Read The Teacher's Secret for Free Online Page B

glasses.
    Elsie is sitting right in front of Terry and, like a big puppy, she jumps up and runs to him, falling over him with her arms outstretched. A few of the kids snigger, but they’re all used to Elsie.
    ‘So then,’ Terry says, once he’s sent Elsie back to the rug, ‘welcome back to Brindle Public, 6P.’
    That’s all he says, but it’s enough to send a buzz across the classroom.
    ‘And now, 6P—’ he repeats the word deliberately, to keep the excitement up, to highlight the elevation it represents, this rise to the top of the ranks of Brindle Public School ‘—we’re going to start the new year with some holiday news. Each of you will stand up and tell us, in a couple of sentences, something good about the holidays.’ With exaggerated movements, he takes a stopwatch out of his trouser pocket. ‘You know the drill: one minute on the stopwatch and I’ll give you a warning when you’ve got ten seconds left.’ It’s a technique he’s been using for a couple of years now—ever since Anthony Longman wouldn’t shut up.
    Today, Jade is first cab off the rank. Unfazed by the stopwatch, she spends the first ten seconds fiddling with her hem, which, in Terry’s view, should come down a couple of centimetres. More than that. What she really needs is a new school uniform. One that isn’t so tight across her chest. Puberty has come to her in a rush and, as she lets go of her hem to face the class properly, it’s clear she’s pleased about it. He’s never seen her stand up so straight: so straight that her newly grown breasts press hard against the blue-and-white gingham of her tunic. He opens his mouth to say something, but what’s he going to say? Stop standing so tall; stop being so provocative?
    ‘We stayed at a caravan park down the coast,’ she tells the class, ‘and one night my sister didn’t come back until one in the morning so now she’s grounded for two weeks and she can’t even go to her best friend’s birthday party. And we hung around with a whole lot of high school kids and we pretended I was in Year 8 and they all believed us.’
    She stops and Terry counts down the remaining seconds: fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty. ‘Thank you, Jade.’
    Bridie has a new uniform but really, he thinks, she and Jade should just swap. Poor little Bridie’s tunic is two sizes too big for her and hangs off her tiny frame. What was Vonnie thinking? Not a flying chance in hell Bridie’s going to grow into it this year.
    She pushes her glasses up before she starts, her eyes on the stopwatch as nerves and the time limit make her gabble. ‘My dad made me a pencil case and it’s got my name on it.’ She holds up a glazed wooden box that has the word BRIDIE burnt into the top, the writing sloping and shaky. She slides the top panel open to reveal a rubber, a sharpener and two pencils so new they haven’t yet been sharpened to a point. Terry makes an encouraging sound so she’llkeep going and she does, her words tumbling together. ‘And my dad and me, we went on a holiday and we went to this fun park and we went on every ride.’ She looks down as she speaks, and only when the time is up does she give Terry a cautious look. He taps his fingers against his leg, swallows, then gives the girl a nod. Still wary, she colours as she makes her way back to the rug.
    Kurt swaggers his way to the front of the classroom. He’s turned brown-red with too much sun, the skin across his nose peeled back to a baby-doll pink. Standing with one leg bent, he gives his hair a scratch before he starts. ‘We went overseas with me dad and we stayed in these hut things that have got poles on them so they aren’t on the ground, they’re, like, on poles. And we went to the jungle and that and then, my brother and me, we caught the plane back by ourselves and there was this snack bar at the end of the plane and you can go there whenever you want, and whenever you want a hot chocolate, you just press