Most teachers are strange and the teachers at St Barnabas School were no exception.
Yet it's almost certain that none of them – not Mr Gilbert, the head teacher, who liked to pick his nose during Assembly, not Mrs Hicks who talked to her teddies in class, not Miss Gomaz who smoked cigarettes in the lavatory – none of them was quite as odd as Class Three's new teacher.
Some of the children in Class Three thought she was a witch. Others said she was a hippy. A few of them thought she was just a bit mad. But they all agreed that there had never been anyone quite like her at St Barnabas before.
Terence Blacker FRSL (born 5 February 1948, near Hadleigh, Suffolk) is an English author, columnist, journalist, and publisher.