classroom, but it certainly added a new dimension when the children could see that Me for themselves in its natural surroundings. Five nets were immediately plunged into the water to capture the startled skater.

    "No, children," Jenny said, laughing. We're looking for algae.
    Remember I told you about the rootless, flowerless plant? Volvox is what we're after. Let's see if you can spot it."

    The children stopped tormenting the insect which had the sense to head towards the centre of the pond.

    "Come on, boys and girls, do as Miss Hanmer says," their stray-eyed teacher said heartily. She clapped her hands as if to emphasize the command