Flash fiction by Alison Wassell 

A Safe Space

Sometimes life gets too much for Michael Marsden, so when he points at the space under the classroom sink and asks if he can get into it, Miss Cathcart sees no reason to say no. It seems, a reasonable request, something her chronically anxious cat might do to avoid an unexpected visitor, or the vacuum cleaner, or the application of his flea treatment. 

“If that’s where you feel you need to be, it’s fine by me,” she says, so he squeezes in. Michael’s a big boy for his age, and only just fits, but he seems happy enough, curled up in the foetal position, so she leaves him to it while she talks about floating and sinking. 

She has taught this lesson so many times she could do it in her sleep. The children gather around her. A selection of objects surrounds a half-full fish tank of water on the table. Which objects will plummet to the bottom of the tank? Which ones will stay on the surface? Why do some things float while others sink? Is it to do with what they’re made of, how big they are, or how heavy?

The children love it, mainly because there’s a strong possibility that someone will get wet. Miss Cathcart draws out all the correct language from them; prediction, hypothesis, volume, density, particles. These words aren’t in the infant curriculum, but she knows the children enjoy bamboozling their parents with them. Michael remains tucked in his hideaway, but she can tell he’s listening. From time to time he sticks out his head, craning his neck to see, but she’s careful not to catch his eye, confident that he will emerge when he’s ready.

As Lucas Watson is predicting that a pebble will float, and the rest of the class is telling him he’s wrong in no uncertain terms, The Head walks in unannounced, as has become her habit. Miss Cathcart feels her heart sinking like a stone, but she forces her face into its brightest smile and, in her best teacher voice, reminds the children to put their hands up when they want to speak. 

But The Head has no interest in the lesson. Not now she’s noticed Michael Marsden. The Head has no truck with children being where they need to be. As far as she is concerned, Michael Marsden needs to be cross-legged on the carpet with his classmates, and anything else is downright disobedience.  Like an unsympathetic midwife she yanks him from his safe space. He cowers on the carpet, his hands over his ears, and rocks backwards and forwards. The Head draws Miss Cathcart aside. 

“We’ll discuss this later,” she says, before clip-clopping away on her too-high heels.

“Are you in trouble, Miss?” someone asks.

“I always seem to be in trouble, lately,” Miss Cathcart says. 

Maybe it’s to do with what she’s made of. Maybe someone stronger would float above it all with a featherlight heart. But these days Miss Cathcart feels kitten weak. At the end of the school day, when the children have been waved off, she opens her cupboard door and crawls into the space at the bottom where she’s recently installed a comfortable cushion. Pulling the door closed, she curls up and cries for herself, for Michael Marsden, and for all the other children she hasn’t been able to save.