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mean they spent all our lessons practising their footwork while we shuffled up and down to the recorded instructions on the gramophone. The threats were the worst; being forced to hold hands with somebody you hated. We flapped along twisting each others’ fingers off and promising untold horrors as soon as the lesson was over. Tired of being bullied, I became adept at inventing the most fundamental tortures under the guise of sweet sainthood. ‘What me Miss? No Miss. Oh
Miss
, I never did.’ But I did, I always did. The most frightening for the girls was the offer of total immersion in the cesspit round the back of Rathbone’s Wrought Iron. For the boys, anything that involved their willies. And so, three terms later, I squatteddown in the shoebags and got depressed. The shoebag room was dark and smelly, it was always smelly, even at the beginning of terms.
    ‘You can’t get rid of feet,’ I heard the caretaker say sourly.
    The cleaning lady shook her head; she’d got rid of more smells than she’s eaten hot dinners. She had even worked in a zoo once, ‘and you know how them animals stink,’ but the feet had beaten her. ‘This stuff takes the seal off floors,’ she said, waving a red tin, ‘but it don’t shift feet.’
    We didn’t really notice after a week or so, and besides it was a good place to hide. The teachers didn’t come near it, except to supervise a few yards away from the door. The last day of term . . . we’d been on a school trip to Chester Zoo earlier in the week. That meant everybody in their Sunday best, vying for who had the cleanest socks and the most impressive sandwiches. Canned drinks were our envy, since most of us had orange squash in Tupperware pots. The Tupperware always heated up, and burnt our mouths.
    ‘You’ve got brown bread’ (scuffling over the seats come three heads). ‘What that for? It’s got bits in it, you vegetarian?’
    I try not to take any notice as my sandwiches are prodded. The general sandwich inspection continues from seat to seat, alternating between murmurs of envy and shrieks of laughter. Susan Green had cold fish fingers in hers, because her family were very poor and had to eat leftovers even if they were horrible. Last time she’d only had brown sauce, because there weren’t even any leftovers. The inspectorate decided that Shelley had the best. Bright white rolls stuffed with curried egg and a dash of parsley. And she had a can of lemonade. The zoo itself was not exciting and we had to walk in twos. Our crocodile weaved in and out, ruining new shoes with sand and sawdust, sweating and sticking to each other. Stanley Farmer slipped into the flamingo pond, and nobody had any money to buy model animals. So an hour early, we trooped back on to our coach, and joggled home. Three plastic bags full of sick and hundreds of sweet wrappers were our memento to the driver. It was all we could part with.
    ‘Never again,’ heaved Mrs Virtue, herding us out on to the street. ‘Never again will I risk disgrace.’
    Right now Mrs Virtue was helping Shelley finish her summer party dress. ‘They deserve each other,’ I thought.
    I comforted myself with the thought of the summer camp our church went on each year. This time we were going far away, to Devon. My mother was very excited because Pastor Spratt had promised to call in on one of his rare visits to England. He was to take the first Sunday service in the gospel tent just outside Cullompton. At the moment Pastor Spratt was touring his exhibition in Europe. He was fast becoming one of the most famous and successful missionaries that our group of churches had ever sent out. Tribesmen from places we couldn’t pronounce sent thank-you letters to our headquarters, rejoicing in the Lord and their new salvation. To celebrate his ten thousandth convert, the pastor had been funded to take a long holiday and tour his collection of weapons, amulets, idols and primitive methods of contraception. The exhibition was called