The Contents Of Miss Cathcart's Classroom Cupboard - Alison Wassell
A secret stash of Pritt Sticks and Blu Tack. A box of spare underwear and a lonely plimsoll. A rude drawing confiscated from the boy who now services her car, laughed at later in the staffroom. A World’s Best Teacher mug with no handle, stuffed with pencils. A Christmas tree with two broken branches and a surly angel with a wobbly head. Six fluffy Easter chicks. The odour of an over-ripe banana. A shelf of lever arch files, their mechanisms rusted shut. Policies and curriculum documents introduced, revised, abandoned. Teaching methods waiting patiently to come back into fashion. A career’s worth of ticked off tick sheets. Plans that never came to fruition, and a few that did. A plethora of performances managed and mostly found wanting. Targets met, targets missed, goalposts moved, then moved again. Birthday candles that became fire hazards and Lego that became a choking risk. A box of Ventolin inhalers and an out-of-date EpiPen. The ghosts of two children who failed to make it to adulthood. A poster listing the symptoms of meningitis, stuck to the door with yellowing Sellotape. A bottle of Bach’s Rescue Remedy and a box of tissues. A toilet roll, for when the tissues run out. A thermos flask that smells faintly of Jack Daniels. Two empty Paracetamol packets. A chorus of complaints. Words that whisper, not from any spelling test. Capability, competence, concern. A folder of correspondence from her union rep. A letter in a sealed envelope addressed, in her handwriting, to the Chair of Governors. A space just big enough to curl up and weep in and, stuffed in the corner, a torn tissue paper heart.
Originally published by Reflex Fiction in August 2022, and placed fourth in their flash fiction contest.
Alison Wassell is a writer of short and very short fiction from Merseyside, UK. Her words have been published by Fictive Dream, Bath Flash Fiction Award, Does It Have Pockets, The Phare, The Disappointed Housewife, FlashFlood Journal, Gooseberry Pie and elsewhere. She was Highly Commended in the 2024 Bridport Prize (Flash Fiction)
