Chapter 15

ROWAN

Charles eases my first nervous week in his classroom, although to be honest, we spent precious little time inside it. He props open the doors to his outdoor space when the children arrive every morning and then sits on the edge of the sandpit, watching.

Like him, I learn to sit and pay attention. By the middle of the week, I've seen enough to start asking questions. "You really don't have a detailed lesson plan for each session?"

"Yes and no. I prefer to have a little think every evening and a look through their learning journeys, so I can follow their interests and go off-piste if I need to." He gathers equipment from his supply cupboard while I follow. "Like now. I think someone wriggly could do with some extra movement." He crouches beside Asa who, exactly as he predicted, does have ants in his pants. Or a big case of the wriggles, as Charles calls it. "Asa, would you like to choose a song for Mr. Byrn to play so we can dance?"

And that's what the whole class does before starting their day's work, dancing to a medley of their favourite theme tunes and some old nursery-school classics. I end with TheGrand Old Duke of York that Charles asks me to play slowly at first, then faster. "See?" he asks me later when Asa is engrossed in a counting game, waiting his turn without too many fidgets. "All of that marching and dancing wasn't in the lesson plan, but now his head and his hands are connected, and he's got enough impulse control for learning." He eyes me. "What else do you notice?"

This doesn't feel like a test. None of his questions have so far. I've stopped expecting to be tripped up, which makes guessing feel less risky. "He's still fidgeting?"

"Yes. What with?"

"That car he's holding." Asa is in a group of children testing speed and force and other laws of physics with one of the plank bridges on an incline. "He hasn't stopped spinning its tyres." A penny drops for me. "That's why you left cars there, so there would be moving parts for him to mess with."

"And over there." He points to a set of pastry wheels in the mud kitchen. "And there." A craft project involves making windmills, Asa's contribution already spinning in the breeze, painted the same sky blue as that chalk line Charles drew for him. "Because movement helps regulates emotion, but I think you already know that." He tilts his head, and I look down to see what he's noticed.

"Oh." I stop fingering a silent tune on my old whistle, setting it down on the edge of the sandpit between us, suddenly self-conscious.

"Don't stop. Fiddling is so useful." He nudges it back towards me while describing what also fits for my first few days in his classroom. "Feeling a bit nervous? Calm down by doing a little tippy-tapping. That's so much better than telling a child like Asa to do the impossible instead of helping him be successful. Because that's what I'm really planning for. Not for a single lesson, but for the rest of all of his life to be just that. Successful, right?" He tilts his head to the classroom supply cupboard. "I wonder what other fiddly things you can find to help him with that?"

I keep that in mind while rooting through boxes and when we sit around the sandpit later making a song out of everything the children plan to do at the weekend, Asa doesn't only bang an old tambourine. He gets to listen to his friends' lyrics without interrupting, all while fiddling with the tambourine's shiny jingles.

Applause comes from behind us once we're finished, my new boss there at the fence, watching.

"Nicely done, Rowan." That's all Luke murmurs before leaving, but it only takes hearing three positive words from a headmaster to help my first week take off and fly—a week full of my own brand-new lyrics.

Make them feel successful twines through each session. Through each evening too with Teo when we share the practice rooms—me sorting through cupboards on the hunt for things for the little ones to make noise with while Teo bangs and crashes. I head back there on Friday at lunchtime to hunt for another tambourine or two, only to stop before entering because he got here before me.

He doesn't hear my hello. He's too intent on drumming again, only for an audience of one on his phone. I hear faint applause when Teo finishes a much more competent-sounding solo that ends with a familiar and funky half-time shuffle. "Yeah, my audition file is sounding better, Cam." His voice is deeper than usual. "Sir's been showing me some tricks. And he's got better recording software than me."

In another first, I get to witness Teo smile like he really means it and I get to feel a ripple of pride as if I had a hand in making it happen. It's also the second time I don't hear Luke coming.

"He's probably catching up with Cameron," Luke murmurs again from beside me. "Let's leave him to it." He extends an invitation. "Walk and talk with me?" He's said this every day so far, and I do. It's so much easier to share with him while walking. I'm relaxed enough now to ask my own questions.

"Cameron is…?" I know I've heard the name before.

"Our art master's nephew. Ferociously talented artist." He chuckles. "Ferocious, full stop. He's away in?—"

"France. On a project with refugee children?"

"That's right. We're partnered with a charitable foundation." Luke glances back at the main school building, drumbeats fading as we leave it behind and head uphill together. "Cameron being away has left Teo with a lot of time on his hands. That's hopefully highlighted two things that he's been avoiding."

"Like?"

"Like the fact that he's held back from making any friends apart from Cameron, which is one of the reasons I okayed the French trip."

"You wanted him to be lonely?"

Luke doesn't answer, giving me the time to come to another conclusion. "Oh. Because you wanted him to make more friends of his own."

"Yes. The world can be a lonely place, even when you're surrounded by people." He doesn't need to tell me that. "Leaving here with a friendship group is one of my key measures of success." There's that success word again. "Teo's facing loneliness right now, but the fact is that the next school year will be even lonelier for him without Cameron if he doesn't connect with more of his peer group."

"Because?"

"Because Cameron already has a guaranteed early offer of a place at London's best art and music college. That's how he can afford to be away from his studies right now. Why he can take the next year off to travel if he wants and still not lose his golden ticket." Luke leads me uphill to Glynn Harber's one and only restored building to show me how Teo's friend scored that shiny ticket. He lets me into a light-filled space where the reason is obvious, and it doesn't matter that I saw these artworks once already. It's only now that my head is clear enough to truly see them.

"These are all his?" I pass hyperrealistic portrait after portrait, stopping to touch the frame of one where an old woman smiles out. She's way older than Mum. Her eyes are just as lively, as full of an emotion that I locked into a closed compartment. This comes out thickly. "Does Cameron even need to go?"

"To art college?" Luke makes a weighing-scale gesture. "With this level of talent, arguably no. He's gifted with almost perfect visual recall. With sight that misses absolutely nothing. But there's a lot to be said for being stretched even if you're already gifted." He adds a certain-sounding, "But you must already know that."

This space has no ceiling. There's only a glass roof above us. My incredulous, "Me?" echoes, but Luke isn't finished.

"Why else put yourself in a highly competitive situation?" He could mean by applying to work here. Luke goes further back. "Everything you've mentioned during our walk-and-talks this week suggests that contest pushed you to your limits." He stands below a painting of a knight in tarnished armour, and for a moment I'm back in that sculpture garden where Liam was burnished by sun yet tarnished by the shadow of lost friendships.

This knight's stare could be his. It's as steely as the one Luke swings my way. "I can't say I ever watched the show, but I assume you had to write all your own music? Your own lyrics? Record it, then compete against others with similar talent levels?"

He couldn't be more wrong. By the end, I only lip-synced to easy boy-band ballads and made choreographed dance moves with my shirt off. The real challenge was trying to understand how I got myself so cornered. It made no sense then. It still doesn't. All I can do is shrug, and perhaps Luke sees that it's time to add more walking to our talking.

The moment we're outside and heading downhill I can speak. "How can I help Teo?"

"To be successful?" Luke is silent almost all the way to the bottom of the hill. He stops outside the chapel. "Give him every chance to reach his potential while managing his expectations. I'm no musical judge, but I do know he's struggling to record an audition file of the quality it will take to score him an interview, let alone a place at the same specialist college as Cameron."

His eyes meet mine, and one day I'll figure out why I can look into some people's but not into others. Right now, Luke's remind me again of Liam's, so it's easy. It also means I get to see him wince from close up. "If Teo doesn't make that cut, he'll need friends to lean on. And he'll need examples of how success doesn't always mean winning first place."

We're on a sunny path outside the chapel. This still slips icily from me. "You want me to tell him what happened to me?"

"Not if that makes you uncomfortable." He tilts his head, studying me before saying, "We talked about you having strategies ready in case a student brings up your past. You speaking up first could be powerful. For you. But no pressure," he promises. "You don't owe anyone that story, and Teo is making incredible progress regardless."

I don't know why I feel defensive on Teo's behalf. "That's because he is a good musician. And he's getting better."

"I don't disagree," Luke clarifies, and yes, the more I look, the easier it is to see kindness instead of disappointment. "I mean that he's making incredible progress with opening up to people. With making conversation instead of keeping everything bottled. That's helped by the give-and-take I keep hearing between you each evening whenever I pass the practice rooms. The more times I hear it, the more I think that's the real key to success for him. You've been listening, and he's starting to believe he's worth hearing."

The chapel door opens, the padre waiting, and Luke leaves me to join him. He also leaves me with a final piece of advice. "Keep him talking." He turns before entering the chapel. "Thank you, Rowan."

"For?"

"For throwing yourself into this first week with us. For doing more than I asked of you. I've been watching. You're making a real difference."

That praise is a million miles from feedback I got after other observed lessons. I grin all the way back to the outdoor classroom.

Charles notices. "Wow. There's a blast from the past. Let's have plenty more of those traffic-stoppers." He brushes sand from his hands and opens the gate to get this afternoon's session started. "Look who's here to have some Friday afternoon fun with us!"

And that's what we do all afternoon—we have nothing but fun that I catch sight of later once the session is almost over. A mirror reflects the same wide blast from the past that Charles mentioned and that I recognise from old contest headshots. Today, it stops me in my tracks, and I almost touch my own lips before spotting that my fingers are streaked with mud and spotted with paint and glitter. I drop my hand but I can't drop my smile. It lingers as I collect up instruments, and Charles notices again.

He herds children inside to wash their hands for home time and nudges me on the way past. "See what happens when you relax? When you go with the flow instead of worrying?" He also nudges the box I carry. "You could relax even more by letting someone carry that terribly heavy box for you."

"Heavy?" It only holds cheap plastic castanets and maracas that Mum would shake her head at. Compared to her collection of wooden instruments, it's no weight at all. "It really isn't."

"Well, if you're sure." Charles inclines his head towards the outdoor classroom. "Only there's someone out there with enough muscle to do all of your lifting and carrying for you."

Charles moves out of my line of vision just as the bell rings. Children hurry, eager to collect their book bags and artworks, but I go still. There's no mistaking who has his back to me while standing on the path from the car park, and it doesn't matter that the man he talks with wears a similar dusty T-shirt stretched across a strong frame. Liam's the only one who shifts, so I get to glimpse a granite profile.

I've seen it from close up, haven't I? Seen Liam cover an ear too, like he does as soon as the school bell rings again.

It's a move he told me he can't help making, even though it's pointless. I also can't help calling out, "Liam? What are you doing back already?"

He turns, that hand over his ear falling, and I might not be able to give him inner peace and silence, but I can smile again exactly like Charles ordered. I don't even try to hold back. I can't, and Liam doesn't only stop frowning. He comes closer, stopped by a barrier. "Someone had to check you were still in one piece."

He's gruff.

I love it.

I love even more that his grumble comes with a flicker. It's small—barely there—but I recognise his smile when I see it, and after almost a week?

Man, I missed it.