Teacher's Pet by Shelley Ellerbeck

bright.  Allie stretched out in her bed, relishing the silence of her street before the children began to spill out onto the tarmac to play.  Soon it would echo with the sounds of shouting, running, and footballs being kicked against walls.  She glanced at the clock: eight a.m...  She sat up slowly, reaching for her bathrobe and wrapping it around her body.  Nightwear in summer may have become a thing of the past, but Allie needed to remember she had two eight-year-olds who were still apt to burst in unannounced.
    “Mum?  Have you seen my football boots?”
    Harry threw open the bedroom door, then hesitated, looking guiltily at his mother.  He knew he had just done something wrong.  He simply had no idea what.
    “By the back door.”  Allie said, fastening her waistband.  “And next time, knock before you come in.”
    “Sorry mum.”  He thundered down the stairs.
    “George’s are out there too,” she called, heading for the bathroom.  “And lay the table, please.  If you want a chocolate croissant, that is.”
    Her hand froze on the bathroom doorknob as she heard the phone ring.
    “I’ll get it!”  George’s voice echoed round the hall.  “Hello?  Hello?  Who is this?”
    “George!  If there’s no answer, give me the phone.”  She was running down the stairs as she spoke.  Her heart began to beat faster.
    “Hello?  Hello!”  George was insistent.
    “Give it to me, George.”  Allie grabbed the phone.  “Hello?”
    Once more, the voice was unrecognisable, yet laden with menace.
    “Allie?”
    “Who is this?”  She knew she had to do what Jeremiah had advised, but curiosity got the better of her.  She needed to hear.  To try and work out who this was.  To prove she wasn’t scared.  “Hello?”
    “Hello, Allie.”  The tone became slightly lower.  “You rea lly like him, don’t you?”
    “What are you talking about?  Who is this?”
    “Listen.  If you keep on making eyes at him, acting like he’s yours, I’m going to make you regret it.”  There was a laugh.  “You think you’re pretty, don’t you?”  Then a pause.  “You won’t look so pretty by the time I’ve finished with you.  That’s for sure.”
    And the caller hung up.
    Slowly, Allie put down the phone, hands shaking slightly.  She looked at George, who was gazing up at her, wide-eyed.
    “Another one of those ‘cold call ers’, mum?  What were they trying to sell you this time?”
    She summoned up a smile.
    “They were cold, all right.”  She picked up the phone again.  “Could you lay the table for me?  Thanks.”
    As George turned to go into the kitchen, she glanced at the ‘Nuisance Calls?’ leaflet by the phone and dialled the number on the cover.
     
     
    “It must be her!”  Liz’s voice echoed around Allie’s sun-filled kitchen.  It was late afternoon, and she and Jeremiah had popped by for a chat before Allie’s date.
    “I just can’t believe she could say such nasty things.”  Allie sipped her tea, watching the shards of light dance off the surface of the liquid.  “I was scared.”  She took in Liz’s confident expression before continuing.  “And I can’t imagine being scared of Melanie.”
    Liz sighed, as though explaining something to a petulant child:
    “There’s no one else it could be,” she said, softly.  Allie sometimes found her friend’s habit of staring fixedly at the person she was talking to disconcerting.
    “What about…  What’s her name?”  Jeremiah was leaning on the dresser, watching his daughters beating Harry and George at football in the garden.  He had trouble remembering names, and often wished the world could wear name tags, like the students he taught in the college.  “Gwendolyne?”  he ventured.  “You know: the tart with no heart.”
    “ Eleanor,” corrected Allie.
    “That’s the one.”  Jeremiah strolled over and sat at the table with the women.  “Didn’t she used to be in the ‘Adams