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wondered aloud.
    â€˜Ah,’ he chuckled. ‘I shall know them by the paper bags over their heads. Darling, I’ve got to go. Bless you for ringing. Are we still on for Thursday?’
    â€˜Absolutely,’ she told him. ‘Pick you up at seven.’
    â€˜I bet you say that to all the Ofstedees. Goodnight Jacquie Carpenter. Love you.’
    â€˜Love you, Peter Maxwell.’
    And he waited for the click of her receiver, before taking grey Captain Portal across to the centre of the room. He switched on another lamp and the whole diorama came to life. Three hundred and ninety-one officers and men of Lord Cardigan’s Light Brigade, saddled and waiting to ride into Hell that cold October lunchtime back in 1854. He carefully placed the unfinished figure to the right of the line of the 4 th Lights, slightly behind Lord George Paget, chewing his cigar, missing his wife and waiting for orders after half a day’s inaction. He eased Troop Sergeant Major James Kelly back a little to fit the troop commander in place and crouched to get the eye line right.
    Maxwell straightened. He’d leave Portal there tonight, let him get used to his plastic comrades, find the ease of his saddle. He’d start the paint job tomorrow. Tomorrow and tomorrow …
    Â 
    â€˜Look lively, Ten Aitch Two, I’ve got an exam to pass.’
    Mad Max was in his Heaven, but not all appeared right with the world. Before him in that theatre of nostalgia known prosaically at Leighford High as Aitch Eight sat that notorious bunch of misfits who had opted for History GCSE last year, because last year it seemed the right thing to do. Now, they weren’t so sure. And what it had taken them several months to find out, Peter Maxwell had known from Day One.
    Beyond the dirty three dozen, squeezed awkwardly into a corner sat Sally Meninger. Gone was the come hitherness  of the Vine. The Fuck-Me shoes were replaced by a sensible court variation, the raunchy frock that proclaimed her cleavage to the world swapped for the pencil-chalk suit and yet another silk scarf. She had Maxwell’s Lesson Plan on her lap, only the sixth he’d written in thirty-something years, and a deadpan look on her face.
    â€˜Matthew Hopkins,’ Maxwell tapped the man’s name he had written on the whiteboard behind him. He secretly hated it – the glossy surface that stained at the drop of an aitch; the useless markers that dried up as you looked at them, so that in seconds, the purest sable became the most dismal grey and the most verdant green turned an odd kind of puce. ‘What do we know about him?’
    The silence could have shattered glass.
    â€˜Ah.’ Maxwell smiled at the assembled multitude. ‘How soon they forget. Jade?’
    Jade was a bouncy blonde. Sitting next to Timbrel as she was, the sultry brunette, the pair were every Year Ten boy’s wet dream. Maxwell had intercepted the notes last term which left him in no doubt about how Dave felt about them and Tom and Jimbo and Fat Josh. Maxwell had doubted whether Fat Josh could really do what he claimed he could, but it gave him a chuckle before he consigned the note to the bin and Fat Josh to his Year Head for a good letting off.
    â€˜Um … he was a witchfinder,’ Jade managed.
    â€˜I’m glad you can read Timbrel’s book,’ Maxwell said to her, ‘but I’d rather it was written in yours. Better still, I’d rather it was engraved on your memory. Can you help us, Dave?’
    Dave looked barely able to help himself. A martyr to catarrh, the boy’s mouth hung open and his eyelidsdrooped. Life, to Dave, was one perpetual sniff. ‘He used to catch witches.’
    â€˜Classic, Dave,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘I like the keen thrust of your mind. When was this, Tom?’
    To Tom, it could have been a week last Wednesday. ‘Er …’
    â€˜I’m not being too picky here,’ Maxwell was reasonable .