My Secret Lover

Elephant got his Trunk by Rudyard
Kipling. The rhythm of the words (great, grey, green, greasy Limpopo River! I haven’t heard it for thirty years but it’s still there!) became almost as
automatic as the Lord’s Prayer, but easier to understand. (Why was God’s name
Hello? Did you have to say ‘Hello!’ twice when you met him?)
    I thought for a long time that all
you had to do to write a story was choose an animal and make up some weird
reason why it looked like it did. My story ‘How the Rabbit Got Its Ears’ won
the school prize. My parents were called in after ‘How the Boxer Dog got its tail
cut off’.
    I found a story about a whale by Ted
Hughes in a children’s anthology the other day. He obviously had the same idea.
His whale was a root growing in the ground. But that’s Ted Hughes for you.
     
    ‘How do we start a story? Anyone got
any ideas?’
    ‘Paper?’ Nicole offers.
    There’s an unusual logic to Nicole’s
thinking, because she always suspects that I’m asking trick questions.
    ‘Yes, we’ll need some paper,’ I say.
‘And a pencil,’ I add quickly, to stop us getting sidetracked on the
technicalities.
    ‘Or the computer,’ says Dean.
    ‘Quite. Once we’ve sorted out what
materials we’re going to use for writing our story, how are we going to start
thinking about what to write?’
    ‘Once upon a time?’
    ‘Very good, Gwyneth. A lot of stories
start like that, don’t they? Another way is to start thinking about who’s going
to be in the story. The characters. Can anyone think of any characters they’d
like to include in our story?’
    ‘Owls,’ says Ethan.
    ‘Monsters,’ says Robbie.
    ‘A princess,’ says Nikita.
    ‘Girls and boys,’ says Geri.
    How refreshingly traditional!
    ‘A mummy,’ says Dean.
    ‘Good, Dean. A mummy for the boys and
girls.’
    ‘Not a mummy. The Mummy,’ he says.
‘Like The Mummy Returns I’m sure it’s a 15.
    I write all the suggestions on the
whiteboard.
    ‘Right now, let’s give our characters
some names. Robbie. Can you think of a name for the monster?’
    ‘Sulley?’ he says.
    ‘Let’s try to think of our own names,
not ones we’ve heard in movies.’
    I hate Disney. I hate the way
children’s imaginations have been Disneyfied with the full cooperation of their
parents who seem to think that because Disney cannot be avoided, it must be
embraced.
    ‘I know! I know!’
    ‘Yes, Robbie?’
    ‘Dean, Miss.’
    ‘I don’t think Dean’s a very good
name for a monster,’ I lie. ‘I think we should think of a name that doesn’t
already belong to someone in the class.’
    ‘You said our own names, Miss.’
    ‘Miss? Dean just said the F-word.’
    ‘Don’t tell tales, Geri.’
    ‘But he did.’
    ‘What’s the F-word?’ asks Nikita.
    ‘My brother’s got Monsters, Inc. on video,’ says Dean. ‘Don’t be silly, it’s not even in the cinema yet,’ I tell
him.
    He gives me one of his knowing looks.
    If I start on piracy, we’ll only get
sidetracked by Peter Pan. Disney’s version, obviously.
    ‘Ethan. What would you like to call
the owl?’
    ‘Hedwig,’ he says.
    ‘How about a name that’s not already
in a book,’ I say brightly.
    ‘Andy,’ says Ethan.
    ‘Andy?’
    ‘It’s my dad’s name.’
    He’s on the verge of tears because I
haven’t let him have Hedwig. I can’t make him think of another one.
    ‘OK, so we’ve got an owl called Andy,
and a monster called Dean, some boys and girls and The Mummy.’
    ‘And a princess,’ says Nikita.
    ‘What would you like to call the
princess?’
    ‘Barbie,’ she says, after some
thought.
    My mind is like a Radio 4 game show
trying to concoct a narrative out of these disparate parts.
    ‘I wonder what will happen in our
story?’
    I think I’ll leave them with that
thought. It’s almost going-home time.
    ‘The Mummy unleashes unspeakable evil
and they all die,’ says Dean.
    ‘Push your chairs under your tables
quietly, please, and get your coats. What’s the matter, Gwyneth?’
    ‘I don’t want Barbie to die,’ she
says.
    ‘She won’t,’ I assure her.
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘Because it’s a story. Anything we
want can happen.’
     
    The usual groups have collected in
the playground to pick up their charges.
    The Bash Street Mums, who smoke and
allow their toddlers to peer through our windows and make faces at their
siblings if I forget to put the blinds down for the last quarter of an hour of
class. I’m always very nice to them