A few weeks after a girl had unintentionally torpedoed my lesson by declaring “I want to have your babies” (à la Natasha Bedingfield) and I am on the final day of my teaching placement. At lunch time, the class’s regular teacher, Mr. Murray, calls me into his room telling me that ‘the girls from your year 8 class have a surprise for you’. I am exhausted, but content. I have done it: I have made it to the last day of my teacher training. I have only to avoid disaster for one more afternoon and I shall sail into the world of work on a wave of self-contentment. I drag myself from the groove in the staff room sofa and follow Mr. Murray to his room. My expectations of what await me are not high: perhaps the traditional hand-made card or even, at a stretch, a box of chocolates or some such small endowment to wish me on my merry way.
As I enter the room, however, I quickly see that something more exciting may be afoot. Five or six girls from my Year 8 class are lined up in front of a desk. Ominously, the girl who was the Natasha Bedingfield fan is amongst them. They beam at me. What could they be concealing, I wonder? There are a few seconds of suspense in which they excitedly tell me that they have ‘made something’ for me.
They part in rehearsed unison to reveal a good-sized cake. ‘Brilliant’, I think, ‘I love cake!’ It’s covered in decorations too. I move closer to get a better look. Carefully placed around the edge of the cake are pink marzipan lumps… I move closer still… They look to be a little foetal-shaped, which is odd. As I get close enough, I realise that they are indeed foetal-shaped. In fact, the cake is decorated with a total of eight pink marzipan babies. Each of them has a pair of eyes made from tiny silver sugar balls – well most do, some have become cycloptic en route to the classroom – and all have had nappies carved into them with a cake-knife.
In is only then that I notice the middle of the cake where, written in light blue squeezy-icing, are the immortal words:
‘SIR, WE WANT YOUR BABIES!’
The girls are in hysterics. I look to their regular teacher in a state of disbelief. He adopts a faux matter-of-fact tone to inform me that: ‘…it must have taken them ages to make so I didn’t like to raise the obvious objections… You should see your face!’ he grins at me, evidently enjoying watching me squirm. I wonder whether I should phone the school that has foolishly offered me a job and explain that they should look for someone else as I am likely to be in jail for the foreseeable future.
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