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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
'I devoured this sporty second-chance romance! The cute kids, sports day, a big football match and an old flame are a winning combination' Leonie Mack, author of A Taste of Italian Sunshine Lizzie Morris is ready for the first day of the rest of her life - she's starting as a trainee teacher at Cranswell Primary and she's hopeful that she'll make the squad for the final of her team's football tournament. Finally, Lizzie seems to be putting her tragic past behind her and she is sure that her parents would be proud. Coming face to face with Noah Hatton, however, was not part of the plan. He is still as athletic and handsome as she remembered and seeing him drags up painful memories. Horrifyingly, the Head Teacher then asks the pair of them to organise the school's Sports Day and thrown together, their chemistry and competitive relationship reignites. Will the unwelcome distraction of Noah derail Lizzie's teacher training and will she survive this blast from the past?
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3
A Match to Remember
Helen Hawkins
4For Matt
Contents
Chapter One
‘Where could it have possibly gone?’ Lizzie flung open the bottom-most of three drawers and pulled everything out. Among the pile now on the carpet was a selection of old clothes, unworn and unfolded; two pairs of skiing gloves, despite having never gone skiing; an unopened box of AA batteries; and her birth certificate hidden amongst a couple of Sky bills and her rental agreement. At least her birth certificate was in a folder. She could almost hear her older sister, Kirsty, scolding her for not having important things like her rental agreement and birth certificate alphabetised in a plastic wallet somewhere safe.
She was certain she’d taken her DBS check out and left it on the counter in the kitchen, ready for the big day. But it had since disappeared and she could only surmise that it had sprouted wings and flown away. Things had a habit of doing that in this flat.
It wasn’t unusual for Lizzie to be awake in the early hours. She hadn’t slept properly in years. But last night, sleep had 8evaded her. Entirely. It was her first day as a trainee teacher at Cranswell Primary and she was buzzing with excitement. And now, also panic.
She grumbled under her breath and kicked the drawer shut, before padding through to the kitchen and pushing down the plunger on the cafetière; the rich, fresh aroma of coffee was welcome after her failed search. After pouring herself a mug, she cracked open the window in the living room, the day already warm, and sat with her feet up on the sill, looking out over the town. A few deep breaths would usually help. The view looked out onto the busy shopping street below, but at this hour, it was just the delivery man who brought great big bags of flour to the bakery each morning. He whistled a jolly tune. Lizzie took another deep breath and brushed back some of her frizzy hair, heated from the stress and exertion.
A movement from the door made her jump and she turned, the sudden motion spilling coffee onto her pyjama shorts.
‘Why are you creeping up on me?’ Lizzie said, standing up to brush the hot coffee from her legs.
‘How long have you been awake?’ Tom asked.
‘A while.’ She refilled her mug and passed a second to Tom.
‘Thanks.’ He took a sip and a deep breath. ‘We shouldn’t have stayed up that late on a school night.’
Lizzie shook her head. ‘Especially not on the first school night.’ She rubbed a hand over her face, conscious that she probably looked hideous. She could only imagine the size of the bags under her eyes.
Tom drew a circle in the air towards Lizzie’s face of unremoved make-up and crazy hair. ‘This does not look like the face of a trainee teacher about to embark on the first day of the rest of her life.’ 9
‘No, Tom, it does not. This is the face of someone who stayed up way too late and was sabotaged by her flatmate, who didn’t think to put a stop to the Sex and the City marathon.’ She crawled onto the sofa and pulled a blanket around her.
Tom put up his hands in defence. ‘You are a thirty-year-old woman, Miss Morris. You need to learn to take care of yourself, which includes choosing a reasonable bedtime.’
‘But while I’m learning to take care of myself, you need to help me,’ she whined, pulling the blanket up further.
Tom laughed.
‘What time is it?’ She propped herself up and downed the last of her coffee.
‘Seven-fifteen,’ Tom said, holding up and pointing at the clock from the sideboard.
‘Oh God, I need to get showered and dressed!’ Lizzie jumped off the sofa and snapped into action. ‘Like now. I’m going to be late for my first day. What am I going to wear? And where is my DBS check? I swear I left it here with my lunchbox and bag.’
‘How have you not thought about what to wear yet?’ Tom asked, incredulous and oblivious to the more serious issue of the lost DBS check.
Lizzie shrugged.
‘I’m telling you now Lizzie Morris, you will get nowhere as a teacher unless you get yourself a little more organised – lesson number one from a teaching assistant who’s seen it all. Have a shower and I’ll pick out a couple of options for you for when you’ve finished. Your DBS is on the side of the bath, by the way.’
Lizzie opened her mouth to ask why and then decided not to bother. She didn’t care how it had got there; she just cared 10that she’d found it. She reached up and kissed Tom on the cheek as she passed him.
‘Love you!’
Stepping into the shower, Lizzie could feel herself frowning. She’d been so prepared for today. She knew where she was going and how long it would take her to get there; her lunch was prepared and in the fridge ready to go – and had been carefully thought out to ensure it was easy to eat in public and wouldn’t stink out the staffroom. She had visited WHSmith to get herself a new pencil case, and stationery for every possible stationery requirement. Never in the history of readiness had anyone been so ready for their first day. And yet she’d not slept – worrying again – and her DBS check had somehow made its way into the bathroom. She shook her head, moving it onto the shelf before turning the shower on.
Letting the water from the shower run down her hair and back, she closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. Everything would be fine, she thought. She withheld the nervous urge to throw up that was beginning to wash over her in stronger and stronger waves.
When she returned to her bedroom, she saw Tom had hung two outfits up on her wardrobe, including accessories, which hung down from the coat hangers. On the floor, he’d laid out some shoe options for her. On top of that, he’d replenished her mug of coffee.
Where had she got so lucky with a friend like Tom? Bizarrely, they’d not met until they were both at university, but it hadn’t taken them long to realise that they’d both grown up in this same sleepy little market town, just at opposite ends of the high street. And now they’d met in the middle, sharing a flat above the bakery near the village green. 11
Lizzie blow-dried her unruly hair and straightened it in front of the mirror. The June sun, having already risen for the day, reflected off her fiery red locks, emblazoning the colour even more than normal. It was going to be another scorching day. By the time she’d added a thin layer of make-up and pulled her long hair up into a ponytail, she was beginning to look half human again, if a little bedraggled by the heat.
Tom’s outfit choices were perfect, as always. His ‘leaving the rest of her wardrobe tidy’ was not. Lizzie stuffed a couple of pairs of shoes back into the wardrobe and slid the sleeve of a corduroy blazer and the skirt of her bright red Jessica Rabbit dress back through the crack in the door. Not that she’d wear either of those items of clothing again – one was hideously out of fashion and always had been, and the other was only appropriate for a twenty-year-old – and a skinny one at that.
Lizzie’s phone buzzed and she removed herself from the wardrobe to see who had texted her. It was from Kirsty:
Hey! Hope today goes well! Can’t wait to hear all about it at practice later! xxx
Lizzie smiled. Her sister’s jolly text messages were so unlike her real-life Eeyore demeanour. In reality, Kirsty was nearly a decade older and far more serious than Lizzie was. After their parents died, Kirsty had become something of a mother hen to her.
She padded over to her dressing table and pushed around the necklaces and bracelets that clung together like spaghetti.
‘How are you getting on?’ Tom asked, his head popping round the door.
‘Better, but your regular check-ins are starting to stress me out!’ Lizzie said, placing a long silver necklace over her head 12and pulling on a thin-knit oversized cardigan. ‘Do I look like a teacher?’ She held out her arms and gave him a spin.
‘You look great. Are you ready to go? If we leave now, we can still walk instead of driving,’ he said, looking at his watch.
Lizzie nodded. ‘I just need to find Mum’s ring.’ She rifled again in the chaos that was her dressing table and pulled out the ring – silver with two starfish at either end of the loop of metal that spiralled around her finger – memories of a holiday to the Isle of Wight as a child growing only slightly less vivid than the occasion itself. She slipped it on and took a deep breath, holding her finger and the ring with her other hand. ‘I promised I’d get here,’ she said quietly, remembering her determination to become a teacher and how proud her parents would have been to see her walking over the school threshold as a trainee.
‘Lizzie!’ Tom’s voice brought Lizzie back to the present, and she took a final breath in the hope it would remove her urge to cry.
‘Coming!’ she said. Lizzie took one final look in the mirror and left her bedroom.
Lizzie and Tom lived about a fifteen-minute drive away from the school, but to walk it would only take forty-five minutes, with less traffic and fewer roadworks. Despite her excitement, Lizzie was keen to put off arriving for as long as possible. Nerves were creeping in and the butterflies in her stomach were having a rave.
Grabbing her ready-made, aroma-free lunch from the fridge and putting it into her new school bag, Lizzie set off with Tom as if she were fifteen again and it was the 1st of September. In reality, it was the 1st of June and today was the first day of the 13rest of her life – the start of her dreams finally coming true. Thanks to Tom’s role as a teaching assistant at Cranswell Primary School (and her own unemployed status), she’d managed to bag half a term’s paid work experience before her official placement started after the summer. Her mum and dad would have been so proud and Lizzie couldn’t wait to get started.
Chapter Two
The nostalgia of arriving at the front gate of the school was tangible. The smell of the playground’s warm tarmac, the laminated wall displays in primary colours, the abundance of Comic Sans. It was like no time had passed since she’d been here with her mother, since she’d been here herself as a child.
‘I’ll take you through to reception,’ Tom said kindly.
It might have been the primary school she’d attended as a child, but the memory was so distant, it was like a white rabbit’s warren of corridors where everything was a third of the size it was in the adult world. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see the Mad Hatter having afternoon tea in the library.
‘Here,’ Tom said, indicating the door. ‘Good luck!’ he added, with a kiss on her cheek.
Lizzie signed in at reception and sat down on a squishy, carpet-textured chair.
The displays in the foyer were clearly there to present a good impression to visitors of the school. There were environmental 15awards, enlarged smiling photos of children playing outside or looking studious over science experiments; a wall of recognition identified students who had done particularly well in their schoolwork, or who had demonstrated one of the school’s values in their conduct around the site. And it smelt really clean, like newly hoovered carpet and air freshener. Lizzie smiled to herself. This was definitely the type of place she wanted to work. She just hoped that the laminated photographs were a true reflection of what she’d let herself in for. For the first time since she’d sat down, nerves crept in again and she twisted her mum’s ring around anxiously.
‘Elizabeth Morris?’ The sound of her name made her jump. A young, dark-haired woman came through into the reception area and Lizzie stood up to shake her hand.
‘Call me Lizzie,’ she said. ‘Nice to meet you.’
The woman smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘I’m Sophie – Miss Lawson. I’m going to be your mentor while you’re training here with us.’
Lizzie returned the smile. ‘Yes, I remember you from the interview,’ she said. ‘I’m so excited to get started!’
‘Excellent! Come this way.’ Sophie led her back through the labyrinth to a classroom.
Lizzie tried her hardest to walk tall, her long legs helping her to achieve the sure-footed stride she was after, but inside, those butterflies were still partying. She knew that her confidence could come across as arrogant at times, or at the very least, like she was in control. But she wasn’t; not really. If anything, she was out of control. She rubbed her temple, willing the edge of a headache that was creeping in to go away.
Sophie showed Lizzie where she could leave her bag and coat (a tiny cupboard in the corner of the classroom that was 16filled with neatly ordered art and craft supplies) and then took her on a quick tour of the classroom. It was a large, square room and so organised that Lizzie could see straight away that she’d need to up her game. This wasn’t a classroom in which people lost things. There were drawers and cupboards everywhere, and little baskets and tubs. Everything had its place and a laminated label with an image to accompany each of the words. The displays were immaculate, each looking like they’d been refreshed only yesterday. Out on the tables, there were pots of pens and stationery, each item labelled with a child’s name. Things suddenly felt very real and Lizzie took a deep breath, willing her heart to slow down. There weren’t any children here yet; she still had time to get herself together.
‘Let’s get a cup of tea before the children arrive,’ Sophie said, taking Lizzie along the corridor to the staffroom. She continued to talk as they walked. ‘So today, and probably the next couple of weeks, will really just be about observing the lessons and working with small groups of children on their tables, if that’s OK? It’ll give you a feel for the environment and the class. They’re Year Six mind, so they can be a little big for their boots,’ Sophie said. She was making their tea and pouring boiling water into the mugs on the work surface.
‘They’ll soon lose that when they become small fish in a big pond at secondary school,’ added another teacher who had appeared in the staffroom.
Sophie poured a cup for the new teacher too. ‘This is Kate,’ she said, handing it to Kate.
‘You’re going to love it at Cranswell,’ Kate said, taking the mug.
‘Here,’ Sophie said, passing Lizzie a cup. 17
Lizzie looked down at the mug, which was only half full.
‘You’re going to want to add cold water to the top, otherwise you’ll never drink it in time,’ Sophie said, as if reading her thoughts.
Lizzie did as she was told and gulped the tea down in its entirety (it turned out Sophie’s trick worked perfectly) before following Sophie and Kate back down the corridor. They were clearly good friends and Lizzie followed them feeling like a third wheel. Her nerves surfaced again and she felt suddenly out of her depth. How would she cope fitting into somewhere that was clearly already so tight-knit? At least she had Tom.
‘I normally greet students as they come in,’ Sophie said when they’d returned to the classroom. She struggled to wedge a doorstop under the door.
In the distance, the hum of children floated on the air.
‘Here they come,’ she added, as if a tsunami or typhoon were on its way down the corridor.
Little did Lizzie know, Sophie was spot on. Before she knew it, they were surrounded by children, who, at ten going on eleven, weren’t really that small any more. A couple of them were on a par with Lizzie’s stature.
‘Good morning, Benjamin,’ Sophie said as a short, round boy waddled into the room.
‘Morning, Miss Lawson.’
‘Morning, Lyndsey.’
‘Morning, Miss,’ Lyndsey said.
Next, a tall girl came in with what looked like two sidekicks. They were in school uniform, but the kind of uniform that had been modified between leaving their parents and walking through the school gates.
‘Morning, Miss Lawson,’ they chorused as Sophie frowned 18and all three of them lengthened their skirts with a roll of the eyes. The adjustment added a good three inches to the hems.
‘Morning, girls,’ Sophie said.
Lizzie found herself smiling and nodding in acknowledgement as the girls passed. She recognised something of herself in the girl gang.
‘Good morning, Nigel.’ As he passed, Sophie turned to look at Lizzie as if to say, Whoever calls their child Nigel?
‘Morning, Misses,’ he quipped, strolling past.
Lizzie smiled at his cheekiness and felt herself relax a little.
‘Morning, Miss, morning, Miss,’ another child said as she passed the two of them waiting at the door.
Eventually, the steady stream of children came to an end, and Lizzie followed Sophie through the classroom door. All the children were hanging bags up on pegs, or were at various stages of gathering pencil cases or workbooks. Sophie clearly had them whipped into shape and working within a routine. But what Lizzie found most overwhelming was how many of them there seemed to be, like a well choreographed dance troupe. For the first time, and probably not the last, Lizzie wondered whether she’d taken on more than she could handle.
Sophie pointed out a chair for Lizzie to sit in. Unfortunately for Lizzie, it was one of the children’s chairs and about a third of the size she needed it to be. When she sat in it, she was all scrunched up and could feel her organs wrestling for space. This was going to get spectacularly uncomfortable in roughly less than a minute. She stretched her legs out under the table to give her insides a fighting chance.
Sophie began with literacy, and Lizzie’s interest piqued. This was what she’d studied at university – well, English. She knew what Sophie was talking about and could definitely help 19the children if called upon. Although, with a class of ten- and eleven-year-olds, she hoped that would be the case with most of the lessons. Maths would be a blip; she knew that, but she was mentally prepared for that one. She breathed a sigh of relief and settled into her tiny chair. All she had to do was watch the lesson and gather tips from Sophie’s teaching practice. She could absolutely do this.
‘Miss, have you got a ruler?’ one girl asked. She seemed much smaller than all the others in the class and had blonde hair so light it almost seemed translucent.
Stationery was the kind of problem Lizzie could deal with. She took out her shiny new pencil case and passed a ruler to the girl.
‘Thank you.’
‘No problem,’ Lizzie said, feeling pleased with herself.
‘Audrey, can I borrow it too?’ Nigel asked, all legs and arms and scrunched into his chair as much as Lizzie was with her grown-up frame.
‘It’s Miss’s,’ said Audrey, her tongue poking out as she concentrated on underlining the title in her exercise book.
‘That’s OK, Audrey,’ Lizzie said, committing her name to memory.
Audrey passed the ruler to Nigel, who borrowed it and returned it.
‘What’s another word for walk?’ Audrey asked, chewing on the end of her pencil as she thought for a moment.
‘You can’t use walk,’ another student chimed in. It was Benjamin, who had entered the classroom first earlier. ‘It’s a banned word,’ he added, gesticulating excitedly at a display on the wall.
Along with ‘walk’, words such as ‘nice’, ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘scary’ 20and ‘lovely’ were all banned in Miss Lawson’s classroom, it seemed.
‘Well, what’s your character doing?’ Lizzie asked, trying, and failing, to think of another way to help Audrey without simply giving her a list of alternatives.
‘He’s creeping up on a baddie.’ After a second, Audrey’s eyes widened. ‘What about crept?’ She almost shrieked in her excitement.
‘See? You don’t even need me. You did that one all by yourself,’ Lizzie said with a smile, and she realised that her nerves had eased with the good cheer of the children.
‘Can you read mine, Miss?’ Benjamin asked, holding his exercise book out as an offering. It looked like it had seen better days, with dog-eared corners, a damp, wrinkly edge and the faint smell of nicotine absorbed into the pages.
‘Of course, Benjamin.’ Lizzie took it from him, being careful not to touch the suspiciously damp area on the cover. She read his work and the entire table held a breath as they waited for her appraisal of it.
Lizzie remembered something vaguely from her pre-reading – something like start with a ‘what went well’ and come up with an ‘even better if’. Her mouth was dry and she wanted to say the right thing. It felt like the entire classroom was anticipating her appraisal. She had to remind herself it was only a handful of ten-year-olds and they didn’t have a clue who she was or what she was doing in their classroom. What went well … even better if …
‘I think you’ve used punctuation really well, Benjamin.’ She started with more certainty than she felt in the nauseous pit of her stomach. She swallowed. ‘Your exclamation mark to show that the man is shouting is excellent. Can you think 21of a different way to start your second sentence though? They both start with “He went” and I think you can come up with something more exciting than that.’
She waited for Benjamin’s response.
‘Thanks, Miss,’ he said brightly, taking his book back and focusing on improving his sentence straight away.
The others carried on with their writing too and the lesson descended into a quiet buzz of concentration.
Perhaps she might just be able to pull this off.
When break time finally came, Lizzie was ready for it.
Sophie led the way into the staffroom, immediately disappearing into the crowd of people. There must have been twenty different teachers and staff crammed in the office-cum-kitchen space and suddenly Lizzie was alone in the mêlée – the eye of the storm. It was OK. She would just sniff out the coffee and busy herself with that. It was only twenty minutes before lessons recommenced. She would be fine navigating her way through break time alone. Wouldn’t she?
‘How’s it going?’ a familiar voice asked.
‘Tom, thank God!’ Lizzie breathed a sigh of relief and held her stomach. ‘It’s going really well. But I was getting a bit concerned that I’d have to find the coffee all by myself.’ She made a show of looking around the staffroom for it.
‘Over here,’ Tom said, linking arms with Lizzie and pulling her over to the kitchen counter, revealing a wholesale-sized tub of Nescafé. He patted the top of it affectionately.
‘So you guys really like coffee.’ Lizzie looked the gigantic tub up and down.
‘Lizzie, you know as well as I do that coffee is the only thing that will get us both through this day, and the many days to come.’ 22
‘Good point,’ Lizzie said, spooning the granules into two mugs that Tom had readied for their drinks.
‘So,’ began Tom. He stirred his coffee and topped it up with cold water from the tap. ‘Shall we celebrate your first day of school with a takeaway tonight? My treat.’
He sounded genuine, but Lizzie knew ‘my treat’ meant he’d end up borrowing the money from her, or using her laptop so the default card was in her name.
‘Sounds lovely,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’ve got football training tonight though, remember, so it’ll be a late one. You could order it ready to arrive at eight forty-five?’
‘It’s a date.’
As quickly as break time had arrived, it ended. The bell went, and Lizzie looked down at her barely touched coffee with disappointment.
‘Just top it up with tap water and down it,’ Tom said. ‘It’s the only way to get caffeine in you when you’re at school.’
Lizzie laughed at the strange coffee-drinking ritual that everyone at Cranswell’s seemed to have adopted. She followed his advice but still scalded her oesophagus. Perhaps practice made perfect?
The fractions projected onto the board terrified Lizzie upon her return to the classroom. Maths had never been her strength and the problems on the board were just that: problematic. They looked like runes or Sanskrit, whatever they might be.
Sophie stood at the front of the classroom and explained the task with a demonstration, while Lizzie sat at the back of the room in her tiny chair, trying to keep up. Luckily for Lizzie, the children around her seemed to know their stuff when it came to maths, so she found herself checking a few workings and picking 23up plastic counting cubes that had magically ‘fallen’ from the table. Interestingly, Nigel always seemed particularly buried in his work when the cubes mysteriously skipped between the children. Hmm … she’d need to keep an eye on him.
Before Lizzie knew it, the bell rang for lunchtime and the children flew out the door, racing to join the canteen queue or get outside for a game of tag. As far as Lizzie was concerned, it couldn’t have come any sooner.
‘We’re on duty during the second part of lunch,’ Sophie said as they collected the children’s books. ‘So go and grab your lunch from the fridge, make yourself a quick cuppa and come back here. We’ll go out in about twenty minutes.’
‘OK.’ Lizzie sighed, feeling bitterly disappointed that she couldn’t just sit for the forty-minute lunch break and wondering if her feet could even cope with only twenty minutes of rest.
She wandered down the corridor, hoping she was heading in the right direction for the staffroom – everywhere in this place looked the same.
From the fridge, Lizzie picked out her sandwich and flopped down on one of the staffroom chairs. It was one of those in a hideous seventies orange-brown colour. Another teacher she recognised as Kate came in just as she bit down into her food.
‘I wouldn’t set up camp there,’ Kate said, reaching into the fridge for her own lunch. ‘That’s Ged’s seat,’ she added, and left as swiftly as she’d arrived.
Yes, Tom had warned Lizzie about staffroom politics. Apparently, there were unwritten rules all over the place. She was just glad that Kate had mentioned it before Ged had come in and she’d unwittingly caused a scene.
‘Thanks,’ she called after her.
With only ten minutes before she needed to be out on duty, 24Lizzie settled down into another chair on the other side of the staffroom. She really didn’t want to be upsetting anyone on her first day. She wondered where Tom was, then toyed with the idea of making a cup of tea and realised that she probably wouldn’t have time to make it, let alone drink it. School, it turned out, was a very busy place. She would need to plan for this in the future – maybe a flask she could prepare in the morning before school …?
‘Ready?’ Sophie asked brightly, popping her head around the door.
Lizzie swallowed what was in her mouth, feeling it slip uncomfortably down her throat, and mourned the other half of her sandwich after throwing it into the bin.
‘Yep,’ Lizzie replied, sounding far cheerier than she felt. An immense wave of exhaustion swept over her, like an extreme afternoon slump. It was just a bit earlier in the day than Lizzie would have expected. After all, she’d only just eaten lunch. Maybe a walk outside would blow away the feeling of tiredness and she’d be back on it for art and PE that afternoon. She wondered how Sophie appeared to remain so enthusiastic all day.
‘So I’ll let you into a little secret,’ Sophie said as they walked in a figure of eight around the school site.
Children tore around their legs, and they dodged flying footballs.
‘I’m supposed to be positive about all aspects of teaching,’ Sophie said. ‘Especially with trainees. But duty is, without a doubt, the most hideous part of my job.’
Lizzie laughed. ‘How come?’
A child raced past them and splattered Lizzie’s legs with the mud from a rogue puddle. She bent down to brush off as much of it as she could, failing miserably. 25
‘Partly because of things like that,’ Sophie said, handing her a tissue. ‘You either get cold or wet, or like today, you get sunburnt. And if nothing happens, it’s really dull. And if something does happen, you have to follow it up with phone calls and meetings. It’s just not the part of the job I signed up for.’
Giving up with the mud on her tights, Lizzie continued to walk with Sophie around the school site. As they talked, Sophie kept her eyes crawling over the playground, watching the children to make sure that they were all safe and behaving.
‘It’s nice to be outside, though,’ Sophie said.
The slight ache in Lizzie’s feet and her scrunched-up toes begged to differ.
Lunch sailed by and the less said about art, the better.
‘We’re really lucky,’ Sophie said at the end of the session, coming over to drop a couple of paint pots and glue pasters into the sink. ‘We’ve got a PE guy who comes in to do our PE lessons for us, so we would normally get planning time. I think for today though, and maybe for a few lessons, it might be worth you staying in there to observe what goes on – especially with your background in sport. Miss Davies said you play football?’ She phrased it like a question.
‘Just the local football team,’ Lizzie said, placing the paint pots upturned on the draining board. ‘We’ve had a good season, though. We’ve made it to the final of the local cup tournament for the first time in over five years. It’s been something like twenty years since we won it last. I’m crossing my fingers I’ll get picked for the squad.’
‘Impressive,’ Sophie said. ‘Then you should definitely get involved in PE more than I normally would.’
‘I’d be interested to see how teaching PE is different to 26coaching it.’ Lizzie lifted the final glue pot out of the sink and left it to dry.
‘Shall we get this lot through to the hall then?’ Sophie said, gesturing at the gaggle of children in various stages of undress. Most of them were ready, but even at ten years old, some of them had an interesting interpretation of what ‘ready’ meant. The ones who had managed to put on their shorts or leggings and official school Aertex tops made those wearing one of their dad’s baggy T-shirts or a too-short hand-me-down from a sibling look dishevelled and not quite prepared.
‘Right, let’s line up, everyone,’ Sophie said.
Dutifully, the students went to the side of the room nearest the door and lined up. Lizzie looked at the children and saw that strangely, they had chosen not to stand next to their friends. Hang on! They were in alphabetical order. How was Sophie doing this?
Lizzie followed them down the corridor through to the hall, which had been cleared of the lunchtime tables and chairs. She stretched as she walked through the door – her back was in bits after crouching over children, tables and sinks all day. Her feet weren’t faring much better, either. Her headache, at least, had subsided. She was looking forward to sitting down with Tom and a takeaway, even if she had to find the energy to endure football training as well before then.
‘Hi everyone!’ said the PE teacher, whose freshness clearly told the story of someone who hadn’t already spent the day looking after children.
The class raced in and surrounded him in a perfect circle. Routines again, noted Lizzie. She took off her necklace and bracelets, and slung them onto a chair against the wall, before joining the rest of the class. Her mum’s ring stayed where it 27was. It could go in her pocket if she absolutely felt the need to remove it.
‘Miss Morris is with us today,’ Nigel said, waving his arms excitedly towards the PE teacher, who, until now, had been facing the opposite side of the circle.
‘Hi.’ Lizzie waved self-consciously. ‘I’m just observing today.’
‘Hi …’ There was a pause as a look of recognition passed over the PE teacher’s face. ‘Hi, Miss Morris,’ he said, recovering.
Lizzie’s breath caught in her throat and she forgot to exhale.
It was Noah Hatton. The PE teacher in front of her was Noah Hatton.
Noah. Hatton.
Chapter Three
She stared foolishly at him for far too long. He was taller than she remembered, but still lean and athletic. His dark hair was dishevelled, like he ran his hand through it all day and didn’t care about the consequences. He locked his dark eyes with hers – as mesmerising as Lizzie remembered. When he flashed his perfect smile at her, he caught her off guard for a further moment. And then she remembered that she hated him.
‘Mr Hatton …’
‘Nice to see you,’ he said, recovering much more smoothly than Lizzie had managed to.
The children began to fidget, bored with waiting to begin.
‘Join in if you’re up for it,’ he challenged before turning back towards the children. ‘Right.’ He turned to face another side of the circle and put a stop to their moment. ‘Warm-up time first.’ He clapped his hands together – all energy and enthusiasm – and the children moved their attention away from Lizzie to Noah and what he was about to say. 29
Lizzie suddenly became very aware of the fact she would now be exercising in front of Noah Hatton. Not only that, but she would be exercising in tights and a cardigan that she’d bought specifically because it made her look like a teacher, and definitely not because it made her look particularly good or like someone who was prepared to participate in sport. She suddenly grew very warm. She would need to ditch the cardigan, anyway. She shrugged it angrily from her shoulders and laid it over the back of a chair.
The children and Noah were doing star jumps. Lizzie kicked off her boots and flung them over to the edge of the room, ready to join in. It was warm in the hall. The sun had shone through the windows all day, creeping across from one side to the other, making a greenhouse of the space. And now Lizzie was doing star jumps in a jumper dress. Although she wasn’t entirely convinced that all of her sweat was coming from the exercise alone …
As she exerted everything she had through the warm-up, she noticed that on the other side of the hall someone had pulled the climbing frames out and a sort of circuit had been set up. Lizzie focused, trying not to worry about what was to come, intent on completing each part of the lesson and helping the children around her.
She hadn’t seen Noah Hatton for over ten years. She wasn’t about to start worrying about what he was thinking now. It turned out to be difficult to feel tense and annoyed at the same time as running through a series of yoga-esque moves. Lizzie relaxed her face, aware of the frown that must be pasted across it.
‘OK guys, let’s head over to this week’s circuit. Line up in your colour groups.’
The children dutifully did as Noah asked and, after a few 30moments of bustle, lined up perfectly where they knew they should be.
‘Today,’ he began, stepping back into the alcove that the climbing frame produced, ‘we’ve added in the ropes.’
It was clearly a big reveal. There were a couple of ‘yesssss’es, and an air grab from one child. For half a minute, they descended into a chaos of whispers and excitement.
‘They’ve been wanting to do the rope climb for ages,’ Noah said to Lizzie while he waited for the noise to die down.
She couldn’t think of anything witty to say, so just threw him an awkward smile and kept quiet.
Once the children were listening again, Noah explained how to go about climbing the ropes safely, and told them that the aim was to scramble to the top and back down carefully when they were on that part of the circuit. ‘Now, can I have a volunteer?’
Every single hand shot up.
‘Miss Morris. What about you?’ Audrey’s tiny voice came from nowhere and seemed to rise above the rest of the crowd.
Noah looked directly at her, a mischievous smile playing at his lips.
‘I’m not really dressed for …’ But her response was drowned out by nearly every single child jumping up and down and cajoling her into saying yes. Fine, she would show Noah Hatton that she could do it. Besides, it would get the entire class on side if she was successful, which was important for when she taught them properly. That was definitely why she was about to agree to do it. Definitely not because of some odd notion that she needed to impress Noah Hatton.
‘All right,’ she said finally, stepping towards the ropes – stepping closer to Noah.
‘OK, here you go.’ 31
He passed her the rope, which she took. Then, he held it still as she reached up as high as she could to grab it, and jumped up to clamp the end with her feet. Noah steadied her, using his free hand on her hip. The rope swung around wildly. Noah’s touch had Lizzie struggling to concentrate for a moment. She couldn’t place the emotion, but felt an underlying hum of rage … or passion? She lost her footing and landed again on the floor.
‘Let me try again,’ she said defiantly.
Noah pulled a face that implied he didn’t think she’d be able to do it, but held onto the rope again anyway. And they went through the same process. This time, Lizzie did everything she could to ignore Noah’s touch and focused on gripping the rope tightly with her feet instead. Slowly, she shuffled her hands and then her feet up the rope as the children cheered for her from below. She began to feel more confident and move a little faster.
Then, it suddenly dawned on her that Noah probably had a spectacularly interesting view from where he was standing directly below her. In the moment that her mind wandered, her concentration slipped and so did she, suddenly finding herself a metre lower than she had been. The children gasped like it was a pantomime, like she was the damsel in distress being saved by Batman above Gotham City. Damn it! She wanted to be Batman, not saved.
Looking down, she could see that Noah looked a little fraught. Then he smiled.
‘Are you ready to come down?’ he asked.
Lizzie was tiring of his thinly veiled challenges and low expectations. ‘I need to touch the top, don’t I?’ she shouted, refusing to give in.
‘It’s OK, you’ve done great all ready. Just shimmy back down.’
Lizzie hung there for a moment – trapped between potential 32danger and humiliation of her own creation. Nope. She had come this far, and the children were still cheering. So on she went, climbing to the top in only three more moves and touching the highest of the climbing frame bars before shuffling down, much more quickly that she had shimmied up. The class erupted into rapturous applause.
Lizzie jumped off the bottom of the rope and turned to her audience to bow dramatically, before glancing at Noah, who stood there speechless for a moment. She smiled smugly.
‘Very good,’ he mumbled.
She shrugged as if it was nothing and returned to where she’d been standing.
‘Seeing as you’re such an expert,’ he said, his voice laced with frustration, almost like he’d wanted her to fail, ‘you can man the ropes. Help the kids reach up to get a hold and steady them so they’re braced and safe.’
‘Will do.’ Lizzie padded her way triumphantly over the crash mats to the ropes section. Except triumphing felt somehow anticlimactic. There was an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She spent the next twenty-five minutes giving children a leg up and cheering them on as they climbed, making it look far more straightforward than Lizzie had done. She supposed they were nimbler and lighter – they didn’t have to carry the load Lizzie did. And they seemed to have zero fear of death.
When she wasn’t engrossed in supporting the children, she was trying not to glance in Noah’s direction, despite feeling his eyes on her almost constantly.
As the session came to a close, the children circled around Noah again, ready for him to finish the lesson.
‘So, as always, I’m looking for three volunteers for the end of lesson challenge.’ 33
Instantly, every single child’s hand went up.
‘Hmm,’ he said, making a show of thinking carefully about whom to choose. ‘How about Audrey, Ella and …’ He looked around the circle. ‘Miss Morris, care to take on the challenge?’
Lizzie didn’t know what the challenge was, but while she initially feigned a modest refusal, she was champing at the bit to challenge Noah again, whatever it was. Just the fact he’d called on her was enough to increase her irritation, and beating him at something would make her feel much better.
The problem, she discovered a little too late, was the challenge was a three-legged assault course race. Noah flipped a coin and let Audrey choose whom she wanted to pair with. Traitor. After all the effort she’d put in with her earlier in the day. But you would choose the PE teacher, wouldn’t you? With Audrey choosing Noah, Lizzie felt like he’d already won the first round before they’d even properly started the challenge. She sighed and consciously tried not to fold her arms. She didn’t want her body language to give her away.
Lizzie was left with Ella, a tall, thin girl with fiery red hair similar to her own. Each pair’s legs were tied together, and they were off. Ella, it turned out, was ridiculously clumsy, and she and Lizzie were left wobbling around near the starting blocks straight away, as Audrey giggled her way with Noah through a tyre hop and over a seesaw. Lizzie took some deep breaths and reminded herself there were children present – including her partner Ella – and it was just a Year Six PE lesson. It was the taking part that counted. Not.
‘Come on, Ella. Let’s do this!’ she said, cheering her on, a smile painted across her face.
Ella stood up from where she had become a crumpled heap on the floor and they tried their best to catch up, but Noah and 34Audrey had long since crossed the line and were doing a victory dance as Lizzie and Ella finished the race.
Red-faced and breathless, Lizzie and Ella came to a standstill. Noah reached for her hand and held it high. ‘Girls and boys, our worthy runners-up!’ he announced, and the class erupted into a cheer.
Lizzie scowled, pulling her hand away. His touch burnt.
She was glad to see that it was nearly three o’clock. And even happier to see Sophie creep in through the hall door.
‘Right, Year Six,’ Sophie announced. ‘Let’s get back to the classroom and get changed.’ Which, of course, they all did without a fuss.
Lizzie struggled not to roll her eyes, irritated that everyone around her seemed to be perfect at whatever they did.
‘Lizzie, wait.’ Noah called after her as she followed the last of the students out of the hall.
‘Not now, Mr Hatton,’ she said. ‘I have to go with the class.’ She walked out of the hall without glancing backwards.
As the door closed behind her, she heard Noah Hatton kick a football across the room.
Chapter Four
By the time Lizzie arrived back at the flat, she only had twenty minutes to get changed and get out again for football training. She’d always known that Mondays would be a rush, but football was everything to her and she was happy for it to be a bit crazy if she could still train with the team. Although this definitely felt like a bit of a push. Imagine how tired she’d be once she was in school and teaching properly. She threw the thought away to the back of her mind and shoved what she needed into her bag.
‘Kirsty!’ Lizzie waved at her sister from across the car park – one of the highlights of football training. ‘Am I glad to see you!’
‘Rough first day?’ Kirsty asked, pulling her in for a hug and kissing her cheek.
‘Interesting first day.’ Lizzie linked arms with her, and they went into the leisure centre to book onto their pitch.
‘Tell me more,’ Kirsty said. ‘I could do with cheering up. Every day’s a rough day with me.’
‘Trouble with Steve again?’ 36
She didn’t nod, but Kirsty’s face said it all. Lizzie squeezed her a little tighter, their sisterly roles reversed when it came to Steve.
‘And how are the boys?’
But Lizzie didn’t have time to hear Kirsty’s answer because when they pushed through the heavy double doors into the hall, the warm-up had already begun. They both shed their bags and other belongings and joined in.
Lizzie welcomed the breeze on her face as she picked up her speed, while Coach Zoe instructed them to jump and reach and complete stretches at several points during the warm-up. Her trainers squeaked on the concrete floor, painted green and criss-crossed with the boundary lines of various sports in different bright colours. The sports hall at the leisure centre had a very particular smell. Lizzie couldn’t put her finger on what it was exactly, but there were notes of dust and sweat despite the tall, airy vastness of the room.
Coach Zoe blew her whistle. ‘Right, come on in then, ladies.’
They all ran and huddled around her, recovering their breath. Some leant forward, their hands on their knees; others stood with their hands on their waist, or wiping sweat from their brow. The warm-up was always the toughest part of practice.
‘So, next stop is the final.’
The girls whooped and cheered. Kirsty and Lizzie shared a smile.
‘Well done, ladies. Saturday was awesome. Today, I’m going to start thinking about who I want for the squad on final day, so make it count,’ she said, before dividing them up into five-a-side teams.
‘Reckon you’ll make the team?’ Kirsty asked as they made their way over to one of the pitches painted out in primary red. 37
‘Maybe.’ Ordinarily, Lizzie would be wholly focused on the endgame and playing for the team that would lift the trophy if they won the cup final, but her mind was elsewhere. She rubbed a hand over her face, exhausted from the day. Her body still felt scrunched up from the child-sized chairs. ‘I mean, I’d like to, but I guess it’s up to Coach. You?’
‘I think I might be past it,’ Kirsty said, a note of sadness in her voice. Ten years ago, she’d been at the heart of the team, but now that she was one of the oldest, Lizzie knew Kirsty only came for the exercise and to get out of the house once a week. She needed a break from Steve and the three boys.
At half-time, they moved to the side of the hall. Lizzie pulled her water bottle from her bag and took a long, cool drink.
‘Why was your day so rubbish? You never did say,’ Kirsty said.
‘I bumped into Noah.’
Kirsty snorted and choked on her own water.
‘What?’ She wasn’t often speechless.
‘Noah.’
‘Noah Hatton?’
‘Noah Hatton. It turns out, he’s the guy who comes in and teaches PE on a Monday,’ Lizzie explained.
‘Wow. That must have been awkward,’ Kirsty said. She was only too aware of Lizzie and Noah’s past – having been there for her when it all went wrong the last time. When their parents had been killed in the fire and Noah had broken up with Lizzie, all in the same week, it had been an awful time and Kirsty, as the older and wiser sibling, had needed to step up and take care of things.
‘It wasn’t ideal seeing him again, no,’ Lizzie said, taking another swig from her bottle. 38
‘What happened?’ Kirsty looked at Lizzie and then watched as some of the girls worked on shooting from the penalty spot.
