I have been told children gossip. A lot. Even more than men!

At six years old, I fell into the group that encourages the story-tellers:I listened and quaked in my school shoes. As a first grader, the stories were about my teacher. She didn’t help matters by losing her temper so often- and eating a teaspoon of instant coffee powder as soon as the cook left her tray of tea things on her desk. I still shudder when I remember it. Let’s call her powder-puff because she wore a lot of make-up. Especially bright  pink rouge.

The powder puff wasn’t my only first grade teacher. There was another one from the previous term and school. The place hadn’t been a garden of Eden either. The lady from the first term was newly pregnant and struggling to cope psychologically. She used to just take off for hours and leave the class in the capable hands of a pair of second graders! One particular pair was so annoyed  with our noisy bunch that they went through the class knocking our heads together.

Naturally, I was unhappy at both places and my typical exuberance and excitement for school faded. I became edgy and withdrawn.

What envy I felt for  the ‘seniors’ at my former kindergarten, whom I’d showed off to continuously about going to ‘the big school’! They had juice and naps in the afternoon while I had to stay awake all the time in school. I was fast retreating into my shell. For good. Well, almost. Fortunately, my parents decided it was better I went to the  neighborhood school as the ones near their jobs obviously hadn’t worked out.

In the space of six months I had traded a hideous teal and cream uniform for a sky blue dress and then  found myself kitted out in a green and white checked ensemble and as mother knocked on the door of 1Blue I thought ‘here we go again’.

Then Mrs Phillipson opened the door. I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember much about her appearance except her short brown hair and mumu-like dresses. She was in her early thirties. She also might have been pregnant.

What I do remember is her heart towards her charges and especially towards me. You learn early that appearances don’t matter.

Fully aware of my bad starts, she sat me at the table nearest to her desk so she could monitor me. That’s where the love affair began.