‘What do you mean? They sound like fun, from what Hackle says.’
‘That was the early days. She was strange, that woman. Sometimes it felt like she was on a mission, and we were her converts. Other times she came on like a real bitch. Oh, she could be vicious when pushed. This Malthorpe you’re so interested in, and precious Maxi mouth Hackle, they were constantly circling each other, vying for top-dog biscuit. Sometimes their fists took over from the numbers. Stupid. Miss Sayer would really have a go at them for disrupting the class. She couldn’t stand slack. Me, I just got on with it. You know she hit Hackle once. He told you that?’
‘No.’
‘Course not. Yeah, strapped him hard. I mean, we were used to that kind of thing, but not from a woman teacher. That was the headmaster’s pleasure.’
‘What had Hackle done wrong?’
‘That was the weird bit. He’d helped little Blank-Blank with his homework. Not helped him; done it for him. It was first time Georgie Horn had got anything right. She went mad. Made us all stay in till someone confessed. Malthorpe confessed that Hackle had done it. Nasty.’
‘She sounds weird.’
‘It took me a while to get used to her. But when I did – bang! I was off and running. Couldn’t get enough numbers to satisfy me. I became her favourite, I think. Clever little Five-Four, she’d call me. Didn’t that make Hackle and Malthorpe mad. Domino!’
‘Aw. Only got two left as well.’
‘Tough. Another game?’
‘Go on then. Got to be somewhere at one.’
‘Oh yes? A date?’
‘No! Well, yes…’
‘I never thought…’
‘Kind of—’
‘I mean… I always blamed myself… making you…what’s his name?’
‘Jaz.’
‘Jazz? What, like John Coltrane? Now there was a questing spirit.’
‘Who?’
‘Give me strength. He’s a jazz musician, from the Sixties.’
‘Oh. No. Jaz… it’s short for Jazir.’
‘Sounds exotic. Eh? Eh?’
‘Get off! Yeah, he’s exotic. I suppose.’
‘Where you going? The pictures?’
‘Working, actually. Extra project for Max.’
‘Some date.’
‘He wants to see you.’
‘Jazir does?’
‘No! Hackle.’
‘Yeah. So he said.’
‘You’ve got his number?’
‘Somewhere. Come on, give us a game. Play to win, please.’
They played…
‘Domino!’ shouted this time before the game had even finished. ‘You can’t know that?’ said Daisy.
‘Three moves’ time. Believe me.’
‘No, I want to play it.’
Three moves later Daisy was knocking on wood and her father was laying down his final bone. ‘A little trick that Miss Sayer taught me. Great days. For a time. It all went bad. Why, Daisy, does everything have to go bad eventually?’
‘The law of diminishing returns. Let’s play.’
Shuffle, clack. Clack, clack, clack. Domino!
‘Hackle reckons I’ll never win against you,’ said Daisy.
‘Keep playing.’
‘You were telling me about it going bad.’
‘For me, it was when she started to introduce the number spells.’
‘What? Like the Black Math ritual?’
‘Oh yeah, she introduced Hackle to all that. She’d get the whole class chanting this rubbish about God being in the numbers, and how mathematics was the song of the universe. Bollocks. You know me, Daisy; I was never a dreamer. To me, adding up is adding up, a way to an answer. Hackle and Malthorpe fell for it totally. They had to, to keep up. Strange thing was, it worked. Somehow or other we produced these incredible exam results. She’d turned a bunch of all-time losers into golden winners. That’s when they sent down this school inspector bloke, can’t remember his name. Some tossed. He took one look at Miss Sayer and what she was up to and decided to make a case of it. He interviewed us all, one-to-one. I think we all more or less decided to hide the Black Math stuff. Someone decided not to. I often think it must’ve been that Georgie Horn. He was the only one with nothing to lose.’
‘They sacked her?’
‘It got very nasty. This inspector chap had obviously never seen anything like it before. He was calling it black magic, like witches and stuff. Perhaps it was. At the end, Miss Sayer went crazy. I mean, really. She was rolling around on the floor, screaming. I was freaked as well, just watching. That teacher was sure loaded with some bad stuff. Good stuff, bad stuff you know? Like most of us. She would have been fine without the government interference, and I’d be a genius. That’s what happens, Daisy, when the good is denied. Anyway, that was it, lessons over.’