Secret TA: The Truth is Out

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Bite Marks: 0

Stress Level: Hmmmmmm

Holiday Countdown: It’s here 🎄

As I stood there last week, with my hands on my hips, being my best sassy self and looking at my class teachers face get rosier by the second the thought did cross my mind that I had maybe gone a bit too far.  I stood there though; eyes wide open, stubborn in my refusal to back down!

Stress and anxiety can have a funny effect on a person though, and even though it seemed like such a nonentity to get so stressed out about - I had really been trying my best to stay calm for a few days now – it has felt like for the last weeks that I have been trying to wade through muddy waters.

“Well I guess the cats out of the bag!”  the man half of the squirrel couple laughed, “thanks Sir!”

He winked at me whilst everyone else laughed jovially.  His squirrel counterpart was immediately drowned in a swathe of teachers all eagerly getting into the gossip of it all.  Schools are such feeding grounds for adult gossip because the scandals of ‘he took my crayons and girl puts tiny plastic cow up her nose’ don’t really incite the same level of excitement.

“I’m sorry Sir” I said to man squirrel who come over to where I was standing “I shouldn’t have put you in that situation, my mind has been so frazzled this week”.

He could have been unkind to me, and I would’ve deserved it.  I was super impressed that he just nodded and gestured over to the gaggle of teachers that were all laughing and giggling on the sofas in the staff room.

“The truth is”, he said, “It was getting really hard to be so isolated, and the aura of suspicion it was creating wasn’t really any use to anybody.  I’m glad it’s all out in the open and things already feel a bit better”.

“Are you worried about things being awkward now that it’s out in the open?”

“You know what I think”, he shook himself out of is reverie, “I think that nobody sets out to make their life difficult, but some of us are just so damn good at it!”

He was called over to the gaggle by the girl squirrel (I really should stop calling them the squirrels now)

I finally relaxed and just then my classroom teacher came over to me

“How are you doing you big Drama Queen?” she laughed “did you get a telling off?”

I told her that he had been lovely about the whole thing and said that he was feeling a bit isolated and didn’t really know how to deal with it.

As we stood there, a few steps away from the rest of the school team, it struck me how like a family school is – dysfunctional, fractious and so very tired all the time but undeniably a family.

“I’m glad he didn’t drag me apart for it though,” I said to my class teacher, “it’s hard enough knowing that you’ve been a brat.  I'm glad one of us was able to be adult about it and take the high road”.

She linked her arm in mine, “You didn’t mean any harm, everyone knows that!”

“Let’s go join the gaggle” I led her towards the rest of the team.

Just as we were walking across, our Headteacher walked and stopped in his tracks after a few steps, “It’s all a bit excited in here – what's going on?”

Girl squirrel (I really need to stop that now) pointed at me, “Sir outed us!”

“Well thank Rudolph for that,” he said and clapped his hands, “Now! Who’s up for a bit of Jingle Bells?”