Thief of Time

giving you marks.
    “I mean,” the headmistress mumbled, “childhood is a time for play and—”
    “Learning,” said Miss Susan.
    “Learning through play ,” said Madam Frout, grateful to find familiar territory. “After all, kittens and puppies—”
    “—grow up to be cats and dogs, which are even less interesting,” said Miss Susan, “whereas children should grow up to be adults.”
    Madam Frout sighed. There was no way she was going to make any progress. It was always like this. She knew she was powerless. News about Miss Susan had got around. Worried parents who’d turned to Learning Through Play because they despaired of their offspring ever Learning By Paying Attention To What Anyone Said were finding them coming home a little quieter, a little more thoughtful, and with a pile of homework which, amazingly, they did without prompting and even with the dog helping them. And they came home with stories about Miss Susan.
    Miss Susan spoke all languages. Miss Susan knew everything about everything. Miss Susan had wonderful ideas for school trips…
    …and that was particularly puzzling, because as far as Madam Frout knew, none had been officially organized. There was invariably a busy silence from Miss Susan’s classroom when she went past. This annoyed her. It harked back to the bad old days when children were Regimented in classrooms that were no better than Torture Chambers for Little Minds. But other teachers said that there were noises. Sometimes there was the faint sound of waves, or a jungle. Just once, Madam Frout could have sworn, if she was the sort to swear, that as she passed, there was a full-scale battle going on. This had often been the case with Learning Through Play, but this time the addition of the trumpets, the swish of arrows, and the screams of the fallen seemed to be going too far.
    She’d thrown open the door, and felt something hiss through the air above her head. Miss Susan had been sitting on a stool, reading from a book, with the class cross-legged in a quiet and fascinated semicircle around her. It was the sort of old-fashioned image Madam Frout hated, as if the children were Supplicants around some sort of Altar of Knowledge.
    No one had said anything. All the watching children and Miss Susan made it clear in polite silence that they were waiting for her to go away.
    She’d flounced back into the corridor and the door clicked shut behind her. Then she noticed the long, crude arrow that was still vibrating in the opposite wall of the corridor.
    Madam Frout had looked back at the door, with its familiar green paint, and then back at the arrow.
    Which was gone.
    She transferred Jason to Miss Susan’s class. It had been a cruel thing to do, but Madam Frout considered that there was now some kind of undeclared war going on.
    If children were weapons, Jason would have been banned by international treaty. Jason had doting parents and an attention span of minus several seconds, except when it came to inventive cruelty to small furry animals, when he could be quite patient. Jason kicked, punched, bit, and spat. His artwork had even frightened the life out of Miss Smith, who could generally find something nice to say about any child. He was definitely a boy with special needs. In the view of the staff, they began with an exorcism.
    Madam Frout had stooped to listening at the keyhole. She had heard Jason’s first tantrum of the day, and then silence. She couldn’t quite make out what Miss Susan said next.
    When she found an excuse to venture into the classroom half an hour later, Jason was helping two little girls make a cardboard rabbit.
    Later his parents said they were amazed at the change, although apparently now he would only go to sleep with the light on.
    Madam Frout tried to question her newest teacher. Glowing references were all very well, but she was an employee , after all. The trouble was, Susan had a way of saying things to her, Madam Frout had found, so that she went away feeling quite satisfied and only realized that she hadn’t really had a proper answer at all when she was back in her office, by which time it was always too late.
    And it continued to be too late because suddenly the school had a waiting list. Parents were fighting to get their children enrolled in Miss Susan’s class. As for some of the stories they brought home…well, everyone knew children had such vivid imaginations, didn’t they?
    Even so, there was this essay by Richenda Higgs.