A Silver Lining by Christine Murray Page A

budget.’
    ‘Great education?’ Frankie whispered to Rose. ‘What is he on, crack?’
    ‘In order to achieve this, we need to be innovative! We. Need. To. Be. Creative!’ Roger emphasised each word by banging his hand on the tea trolley so hard that coffee slopped everywhere. ‘We need to be constructive!’
    ‘We need to stop reading management books,’ Emily murmured behind them.
    ‘What we have in our careers, ladies and gentleman, is power. The power to change lives. And as a great man once said, with great power comes great responsibility.’ Roger gave a proud grin around the room at the staff. ‘We must be our own superheroes ! We must come to the rescue of the disadvantaged students that we teach. Yes, indeed. And though we may face setbacks, though we may have in our classes the occasional joker .’
    ‘Rose, slap me.’
    ‘I believe, I know , that we can achieve great things in this school. Are you all with me?’
    Stony faced teachers stared back at him.
    ‘We can’t be perfect. And that’s not what I’m asking you to be. Even Superman is susceptible to kryptonite.’
    ‘Talk about squeezing an analogy until it screams,’ Frankie muttered.
    ‘And lest we think that superheroing is a man’s business, I’d like to point out that we have a few oul’ Wonder Women in our midst.’ Roger twinkled.
    Rose looked at her watch. The bell was due to go any time now, and she willed the hands onwards.
    ‘So come on team!’
    Roger jumped into the centre of the room planted his legs apart and raised one hand in a fist above his head, resting the other on his ample hip in an approximation of a superhero pose. His suit trousers were wrinkled despite the fact that it wasn’t even nine o’clock, his bald spot was showing and the only vaguely superhero-like thing about him was the sense that he was about to burst out of his clothes. Although that probably had more to do with eating too many mince pies at Christmas than any sense of superhero machismo.
    The room was silent, as Roger grinned around the room, still holding his fist aloft. Then, mercifully, the bell rang and there was a stampede as everyone raced to get to get out of the staffroom
    ‘That was excruciating’, Frankie said as they eased their way out into the corridor, which was packed to bursting point with young teenagers.
    ‘You’ve got to admire his enthusiasm at the very least,’ Rose pointed out diplomatically as she weaved her way around the students in an effort to get to her first classroom. The school ostensibly had a ‘one way’ system to keep people moving in the narrow corridors, but no one played a blind bit of attention to it.
    Frankie shot her a withering look. ‘He’s been on too many of those motivational team-building weekends. Do you remember that staff meeting we had last year when he got us all to sit cross legged on the floor and pass around a talking stick?’
    ‘He was just trying to show us that everybody’s points were valid,’ said Rose.
    ‘But they weren’t! Some people talked utter shite…’
    ‘I suppose’, Rose conceded. ‘But…’
    ‘Four hours of my life WASTED!’
    ‘Hah! Miss Devereux got stoned!’ a sing song voice piped up from the stream of green uniforms. A clamour of enthusiastic voices greeted this statement.
    ‘Deadly. Was it grass or resin, miss?’ another student chipped in.
    ‘And then,’ Frankie continued as if no one had spoken. ‘Sally Richards’ hip locked, and it took us half an hour to get her off the floor.’
    ‘Miss, are you saying Mrs. Richards was stoned too?’ said another voice.
    ‘What were yiz doin’ on the floor, Miss?’
    ‘Miss, are you and Mrs. Richards lezzers?’ This pronouncement lead to a series of catcalls from the surrounding students.
    Rose rolled her eyes at Frankie ‘Well there you go, not even a minute and a half into the term and you’re already starting scandalous rumours about yourself’.
    Frankie looked at her friend wryly and raised