Crackers

There's nothing like teachers out on a bender, making it an experience that only the very mentally robust can possibly tolerate more than once a year.

Our school's staff do was originally scheduled for Christmas, which is why the room has been seasonally adjusted with piles of crackers and plates containing small fragments of turkey viciously attacked with cocktail sticks and then left for dead so they can get up to room temperature, just like the white wine.

It's been moved on by a month so we can combine it with a leaving event, thus saving on money, time and speeches.

To say there's a frisson of excitement would be to do a terrible injustice to two perfectly good nouns. As the staff convene - though, judging by appearances, 'congeal' would be more accurate - the mood is one of appalling resignation.

"How will we remember Elsa?" asks Sasha who, inevitably, is leading the tributes. Judging by the pause that follows, this isn't a rhetorical question but a real problem for the school.

I'm just about to volunteer to tie a knot in my handkerchief if it would help, when, fortunately, inspiration strikes.

"Elsa has has to deal with more incidents of vomiting than any other member of staff," says Sasha, brightly. Clearly feeling that she's struck a rich anecdotal vein, she starts listing the top ten barfing exploits in Elsa's professional repertoire, embracing and then thickly splattering, swimming pools, soft furnishings and handbags.

I wonder, meanwhile, if she's going to wrap up her speech by presenting Elsa, who's sporting a look that could be pride, regret or possibly rigor mortis, with her own specially commissioned strain of Novovirus.

It's hard to tell if the staff are swapping looks, or just entering the rapid eye movement stage of sleep, until I spot Caroline, the teaching assistant, who is stuffing crackers up her sleeve.

"I think the street price plummets in January," I whisper, as she starts on the other arm.

"Oh, bugger," she says, at normal volume, while Sasha glares. "What about turkey rolls?"

"Same problem," I hiss. "Your best bet is to fashion them into the crude shape of a bird and wait for lightning. If you can bring them back to life as an Easter chick you might find some takers."

"Do you think I could shove the whole foil platter inside my shirt?"

"Only if you tell the others you always shop in 'Mutant Turtles r us' - and even then I'm not sure you'd pull it off."

The party, based on a definition of the word looser than Bad Lindy's knicker elastic, grinds to a halt at 10.30. I stand on the pavement, ready to provide covering fire for Caroline with the cheese balls I've concealed in my handbag while she transfers the crackers and dessicated turkey into her car.

Sasha appears, gives us a cold gaze, then gets into a waiting car. An arm reaches behind her to pull the passenger door shut and I see the hand. Long, tapering, artistic fingers, coated thinly with long, artistic hair.

It's Colin. With Sasha. Quickly I get the phone and start texting.