The Secret Letter. Kerry Barrett
so did my daughter,’ she said to me. ‘And now my granddaughter. And ask anyone here, they will tell you the same.’ She gestured with her arm, taking in the whole school, and maybe even the village. ‘Imagine if we didn’t have this,’ she said.
I shifted on my deckchair and gave the rows of toffee apples my attention, instead of Sophie. ‘I’m not sure there’s anything I can do,’ I muttered.
‘Psssht,’ she said. ‘Of course there is.’
‘Is she roping you in to sell toffee apples?’
It was Danny. Despite myself, I sat up a bit straighter wondering if I had mascara smudged beneath my eyes.
‘Sophie,’ he said.
‘Hello, Danny.’
Was I imagining it, or did Sophie’s face suddenly look harder? More pinched?
‘We’ve mostly been chatting,’ I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere that I sensed between Sophie and Danny. ‘Not done much selling.’
‘I’ve been telling Miss Armstrong that she can save Elm Heath Primary.’
Danny smiled at me, a cheeky smile that gave me that unsettled feeling again. ‘I imagine you’re good at just about everything, MISS Armstrong,’ he said. ‘But I think this one might even be beyond you.’
Sophie glared at Danny – there was definitely tension there – and he ignored her, looking at me instead.
‘But you never know,’ he added.
‘It’s not closing,’ I said, knowing my words were empty because the lack of pupils spoke for itself. Danny just shrugged and Sophie looked away across the playground to where Cara was running round with her friends who were both dressed like pumpkins.
‘Cara’s over there,’ she said bluntly.
Danny looked like he was going to say something then he shut his mouth instead. After a second he opened it again.
‘Nice seeing you again, Ms Armstrong.’
I was faintly disappointed that he’d used my correct title.
‘Thank you for the good luck card,’ I called as he wandered over the playground towards Cara. He raised his hand to show he’d heard.
Sophie was looking at me, her brow furrowed.
‘He’s a tricky one,’ she said. Was she warning me off? There was really no need. I was hardly in the market for romance.
I didn’t get a chance to respond because one of the pumpkins was suddenly at my elbow. It was a little boy from Cara’s class whose name was Hayden. Or Jayden. Or perhaps Cayden.
‘Miss?’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Cara said she thought you were a bit sad, Miss.’
I wasn’t sure what to say. I looked at his little orange face, all earnest and worried, and smiled.
‘I’m not sad.’
He shrugged. ‘Thought this might cheer you up.’
He reached out his hand. In his palm was a corn dolly. I’d never got round to googling them, but instead I’d watched the kids making them. They’d twisted and wrapped corn into little shapes to make their creations. This one was a simple circle with a red ribbon bow.
‘Thank you,’ I said, genuinely touched at the gesture. ‘You’re so kind.’
‘That’s lovely, Jayden,’ Sophie said, obviously realising I was struggling to get his name.
‘It really is. I’ll put this in my office at school and it will make me smile every time I look at it.’
‘Miss, I made one for you too.’
On my other side was a little girl dressed as Elsa from Frozen, which had no direct link to harvest as far as I could tell. She pushed a corn dolly into my hand.
‘Thank you, Elsa,’ I said and she beamed at me.
‘I did one as well.’ Cara was there, in her yellow get-up, brandishing her corn dolly, which was plaited like her hair.
I took hers too. ‘These are all wonderful,’ I said.
And suddenly I was surrounded by children, all giving me their corn dollies – the little creations they’d all worked so hard on.
‘Miss, they’ll bring you good luck,’ they told me. ‘They’re lucky.’
I took each one, gathering them into my lap and trying not to show the children how overwhelmed I was by their kindness.
Then the parents started handing me their dollies too. Some of them were like tiny works of art – the dried corn twisted into heart and star shapes, or made to look like little ladies with fronds of corn forming their skirts.
‘Good luck,’ they each said as they handed them over.
By the time they’d finished I reckoned I had a hundred or more of the dollies heaped in my lap, and tears streaming down my face.
‘Thank you,’ I said over and over. ‘Thank you.’
I wasn’t sure what to do next. I couldn’t stand up because my knees were covered in corn and slightly alarmingly I couldn’t seem to stop crying either.
Luckily, like a guardian angel, Paula appeared behind the group of children and parents.
‘Let’s take all these to your office, shall we, Ms Armstrong?’ she said.
Sophie handed her a linen bag and together we carefully put all the corn dollies inside.
‘Come on then,’ Paula said, like I was one of her reception children. ‘Come on, Lizzie.’
I blew a – slightly snotty – kiss to the children as I followed her into school feeling like something important had just happened. Perhaps I wasn’t planning to stay at Elm Heath forever, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I had to do my best to reverse the trend of children going to Blyton and do everything I could to make sure the school stayed open.
‘I can’t believe they did this,’ I said later. I was sitting at Paula’s kitchen table with an enormous glass of wine and the corn dollies all spread out in front of me. ‘I can’t believe they gave them all to me.’
‘It really was something,’ she said. She picked one of them up and showed me. ‘Look, this one is like a peacock’s tail.’
I admired it.
‘They’re all wonderful. I’ll ask Jeff if there is some way we can display them in my office.’
Jeff was the school caretaker and a very creative handyman to boot.
‘He’ll come up with something, I’m sure,’ Paula agreed.
I picked up Jayden’s corn dolly – the little circular twist of corn tied with a ribbon – and smiled. ‘So they symbolise luck?’
Chris was rummaging in a kitchen drawer, looking for a takeaway menu.
‘Luck,’ he said without glancing up. ‘And fertility.’
I swallowed a gulp of wine as I laughed.
‘Well I’ll just take the luck, thanks.’
‘I can’t find the blasted menu,’ Chris said.
‘I don’t suppose Deliveroo delivers here?’ I said hopefully. I’d been looking forward