Chapter 20: Dispersal

When the Chairman Governor’s telephone rings, he recognises its particular ringtone. He steps away and talks quietly. “Of course ... Nnow would be an ideal time ... The Headmaster’s residence, we came in that way this morning ... I will see you shortly.”

He addresses Reghunt and Eastman who, like himself, are wearing suits. “Roman, Idward, that was Munnet. We have agreed to confront Leezing today, so I need to go. I may see you later.”

“Got it,” says Eastman.

“Good luck,” says Reghunt.

Cotting heads towards the roadside atrium exit.

“Um, pardon me though,” calls Rollum Osper, shifting his tubby weight forwards. “Mr Chairman! Just a moment!”

Cotting turns back with a frown on his face and says, tersely, “Mr Osper?”

Osper gesticulates back towards the gym hall. “The lady teacher? Think you might have forgotten.”

Cotting’s frame fractionally slumps.

“You said to her, later, you’d deal with it later.”

“Mr Osper, I’m busy.”

“I know, but ... two minutes? Deserves that, don’t you think? She gave out half the punishments, she said.”

Checkler Forliman has responded to this odd couple’s stretch-and-snap unwritten contract, and is standing close by his partner again. “It does seem a but rude, to be honest,” he says, “just to tell her she’s not wanted.”

His criticism pulls an impatient glare from Cotting. He turns to Reghunt and Eastman. “Seriously - whatever - you lot are governors, you decide. But she’s a woman, clear as day.”

“The rules don’t forbid it,” Reghunt observes.

Eastman adds, “As Mr Osper emphasised, the lady claims half the girls here as her catches.”

Cotting glares even harder at these two. Then he flourishes a gesture of dismissal and turns. “Fine! You decide! Have her on the punishment staff if you want, make your own traditions up.” And he disappears through the front-side sliding door. But he does not head towards the wrought iron gate, but around to the left to skirt the road side of the gym hall.

“Tetchy mood today,” says Reghunt.

“Hard work you mean,” says Eastman. “Chairman this and Chairman that now. You’d think we were ruddy upholsterers!”

Reghunt looks to Forliman and Osper. “The woman, she’s still in there?”

“Well she hasn’t come out,” says Osper. “I suppose there might be a back door or something.”

Reghunt turns his gaze on Eastman. “Idward, do you care what happens to the woman?”

The sandy-haired one shrugs. “Not really, but she did strike me as hard work, to be honest.”

“Would you care if she participates somehow?”

“Well I’m not as bad as Cotting,” Eastman replies, “he’s a dyed-in-the-wool! But do we really have to sort that woman’s problems out for her? Can’t these two just do it? They’re the ones complaining.”

Reghunt turns his red-topped head to the tubby man and his gangly sidekick “You blokes sort her out, eh? Think we’d like to be off.”

Osper asks, “But - sort her out how?”

Reghunt, closer to them, shrugs. “However you want.”

Eastman is halfway up the steps to the main building now. He says over his shoulder, “You both heard Chairman Stubborn, and we don’t care. Sack her from the premises, give her the top job. Entirely up to you two.”

Tall Forliman’s two thin eyebrows lift high. “Oh. I see. You hear that, Osper?”

“Yes,” says the round one. He lifts his chubby hands. “Let’s to it!”

And as they head into the gym hall, Eastman and Reghunt spring into the corridor, then turn right to head up the near-end stairs.

She’s nowhere to be found. The gym hall is empty, including the stage at the far end.

“Oh dear,” says Osper. Nevertheless, he trundles inside, and Forliman catches up, all creaking angles.

“Miz Shrimp?” calls Forliman. “Hello? Miziz Shrimp?”

“Assistant XT?” calls Rollum Osper.

“Looks like we’ve missed her,” Forliman says.

Osper sighs. The central ball of him lifts, then falls. Then he orients himself. “Is that a door?”

Stretch and snap-to, they head for the door to the changing room. It’s open just a crack. The material and fit of the door make the thing quite invisible, unobtrusive lock and handle excepted. Osper pushes at it. It silently opens.

The men step inside, not calling out this time. Around a set of lockers, Osper sees a pair of feet in serious flat shoes. “Think we’ve found her,” he says, then knocks his knuckles politely on a locker. It sounds back, metallic. “Miz Shrimp?” he says.

“Oh. You,” she says back. “Pudding and the stick man.” She’s sitting upright on a bench seat, hands flat on her tight knee-length skirt, feet out square in front, with her back to the wall. She grunts, then sniffs. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Well we wanted to apologise. I think,” says Forliman. “Me and Mr Pudding.”

Shrimp lifts one eyebrow, sniffing again. “Did you? How nice.” She points to a neat stack of white plastic chairs. “Welcome to my office. Pull up a pew.”

Forliman lifts the top pair of chairs off, pulls them apart, and scrapes one in for Osper. He swings his own into place alongside, then sits by his friend.

“Apology,” grunts Shrimp. “Considerate of you, I suppose. Not very practical, considering, but has to be better than a poke in the eye.”

Checkler Forliman says, “The Chairman. Of the Governors. You might say he’s a man with traditional leanings.”

Osper adds, tipping one chubby hand, “Traditional leanings till he’s leaned to the flat.”

“We’re sorry. That was, frankly, just rude,” says Forliman.

Osper adds, “But we did get your point! Be sure we did! It was you who brought half of those girls out there to book!”

“Some very pretty girls as well,” tags Forliman.

Shrimp clears her throat.

“Some quite delightful,” Osper nods. “We were most impressed, the pair of us.”

Shrimp clears her throat. “Right. Did more work for the cause than any of those lazy sods. That’s the thing about being a professional woman. Need to row jolly hard against the masculine current. Males just float on blithely by, while the females battle every tide to stay in place.”

“We’re both most appreciative,” says the endomorphic Osper.

She grunts. “Does make a difference. Bit too late though. All the girls, assigned already. Inaugural Saturday. Some bona-fide local history in the making. Puff! Not for Shrimp!”

Osper tips his head from side to side.

Shrimp frowns back. “Not all taken, you mean?”

“No, they’re gone,” he says. “Off here and there with teachers, a couple of assistants.”

“And the gardeners,” says Forliman.

“Gardeners,” Shrimp grumbles. “Bloody Groundsmen who’ve never taught a minute get preferred!”

There’s a moment of silence. Then Osper speaks again. “I must say, I can see it in my mind’s eye. Your clever technique. Nearly fell off my chair.”

“We watched it live,” says Forliman. “Yesterday afternoon. Didn’t we, Rollum? Feels like we’re meeting a bit of a star, that’s just what it feels like! We’ve seen you on the telly!”

“Huh,” says Shrimp, her jutting jaw now unjutted.

Osper says, “How you - you know - got em their H’s.”

They’ve got Shrimp’s full attention. “Said you fell off your chair.”

“Would have if I’d sat on one of these!” He shifts his ample backside. Its white plastic cradle squeaks out a protest. “Thing is - don’t know about you, Checkler - for myself, I wouldn’t mind seeing that again, Miss Shrimp.”

“Miz,” she says, then blinks and shakes her head. “I’ll allow that from you, though.”

Osper turns his head to Forliman. “Pudding can call our star Miss, Mr Stick.”

“Yah. Sorry,” says Shrimp.

“Not at all,” says Osper, winking. “See? We’re using them already!”

Forliman nods. “Two for one from your nickname concession.”

Shrimp’s eyes blink between one and the other. She says, “Since we’re being unofficial, the girls call me the blimp. I suppose they might think we don’t know our own nicknames. Made some of the ruddy teachers’ up myself!” The she scrunches her throat. “But we’re being all pally in the aftermath, aren’t we? Sounded like I’d been banned for life out there.”

“Well - no,” says Osper. “I mean, yes, if Chairman Grumpy had had his own way. Top dog on the new board of Governors, isn’t he? The rest of us think it’s gone to his head.”

Forliman says, “He did all the hard slog to get this up and running. Orange skirts. New rules, all those fiddly little clauses. Shouty meetings with the old lot, by all accounts. Must have taken its toll.”

“Thinks we owe him all a favour now,” Osper confirms. “What he says is what goes, sort of thing. But he’s still just the chairman - one vote out of twelve. If you take my meaning there, Miss Shrimp.”

“Ulberta,” she says, leaning forward with her hand out. Osper meets it with his pudgy appendage, shaking it spryly.

“Nice proper name, that,” says Forliman, taking Shrimp’s hand next. “I’m Checkler, by the by.”

“And I’m Rollum,” says Osper. Then tips his head. “Hotelier, by trade.”

Forliman beams at Shrimp for a beat. “Jack of all sorts, me,” he says. “Bit of a tinkerer, mostly. Engineer? Trains, my big passion. There! I’ve said it.”

“Assistant teacher, girls schools,” Shrimp responds. “Top of the tree for a woman in that trade. Lest you’re teaching the prepubes. No interest in that at all, I’m afraid. I was thinking, today ... haven’t really grown out of my days as a prefect, way back in the day. Best year of my life in some ways. Sad to say.”

Forliman peers at her with eyebrows down and eyelids narrowed. “I can sort of see that in you,” he tells her, nodding.

Osper drops his round head low, then lifts it. “I was thinking, Miz Shrimp ... Ulberta I mean ... well yes, all the girls are taken, like you said. But in another way, they’re not. Might be off with all the men, yes. So they’re their current controllers, sort of thing. But that doesn’t have to be the top of the tree.”

Forliman is looking at his friend as Osper says this. “Think I might see where you’re going, Rollum.”

“There isn’t any above that,” says Shrimp. “Just Dickle who’s the supervisor.”

“Might be space for something else,” says Osper says. “If he’s supervisor and they’re punishers - controllers, what else might we have?”

“Dunno. What?” she asks.

“An inspector,” says Osper. “An inspector can inspect the controllers. Can’t she?”

“Oh I say Rolls,” says Forliman.

“Can’t,” insists Shrimp. “That chairman would oppose it.”

“He’s a bit of a traffic light really,” says Osper, “and he’s flashed up a red. But traffic lights change.”

“We changed them already,” says Forliman. “Well, Rollum did, to be accurate. The chairman was shooting from the building like a bullet, only Rollum pulled him back. He said, ‘You’ve left poor Miz Shrimp high and dry. You said you’d reassess her.’ In as many words. He didn’t like it. Tried to bluster it off. But Osper insisted. So he left and he told us, ‘You lot. You decide.’ In as many words.”

“Two other Governors there as well,” says Osper. “We asked them what they thought and they both said, ‘You two make that up. You heard the Chairman. You can fire her or make her the boss.’ Their words.”

“Or words to that effect,” Forliman qualifies.

“Left it up to us though,” Osper confirms.

Shrimp turns her head off-centre for a moment, looking back through one eye. “What sort of inspector?”

“I was thinking, maybe, misconduct in an H? Misconduct or compliance. Inspector of Compliance.”

“Oh aye,” says Forliman. “That sounds grand!”

“I’m thinking,” says Osper, “if a teacher - assistant - or those gardener blokes - feels like giving some additional H, well he’d have to go through you. For approval, like. You toddle along in your own sweet time. You could maybe test the girl a bit - you know, your patent litmus test. If she’s got the capacity. Or a manual check? If she - well, you know.”

“To see how excited she’s got, you mean?” asks Forliman.

Shrimp has narrowed her eyes. “So I’d just be inspecting the girls,” she says.

Osper smiles. “We can make up some rule where you check the blokes as well. Not like - checking their bits and bobs. Don’t mean like that.”

“A zip test,” says Forliman. “She could maybe do a zip test.”

“Or - checking their work? Too hard? Too basic?”

Shrimp says, “Too soft.” She taps her nose. “Too young. Wrong part. Keep the buggers on their toes.” Then her smile drops off. “But it’s not in the rules.”

Osper says, “The rules just got written. Still not tested out. They can always get revised.”

She says, “He’ll disapprove.”

“He’s the Chairman, not some omnipotent god. One vote out of twelve, like we said before. Out there, he was the only one to slap you down. He won for half an hour. Now he’s gone off stage left, he’s lost his advantage.”

Forliman says, “Inspector of Misconduct and Compliance. How does that sound?”

“The I.M.C., for short,” says Osper.

On past her new classroom. She hasn’t had to go all the way down the corridor to her old class yet this school year so far. It’s like the corridor gets meaner as it goes along. In her dreams, she can’t run. She can’t get away. So she’s only gone as far as her new nine plus door since coming back from summer. Eight plus is the meanest class in school, she’s sure.

Her new class was amazing - no Mr Cuckles! When she sees him, she shudders, but he can’t get at her now, not from the start of year nine. No Mr Fimber either. He never touched them, but he always, always watched. He’d carry on teaching, telling the others they couldn’t look back, and he’d carry on talking in his boring, boring voice. But when Cuckles had her out from her desk at the back, Mr Fimber always stared. His boring, boring voice would say, “Mr Cuckles, Miss Bumber wants taking down another peg.” Always a peg. She doesn’t know how you go up a peg, or why it’s up and down pegs. Her mum pegs clothes on washing lines and washing lines go from side to side. If you peg something up, it just stays pegged up till you take the peg down, then what’s pegged up comes down too. Like a shirt or some knickers. When the peg comes off, the shirt comes down, the knickers come down. She’s tried to work it out but it doesn’t make sense. Does take her down a peg mean take her shirt down, take her knickers down? Is taking her things down taking her down? But they’re not supposed to take her things down today, that’s what twitch-faced teacher Mr Dickle said.

’You’re always trying to annoy me, Bumber.’ She was never trying to annoy Mr Fimber! She wanted Mr Fimber not to see her at all! If he didn’t even see her, then she couldn’t annoy him! So Falla Bumber used to try to disappear, tried to wish herself invisible. And it sometimes even worked. Some lessons, he’d never even look at her once. And she’d think she’d worked it out, how to do it - he can’t see me, he can’t see me. In her head, she’d say things like that over and over. And sometimes, it would work. Then his eyes would lock back on her.

“You just can’t keep from doing stupid things, can you Bumber?”

She hadn’t done anything! Just picked up a pencil, written a word, shifted in her seat or scratched at a leg. They were just things you did, and she wasn’t being stupid.

Then Cuckles would come. All the girls would get told to keep their eyes on Fimber and not look back behind them. So they couldn’t really see, but they could hear alright! Hear Cuckles’ smacks and her grunts and then her squeals. And he’d always make her feel about six inches tall. And the girls couldn’t see - only some of them, mostly all the girls Fimber never picked on, they used to sneak a look, and that made her feel worse. But Fimber would stare, and stare, like she was his favourite programme on the telly. And when Cuckles did something really nasty, he’d smirk. All the while talking in his boring, boring voice.

It was never going to end! But then, somehow her year eight school year ended. Then summer seemed like it was never going to end, but then it seemed so short! And she had to go back.

She was in a different class though. She kept waiting for Mr Studdles to tell her she was stupid. But he didn’t. He didn’t really talk to her at all. She kept waiting to be told she was annoying, but she wasn’t. He didn’t tell her she needed taking down a peg. He just didn’t seem to see her at all. She was just another girl. She’d turned properly invisible. She’d wished it for so long, it had finally happened!

Miz Shrimp was her new class assistant, at first. She was a bit like Mr Cuckles. Some girls did get picked on, and Studdles sometimes let her do it. But he didn’t watch, not like Mr Fimber. He’d even tell Miz Shrimp off sometimes, for making the girl make too much noise at the back. Then she was gone too, then it was funny Mr Leek! And he didn’t pick on anyone at all! He was even quite nice!

Then yesterday, Falla’s nightmare came back. She’d only been at break. Laughing. Happy. All these girls in yellow and orange looking frightened, but she was just in an ordinary knee-length blue, and blue was safe. When she walked into class, it was just another day. But - there was Mr Cuckles! And Shrimp! With Mr Studdles staring at her, like he’d never done befofe, and funny Mr Leek looking unhappy - he wasn’t with those others - but even he was staring. Studdles stopped her with a finger. Then they made her go outside. Shut the door and shut her out of class. Shut funny Mr Leek inside with all the other girls.

She’d was gabbling, trying to say that she hadn’t done nothing.

And Mr Studdles started saying she was such a revolting girl, and she didn’t know why. Miz Shrimp said she was disgusting too, something about her leading someone else on. Horrid Cuckles started grinning. Then they told her she’d got to come here today. She’d done something, they kept saying, but all she could hear was her own head, screaming: it’s last year again! And she couldn’t even understand what she’d done. She’d started crying, kicking at the floor with her heel.

Then it was Cuckles and Shrimp, and Mr Studdles had gone, and Cuckles was telling her he’d see her tomorrow. It was Shrimp who made her go past class eight plus, her horrible old class, and on up the back stairs that were always in her nightmares. Then nasty Mr Tund and this woman she didn’t know was in this room off the corridor upstairs, where the nurse used to be. And they were putting her in this stupid orange skirt. And none of it made sense!

Now tomorrow’s today. She’s been pulled out of the gym hall by nasty Mr Cuckles - again! And the door to class eight plus keeps getting closer. The teacher with Cuckles is Snorty Beelar. He teaches the nine minus, next door to her nine plus. And that’s closer to the nasty end. She’s never understood, but the teachers say it’s like magnets. Plus to plus and minus to minus. From the atrium end, it goes 10-, 10+, 9+, 9-, 8-, 8+. Eight plus, her old class, is underneath eleven plus. That’s Dickle and he’s as nasty as Cuckles. All the really nasty ones are right down that far end, is how Falla Bumber thinks of it. All Snorty Beelar’s class - nine minus - think he’s really nasty too, just as horrid as horrible Mr Cuckles.

It’s not just her on her own though, this time. She doesn’t know these to other girls, but one’s from nine minus, Beelar’s class, and one’s from eight plus, which is Cuckles’ new class. The younger one looks frightened, like her, and the one her age looks angry. The young one takes the other girl’s hand, then the girl whose hand’s been taken takes her hand as well! Just for a second. A squeeze - we’re all in this.

“Oy. Don’t do that.”

That’s Beelar, behind, because Cuckles is leading. He turns his head back. “Who did what?” he asks.

“Holding hands,” says Beelar.

“Which ones?”

“All three. Probably a trio of dirty muffin munchers!” When he gets to munchers, he’s snorting through his nostrils.

Then they’re there, at class eight plus, and she’s over the threshold and back inside.

“Right, you three, to the back,” says Cuckles. “Karp, in left and you, Ploom, to the right.” He’s pointing where he wants them to go, and where he means is the back of the class. The eight plus room is deeper than the others because part of it goes back under the stairway. You know it when you look at this alcove too, because you see the angle of the stairs across going up, till it flattens off where the half landing is. The downstair classrooms are really tall, so where this section indents back isn’t all the way to the top of the room. But it’s easy enough to stand inside. It used to be a closed-off cupboard, but it got opened up when all the cameras went in, after winter in her first year.

“Stand facing me and Mr Beelar!” Cuckles is staring with his horrible grin, like a wide-mouthed fish about to suck in its prey. “Bumber,” he says, with two big plosive B’s popping out from his lips. “Big bum Bumber. Bumber’s great big bottom’s going to get a massive smacking!”

He’s said this to Falla Bumber before, but not so out loud. Last school year, he used to whisper it right in her ear. Big bum Bumber. She started looking, trying to measure. Hers wasn’t the smallest, but it wasn’t the biggest, it was somewhere in the middle. But he’d said it so often, she felt it was too big! It made her really self-conscious of her bum, like she could feel how big it was! She used to try and see it in the mirror at home, her mum’s bedroom mirror on the inside of her wardrobe door. When her mum was downstairs or out at the shops. She’d never told her mum how Mr Cuckles always picked on her. How Fimber always stared while he carried on teaching.

Cuckles fiddles with the camera, strapped to his chest. Then, one by one, the cameras in the floor at the back where they’re standing, and the ones up in the ceiling, start blinking. Red lights mean they’re recording in he basement, that’s what Cuckles whispered to her. There were people downstairs who were staring at her bum, and laughing out loud when it got all red. Laughing even harder when she blushed or squealed. There aren’t that many cameras in her nine plus class. Cuckles used to whisper that the eight plus cameras had been put in especially to catch big bum Bumber’s every wince and flinch and snotty sniff.

“You going first with that one, Vido?” Beelar asks.

“Yeah. Bumber’s trained up good and proper. Aren’t you, Bumber? Mr Cuckles’ itchy smacking hands felt sad when they couldn’t smack Bumber’s big bottom.” Cuckles nods towards the other girls. “She can show those others how they’re s’posed to do it.”

Then Cuckles sees Beelar’s head jerk to the door. He looks around himself.

“Don’t mind us,” says Enton Mittles, circling both hands theatrically. “We will simply stand and watch. And my friend here does not wish to have the cameras turned on him.”

Scunner Pelling gives Mittles a look. “What?” he says.

“Didn’t you ask for an identity opt-out?”

“Oh,” says Pelling. “That. Well. Whatever.”

After a beat, Cuckles pulls out a high chair with no back and bends Bumber over. Her arms hang down one side, with her feet flat on the floor on the other. The stool has a round seat you can wind up or down, but this seems already measured to Bumber’s height. The girl grips its round footrest with practiced hands. He smacks at her inner thigh, sharp and hard. She jerks her feet out either side of its base. He’s made her do this many times before. She knows to move her feet too far forward, too far too look natural. Her weight’s now on her stomach. Cuckles flips her short skirt up, then looks to front of class, where Mittles has sat behind Fimber’s teacher’s desk. The wiry man Pelling leans his hips against its front.

Enton Mittles says, “Do carry on.”

“Right. Which way round d’you want her?” Cuckles asks. “Front or back towards you?”

“Happy either way,” says Mittles.

“Back to start off,” Pelling says, “let’s look at her arse.”

“Right. You,” says Cuckles to Bumber, “screw around. Only stay in that position.”

She’s done this before. Mr Cuckles has told her he thinks it looks funny. Keeping her front dropped down on the seat and moving her hands around the circular footrest, she screws her whole body anticlockwise.

Pelling, leaning, laughs. Cuckles looks up. Mittles’ face - he’s the one in that stupid silk cravat - has grown a poncy grin as well.

“Yeah, keep going,” says Cuckles. He likes a good audience. He likes Fimber watching, though the man can look such a creep when he does - and why does he never touch the girls? So he’s not in the pictures? Cuckles can’t get his head around it. But it’s good for him, because he gets to touch the girls nearly every lesson!

His audience has doubled, too - even more when you count in Beelar and those girls.

Bumber knows she’s got to keep her feet pushed forward, either side of the middle of the seat. It feels stupid. She starts blushing. It’s unbalanced, but the flared round foot of the seat keeps her upright. She’s doing the moving with her feet, anti-clockwise like he tells her, cause it makes the seat screw slowly downwards. Then her knees get more bent and that seems to stretch her bum more. Which is what he wants.

Cuckles smacks her as she slowly goes around. Wallops left, then right so it makes her grunt. Reaches over her when her backside faces the two strangers and tugs her knickers up into her bum crack. Smacks over the top first one side, then the other.

Beelar seems to want to get in on the action. He sees that Cuckles has a thing for flat-topped stools, though only his one has a movable top. He makes the girl from Cuckles’ new class, Mercy Karp, squat over one, so she’s facing down and out towards the corridor wall. He wrangles Minty Ploom, his own student, over a second, facing the opposite way, out towards the playground windows. Minty squeals in pain and pulls her wrist out of his grip as he does this. “That hurts!” she snaps.

“Keep your gob shut,” says Beelar.

“Nice little tableau that, now,” Mittles comments.

“That one’s not happy though.” Pelling is pointing to Minty Ploom.

Beelar starts to spank Ploom, then he seems to have a problem. Naturally right handed, he switches to his left, which puts his back more towards Mittles and Pelling, at the front of class. He also seems to be crouching oddly. His spanking hand flails weakly. The man, afflicted with a part-trapped erection, seems loth to adjust himself in front of his guests.

“Spank her proper,” says Pelling.

Mittles says more quietly, “We’re guests though, Scunner. Observers, hmm? Perhaps let things develop for a minute.”

Cuckles, meanwhile, is not limiting himself. As Bumber slowly works herself around, he reaches out to smack her from various angles. There’s room enough at the back for him to stand at any point around her compass, but he mostly stays where he can see the pair of guests.

Beelar meanwhile moves from Ploom, around the back of Cuckles, towards Mercy Karp. But he does it with his back to their guests, half shuffling sideways. He nudges the front of his trousers as he does this, but it doesn’t seem to cure his problem. Getting to the girl, he starts to spank her with his right hand. These are meatier slaps than he applied to Ploom with his left.

“Load of bollocks, this,” says Pelling, pushing off from the front of the teacher’s desk and heading for Ploom. But half way across the room, there’s a loud, sharp crack from a window to his right. Everything stops except for Pelling, who jerks towards the window, looking out with a quick-darting head across the empty playground.

“What the hell was that?” he says loudly. Then, looking up and down the nearest window, he asks, “How do these fuckers open? You!”

By this he means Cuckles, who abandons the startled Falla Bumber to go and look outside himself. At first, he tries to see down and below. Then he’s reaching for a catch up near the sliding central window’s top, and another near its base. He pushes it open, sticks out his head and looks around. But there’s nothing to see.

“What was it?” asks Beelar. With attention elsewhere, he’s reached into his trousers and adjusted himself.

“No idea,” says Cuckles. “Pressure? Can’t see anything.”

Pelling is looking up and down the window. He says, “Rubbish construction. Looks like it was thrown up in half an hour.” By this, he means an overhang above the top of the window, which is showing its age. There’s a batten of wood at its outer edge which has half way rotted off.

Cuckles looks as well. “You think it was that?”

The weather, still blustery, whips up for a minute and Cuckles, looking to Pelling for permission, slides the glass back.

“Yes, well,” says Enton Mittles, pushing himself up off his chair, “interesting tableau, made a mental note, but those girls are too young. Perhaps, move on, Pelling?”