121. Air

Have I missed something?

Has there been some publication somewhere?

Something about opening windows? In the middle of winter? Why - for once - the heating is on?

I arrive at work and head for the staffroom. In our school it is in the basement and I am surprised to find it really draughty down here. Maybe someone has broken a window?

As I get closer the draught gets more violent, gale force 3 I would say; fliers and posters are flapping noisily on the walls. As I push the door I get hit in the face by a loose flyer. It is like mail time in Hogwarts. Then I notice the row of window, which is at ground level, all are wide open! I did not know you could open them! There are a few people in the room but they pretend not to see that something is happening, bunch of Muggles pretending witches and wizards do not exist and carrying on as usual. Except they really have to hold on tight to their wads of papers.

'Good morning, everyone!' I shout in what I think is a cheery tone of voice.

A few timid helloes come back my way. Voldemort has obviously made an apparition.

A very loud bang as a door slams shut somewhere makes us real people jump. That's reassuring as I thought I was surrounded by zombies or robots. Unsure which. I exit the room and try to find shelter in the coffee room. The coffee machine is banned and there is yellow tape all across it as if some crime has recently been committed here. Cheerful stuff. In the coffee room people are not any happier and there too, the windows are wide open. There must have been some kind of publication. I don't dare ask. I don't want to pass for the ignorant member of staff. 

I am out of here. 

As I walk towards the classroom I am thinking that at least with the kids things are going to be a bit more normal. They don't read publications.

Wrong. 

I open the door and it is minus 4 in here! All the windows are opened and the heavy curtains are blowing in the wind. As the door is open the window panes start banging with the draught created. This is beginning to irritate me a little. 

'Can we perhaps close the windows?' I say. 

Normally they would not even ask but they are looking reluctant. Finally one of them speaks out.

'Sorry Miss! But you know ... the guidelines ...'

Goodness me! What's happened to the world? Teenagers are now reading governmental guidelines???? I am at a loss for words and I just stare blankly at the teenage boy. The windows stay open. I start handing in the test papers and I am suddenly over-conscious of my - grubby? - hands. Are these kids going to ask me to wear dish-washing gloves? How many items in the governmental guidelines? No-one says anything when I give out the papers. I make sure I place them in from tof them so they dont even have to touch them. The problem is the kids sitting close to the windows have to place heavy items on top to stop them from flying around into the draughty classroom and me picking them up.

They start the test and I ask Google for the guidelines but Google is not very good when it comes to the Education Nationale Mysterious Exceptional Crisis Management Guidelines! So I put my phone down (don't fret, reader, I keep up and do the register from the school app on my phone. Cool or what?) and take a good look at them shivering in their winter coats.

'Right. As you are all starting to turn blue, I think I can go into over-ride as far as the guidelines go and shut the windows.'

I go and shut the windows and as I fight with the curtains I touch the radiator. Boiling hot. I have to fight the urge to start running out of the classroom and to keep running, running until I get to the edge of this civilised world. I close the window.