Everyone liked Miss Oswald. She definitely commanded a certain presence in the classroom, and was therefore able to control the class, but she was also kind and genuinely interested in helping her students to excel.
The students especially loved it when she started taught them about the context of a particular text - authors who lived during the Victorian Era, for instance, or the Cold War . She would tell stories so vivid that it almost seemed as if she had been there.
Miss Oswald tried to give homework that was interesting. Not slabs of text to read or boring essays to write, but some sort of project that would stimulate the imaginations of the children. Visual representations, trailers for imaginary films, posters for imaginary plays...anything that would make learning as fun as possible.
Mr Pink was similarly adored by the students. He'd been a soldier, they knew, but it was clear from the beginning that he was their maths teacher now. He made things clear and never taught in circles, as some of the others teachers did. He answered their questions with patience, and admitted his mistakes, apologising profusely.
Mr Pink tried to make homework interesting too. He wrote his own questions with a story to tell. Find the speed that the eagle has to fly to best catch his prey. Calculate the optimal tail mass for the plane to fly smoothly. If there are twelve boys and eighteen girls in a class, how many ways can you choose five students who won't argue with one another?
Maebh Arden was quiet and hard-working. Her teachers called her a "little angel". She never spoke in class, but always clung onto every detail, every word that the teacher said. She was always observant and noticed the tiny details, like the way Miss Oswald wrote her 'g's on the whiteboard, or the way Mr Pink kept forgetting the degree symbol in his angles.
Maebh Arden saw things that the others never noticed. Long before the rumours started flying, Maebh noticed that Mr Pink would always make a mistake when Miss Oswald walked past his classroom. She noticed that Miss Oswald talked faster when Mr Pink walked past her classroom. And when they had a break at the same time, they'd give their classes a two-minute early mark and usher them out of the classroom as quickly as possible.
March Arden liked her maths teacher and her English teacher. So when she noticed Mr Pink discretely asking the other teachers for the date of Miss Oswald's birthday (no one knew), she decided to save him the trouble and ask Miss Oswald herself. Maebh was clever, and hid the question among others.
"How can you know that Shakespeare's birthday is actually his birthday if people only ever recorded his date of christening? Miss Oswald, do you know that your birthday is your birthday for sure?"
Maebh took the information to Mr Pink, who looked at her for a moment, confused, before thanking her and giving her back the homework that he had marked.
On the 23rd November, Mr Pink gave the class a record-breaking four-minute early mark and no homework. Maebh Arden smiled knowingly; the rest of the class only cheered. Mr Pink slipped out of the room before the class had finished leaving. When Maebh walked out the school gates, she glanced back through the window of the English classroom. Mr Pink was holding a bunch of flowers, and Miss Oswald looked even happier than the time Ruby won the poetry contest.
When Courtney Woods came out of the store cupboard, Maebh Arden knew that something had happened. Year ten students do not visit store cupboards. She lingered in the corridor, and when Miss Oswald came out of the store cupboard with tear tracks down her cheeks, trembling as she leaned against the doorframe, Maebh ran to fetch Mr Pink. Mr Pink would make everything all right, she was sure of it.
When the principal didn't want Maebh to go on the museum trip, Miss Oswald and Mr Pink took turns having meetings in the principal's office. They would exchange a few words between their alternate meetings, reporting on progress and suggesting new angles of attack. Two hours later, the principal, looking rather tired, told Maebh that she was free to go on the trip if she wished.
Maebh Arden's favourite teachers were Miss Oswald and Mr Pink. She definitely wanted to go on the excursion with them. After all, what's the worst that could happen?