Chalk Dust & Broomsticks, Chapter 6

After the euphoria of Midsummer Eve, Shirley must face the fact that her life is changing.

Chapter 6 - The Price of Efficiency

The morning after Midsummer Eve felt ancient and blessed. Shirley woke late, wrapped in the deep, untroubled sleep earned by a night of pure magic and honest labour. Sunlight streamed into the bedroom, dappling the wooden floor, and the air held the clean, smoky scent of spent cedar and oak from the bonfire.

Her three cats were in repose: Bast was a large black puddle near her feet; Sparkle was sprawled across the kitchen flagstones, absorbing the cool energy; and Little Mo sat sentinel on the window ledge, gazing into the drowsy stillness of the garden.

The promise of the longest day had been fulfilled, leaving behind a profound sense of peace. Shirley spent the morning gently clearing the remains of the Sabbat. The stone table was wiped clean, the ashes of the bonfire scattered among the root vegetables, a blessing of growth for the mundane harvest. She made a simple breakfast of strawberries and cream, still slightly tipsy on residual mead and goodwill, completely immersed in the restful quiet of Woodend. The school, the merger, the incompetent governors they were all faint, distant echoes on the periphery of her awareness. The summer break couldn't come soon enough. It would be six weeks of bliss stretching ahead, weeks designated by law for rest, renewal, and professional development.

The summer break, scheduled for July 21st couldn’t come soon enough. It would be six weeks of bliss stretching ahead, weeks designated by law for rest, renewal, and professional development away from the building: first there was the Sports Day, always an exciting event, and all the clearing up for end of term to do.

The cleansing of the Midsummer ritual continued to fuel Shirley as she went about her daily tasks. There were new class lists to type and distribute and stationery to order for the office. One big task was the printing of the school booklet, containing the aims of the school. This was given out to the parents of the new children, who would be going into school in September, most of whom were in the Primrose Nursery already. This task was proving problematical for Shirley because Ms Gardner had not given her any instructions. One afternoon Shirley asked her if there was going to be a new booklet, giving details of the new Primary School setup, but it met with no response, leaving Shirley unsure as to whether or not to reprint the previous year’s booklet after changing some dates.

“Another problem, Ms Gardner, is what is going to happen to the networking of the school computers? I need my computer linked up to the one in the Junior half of the building so that the information I put on mine also appears over there. Nobody has given me any information as to what is going to happen and I fear it will cause a problem in communication with Mrs. Manipulator’s computer if the work is not addressed during the holiday.”

This request was met with a blank stare from Althea, who didn’t seem to understand about networking. She shrugged and left the building, leaving Shirley none the wiser.

One of the last jobs Shirley had to do was to gather up the paperwork for the School Fund. The money itself was safely lodged in the school safe, but the ledgers always went home with Shirley so that she could check them over in the peace and quiet of her cottage in readiness for passing to the auditor, who lived nearby.

The final weeks of the summer term passed quickly, as they always did and staff and pupils left the building on the last day of term, looking forward to the halcyon days of the summer holidays. Shirley breathed a sigh of relief as she packed her belongings into the boot of her car and waved goodbye to the worry and stress for the six week break.

Late July 1998.

Shirley woke one morning in late July to the sound of her telephone ringing; a clumsy cream relic sitting on the hall table. It was the last thing she expected to hear ring so early. It did so at precisely 9 a.m., a jarring, mechanical shriek that violated the profound silence of the cottage. Shirley frowned, unused to calls, and answered with hesitation, "Woodend, Shirley speaking."
The voice on the other end was not warm, not friendly, and certainly not on holiday. It was sharp, clipped, and instantly infused with administrative urgency.

"Shirley? Ms Gardner here. The new Head of Primrose Primary."

Shirley felt the recent layers of protection crumble around her. The sheer audacity of the call was breathtaking. It was a widely known point often debated and upheld in union meetings, that staff were not to be contacted during the summer shutdown unless in a genuine emergency, such as a burst water main or an immediate safeguarding concern. Ms Gardner, the newly appointed high-efficiency manager, was breaching this fundamental boundary less than twenty-four hours after the official start of the break.

"Ms Gardner," Shirley replied, striving to keep her voice even, "I hope this is an absolute emergency. I am on my statutory holiday leave."

"I am aware of your status, Shirley, but this is a critical administrative matter that has arisen," Ms Gardner stated, her voice gratingly devoid of apology. "I am establishing the new financial protocols for the merged entity, and I find myself lacking a key set of documents. Tell me, do you currently have the Infant School Fund Accounts in your possession?"

The request was absurd. Shirley was the school secretary. The Infant School Fund was, and always had been, the headteacher's responsibility, and the accounts were typically stored securely in the safe at each school.
"The Infant School Accounts?" Shirley asked, baffled.

"I understand you took the school fund accounts home with you at the end of term. Is that correct?" Ms Gardner's voice dropped, edged with cold accusation, "This is a matter of administrative security, Shirley. I need to close the old entity books before I can open the new school ledger. Do you have the accounts or not?"

Shirley replied "I always take the school fund accounts home at the end of the summer term and give them to the auditor for auditing purposes. They will be audited and signed off very soon and then I will return them to the school safe. The auditor happens to live near me so it is convenient for me to pass them on to her when I have finished them. There is seldom time during the school day to work on figures."

"I see," Ms Gardner snapped, utterly uninterested in the detail of the audit. "Then I require them immediately. I am at the main office now. Bring them in."

"Ms Gardner, it's the holiday," Shirley protested, glancing out at the relentless glare of the sun. "Can't they wait until term starts? Or perhaps Monday?"

"No. This process requires immediate rectification," Ms Gardner insisted, applying the corporate language of her management style to a simple handover. "...and as the new Head of the merged school, I am entitled to ask you to perform duties related to the security of the school's assets. I need to tick the box, Shirley. I expect you here within the hour. And please, use the side entrance. The front is a construction zone."

The line went dead. No "thank you." No acknowledgement of the heat, the distance, or the boundary she had shattered. Just a peremptory order delivered with the chill of a machine.

Shirley stood holding the receiver, trembling. Her brief moment of Sabbat-fueled renewal had been brutally crushed by the reality of the bureaucratic regime that now governed her professional life. The energy of the bonfire felt thin and distant. Little Mo, sensing the sudden shift in atmosphere, jumped down from the window and rubbed against Shirley's legs, giving a low, worried chirp.

The Longest Mile

The journey to the school was unbearable. The temperature was relentless, baking the asphalt and making the air thick and heavy. Shirley, whose car was an old, un-air-conditioned Vauxhall had only just taken it to the garage for servicing. She would have to walk to the school in the heat to complete Althea's request. She gripped the heavy manila folder of school funds reduced to a hot, sticky burden in her hands, closed the front door of her cottage and set off with a big sigh towards the school, a hot half mile away on foot.

The sheer futility of the exercise was the worst part. These accounts were clean. Althea was not interested in financial probity; she was interested in control and exerting dominance. This was a power play, a demonstration that the rules of holiday, rest, and professional courtesy no longer applied.

When Shirley finally reached the school campus, the scene was one of dystopian chaos. The workmen, thankfully, had packed up for the day, but the site was a landscape of churned earth, stacked bricks, and half-demolished walls connecting the two school buildings. Dust, fine and yellowish, coated everything.

She pulled the folder to her chest and walked the last few yards, the heat radiating off the brickwork. Her linen blouse clinging to her back, she knocked gently on the metal door, ignoring the bouts of dizziness that threatened to overcome her.

After a long minute, the door was pulled open a fraction. Althea stood there, still in her immaculate charcoal suit, looking impossibly cool and dry. She hadn't even undone her top button. Her expression was impatient, as though Shirley had interrupted a vital calculation.

"You're late," Ms Gardner said, not as a question, but as a statement of professional failure.

Shirley blinked, momentarily unable to speak due to the sudden dryness in her mouth. "It's very hot, Ms Gardner."

"Yes, well, efficiency is key to time management," Althea interrupted, her eyes focused on the folder, not Shirley's flushed face. She did not open the door wider. She made no gesture to invite Shirley into the relative shade of the building, nor did she offer the slightest comfort, such as a glass of water, which under any normal circumstance would be a basic courtesy for any visitor, let alone a fellow colleague.

"Here are the School Fund Accounts," Shirley said, extending the heavy folder. "They are the final, ready to audit set for the financial year ending March 31st. I will need them back soon to give to the auditor, please."
Althea snatched the folder. Her fingers barely brushed Shirley's. She flipped open the front cover, scanned a single column of figures - the total funds available - and nodded, a sharp, dismissive motion.

"Right, good. That box is ticked. Thank you for your cooperation, Shirley. I can now move to the asset transfer stage." She did not look up from the folder.

"Ms Gardner," Shirley ventured, her voice small. "Is that... is that all? Could you tell me why the urgency was required if the figures were already known?"

Althea finally looked up, her face a mask of weary impatience. "Because, Shirley, an organization runs on information, not guesswork. I needed the physical validation of the asset transfer date for my records. The old ways of informal fund holding are over. The new school will have streamlined, centralized systems. Please ensure any residual files are brought in when you next visit. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a procurement call scheduled with the lighting contractor."

The door was closed, quietly and definitively, before Shirley could muster another word.

Shirley stood alone in the blistering heat, surrounded by the dust and the skeletal frame of the school she had served for nearly two decades. The dismissal was absolute. She wasn't an esteemed colleague, nor a valued member of staff. She was merely a resource, summoned and discharged, a nuisance interrupting the new Head's grand project of efficiency.
As she walked home, her vision blurring, not from the sun, but from sudden, scalding tears. Ms Gardner's cruelty was cold and impersonal, a pure, unadulterated form of bureaucratic malice. It was a calculated demonstration of power, delivered with the intention of making Shirley feel small, inefficient, and obsolete.

Shirley's grief was overwhelming. The memory of the Midsummer circle, the bonfire, the shared mead, the loving faces of The Thirteen - felt like a fragile, beautiful dream that had been violently disrupted by the harsh, metallic reality of Ms Gardner's world. The school, the place she had fought so hard to infuse with joy, was already being suffocated by the cold logic of an ambitious woman who saw children only as inputs, and staff only as obstacles to a perfectly balanced spreadsheet.

When she finally arrived home and felt the cool shade of Woodend, she sat for a full five minutes and wept, not for herself, but for the soul of the children's school she knew was now destined to be lost to the machine.