CHAPTER 8 THE CALM BEFORE THE CHAOS.

The teachers and children were due to return to the school after the holidays.  There always seemed to be a holiday going on.  Fortunately, not as many as now.  Since we had decided to leave the corridor locked after seeing the handles turn of their own volition we had witnessed no further incidents.  The only time the corridor was unlocked was to allow the painter to, rather quickly, finish the painting and when the teachers arrived the day before the children did and we let them all make their own way through to the old school.  They were our unwitting canaries in the coalmine and I thought whatever happened was their lookout.

I bumped into the Head Mistress in the corridor as she was making her way out and suggested we meet to discuss an issue that was causing us concern.  She said she could meet with me in her office at 11am on the following Monday, the day before term started.

That Monday I went into the school office and told the secretary I was there for a meeting with the head and she replied, “I have it in the diary Dave, go through they are all waiting for you!”

As I crossed the room and reached the connecting door I thought “They? Who else is here”

I opened the door to see the Head sitting behind her desk, all three deputy heads and four heads of department sitting in armchairs and on chairs.  They all stopped talking immediately and looked up at me at once. “Thanks for meeting us.” The Head said, as I sat in an armchair  the facing everyone. 

I had the impression they’d think I was either drunk or off my head but I was wrong. 

I outlined in great detail my concerns.  I said reports had been made to me by various caretaking staff, cleaners and workmen about events that we have no rational explanation about

They asked me questions about what had happened and sought assurance that what I was saying was right and I told them what I thought about it. 

They in turn told me about doors opening and locking on their own, items disappearing and then being found somewhere else, odd noises and a smell of burning in isolated areas.  A couple of them had seen shadows on corridor walls. One of the Deputy Heads told me that she and one of the HOD’s sitting opposite were standing at the bottom of the large stone steps in the new school talking to another teacher during the lunch hour and she put her leather key pouch on the top of the stone stair post less than two feet away to get a file out of her bag.  After she handed it to the teacher she went to pick up her keys but they were gone, they were nowhere to be found.  After a few minutes of them checking around them she walked back to her office only to find them on the seat of her leather desk chair.

The Head Teacher looked at me, trying to guage what my thoughts were.

“As you can tell, Dave, we have had some strange experiences that none of us can explain.”

It was clear that they were uneasy and looking for answers but, to their horror, I went into great detail about the events we had experienced, with the shaking doors, the taps in the washroom, and the electrician on the ladder.  Each event making the faces staring at me go from interest to fear.  The Piano tuner event seemed to take it to a new level for them and then my staircase incident in the dark tipped them over the edge.

I looked around the room at the faces of 6 women and two men. Their faces were blank, in shock. There were shocked glances between them and the Head, who looked like she was about to pass out.  Her eyes bulging as she stared at her deask. If this was a game of Top Trumps, I was the unanimous winner!

Two common threads had appeared. A tall jet black shadow and a little girl in Victorian clothing.

“So,”I said to all of them but directing it to the Head, “When were you planning on sharing all of this with the caretaking staff?”

They all shifted a little with discomfort.

“I am sorry, we should have voiced all of this sooner but we did not know how to broach the subject with you. There have been things happening but we ignore them, especially in front of the children. We don’t want a panic on our hands.  All it takes is a wrong word to the wrong parent… they would be up here looking for trouble or a fight.   Things have gone missing, things seen and heard.  Have you noticed that no teachers stay in their classrooms after the school bell now.”

I hadn’t taken much notice but thinking about it I could tell she was right.  The room was silent.

One of the male teachers, Rob, raised his hand and gave a slight cough. 

“I teach PE and English, as you know.” He said in a booming voice scaring the life out of all of us. This nugget of information answered the question the caretaking staff had as to why he always seemed to be wearing shorts.  Even in winter.  Those ‘very very’ short shorts worn in the 80’s. The ones where, if you cross your legs quickly you didn’t only cut off your circulation.

“I was in the English class on the top floor of the old school after the bell had gone one afternoon.” Rob said, as he rubbed his hands together. “I was sitting at my desk; the classroom door was open on my left.  All the cleaners had gone and I remember seeing John and I told him I would let him know when I was leaving.  He went out the door and I heard him going down the stairs.  I only had ten books to mark and I could have taken them to the Staff room down this corridor from here but decided to plough through them.

It was total silence.  I heard a noise like something rolling on the floor.  I ignored it.  It suddenly stopped.  Then it started again.  I didn’t move.  I hate to admit it but I was a bit freaked out by it.  As I listened I looked to my left at the open door.  Nothing.  No sound or anything.  As soon as I looked back at my school book it happened again.  I got up and made a lot of noise with my chair and walked to the door as loud as I could making my footsteps audible.  I even shouted “Is that you Sue?”  I looked out into the hall both ways, and said, “Who is it?” but there was no one there.

I went back and sat down, marked the book with a BPlus and decided to leave.  I took my zip-up jacket off the back of the chair and put it on, picked up my keys and a book I was reading lunchtime and turned to the door and froze.  There was a basketball where I had been standing in the doorframe. I just stared at it for a few seconds.  Eventually I walked over and stepped over the ball and left through the stair door and ran down the stairs.”

“When was this exactly?” I asked him. 

“The week before end of term.  I saw you when I got over here.” He said,  “You asked me if I was OK, as I looked white as a sheet.”

I remembered.  I thought at the time ‘He looks like he’s seen a ghost!’

 “We need serious, professional help, maybe the religious kind, but, not amateur ghost hunters”.  The Head suddenly announced.

I raised a hand as everyone started to mumble.

“I know you’re concerned about publicity, and some parents looking for a fight, as if that will solve it but, involving the Church shouldn’t be a problem.  They would probably be discreet.  I don’t have much kop with the church myself but the risk of parents picketing outside while the pound signs cloud their eyes and getting the press involved, just so they can make a few quid, or involving a Pound stretcher version of Scooby Doo would be fatal!,  We don’t want the Mystery Machine pulling up outside.”

They laughed and the tension seemed to ease.  They raised the matter of the Board of Governors being told but it was agreed to do nothing in that regard.  We were dealing with something we had no idea about and that the Board should be involved if anything definite was proven.  At the moment it’s just the caretaking and cleaning staff that are aware of it, plus the occasional workman, and of course these 8 members of staff.

 She said she had put ‘the conversation’ off until I had raised the matter with her, as I was doing now.  She asked me to lead the way forward and would make an appointment with her friend, the local Vicar at the church the school choir sang at, for me to lay our cards on the table and determine what he could do, if anything.

The two Deputy Heads left and when we were alone the Headmistress asked me for the full story about the incident on the stairs and the sink taps in the linkway toilets.  I told her in very clear terms what had happened.  Every step, every noise, and every impossibility.  She looked visibly shocked. 

She pressed the button on the internal phone and asked for a jug of water to be brought through.  Within minutes her PA appeared with a tray.  She placed it on her desk as the Head poured a glass and drank it down. The PA looked at me with a quizzical look and left.

“That must have been terrifying!” she finally said, “My hands are shaking! I am meeting our Vicar on Thursday evening at a Parent Teachers meeting and I was going to raise the subject then, discreetly of course” she said, her voice a little shaky, “but I think I will call him now and arrange an appointment for you to meet him.” 

I left her to her phone call.  20 minutes later I was standing looking down the linkway corridor reliving the taps incident in my mind. I looked through the glass panels in the far end doors and stared at the point where I was rooted to the spot awaiting whatever it was that had come running down the staircases two steps at a time.  I suddenly felt like I was being watched, and not alone. I spun around only to be confronted by a very shocked headmistress wearing trainers.  My appointment was made for the following Wednesday, 11am, eight days away.  Eight days…’How busy were the church?’ I wondered.