The staff room at Columbia Road Primary School was probably the same as most primary schools across the country. All the usual suspects were there: the jammed photocopier shuddering in the corner with a thin trail of smoke leaving the back panel and a frustrated teaching assistant beating it with a handful of work sheets; the old teacher, who’d been there since the school was built, in this case, Mr Mulch with a cobweb hanging from his nose to the coffee cup in his hand; the sink full of dirty cups and plates that everyone denied was theirs; and the wall of trouble, a gallery of pupils to watch out for and, in some cases, avoid if you saw them in the corridor.

After all the children had gone home, two teachers remained behind to talk about the day. Mr Splendid sipped a coffee and was finishing off a biscuit bar. He looked care worn. Mrs Bluster was leaning back in her chair eating Haribos dipped in chocolate.

“I had an incident with Brad in your class today,” Mr Splendid started. He always found it hard telling teachers about their classes. It was too easy to sound like you were complaining.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mrs Bluster said, “Happens every day. Little nutter can’t control ‘imself. He loves to disrupt lessons.”

“I don’t think that’s what it was about. He finds the classroom environment incredibly challenging, but is a sweet boy when given the chance to flourish,” Mr Splendid said, bristling at her lack of care. Mrs. Bluster sensed his irritation and her cheeks flushed in return.

“I have a class of 30 kids in there so I don’t have time to pander to one spoilt boy when I have 29 other children who want to learn.”

“You don’t have children of your own, do you?” Mr Splendid asked.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” snapped Mrs Bluster, “Neither do you!” Now she really was annoyed.

“Not any more, no. But ‘what it has to do with it’ is that different people see the person in front of you in different ways. Where you see a problem to be swept under the carpet, I see a vulnerable child in need of some time and attention.”

“Well, what I see is a boy not doing as he is told. Of course I’m going to tell him off, how else will he learn?”

“When you were little, did you ever wish upon a star?” asked Mr Splendid. The question caught Mrs Bluster by surprise and, despite her better judgement, she gave a truthful answer.

“Yes. I never did get my wish. My parents never…” she stopped herself before she said too much.  Mr Splendid spoke on before she had a chance to back track.

“Imagine it did come true. Imagine you wished for starlight and a shining star fell from the sky and into your hands. It was all you had ever wished for and now it was yours to love and care for.” There was a power in Mr Splendid’s voice. A kind of resonance that forced you to listen and see what he saw. Mrs Bluster was suddenly speechless. Her eyes held a glassy sheen as she pictured a star in her hands. It glinted in her tears. Mr Splendid continued. “You look after Starlight. You don’t just feed her and shelter her. You raise her. You nurse her when she’s sick and you teach her to sing. You gift her all your love and show her all the goodness the world has to offer. You guide her when shaping her own hopes, dreams and wishes. You and your starlight are one. You complete each other.”

Mrs. Bluster’s face filled with the wonder and contentment conjured up by his words. Her wishes had finally come true.

“When you and Starlight are at your most harmonious, you have to give her up. You have to share her. You will get the evenings, when your Starlight rests and sleep. They will get the day time, when she is full of life and ready to learn like a riverbed after a drought. Would you want that other guiding light in her life to care? Should they want the best for your Starlight? How would you feel if your Starlight came home at the end of the day angry and anxious, scared and upset? Would you question what was happening?

“A parent never wants their child to suffer a moment of pain. Yes it’s unrealistic, but this did all start with dreams and wishes. Why should that stop?”

Mrs Bluster stared down at her uneaten sweets, any appetite long since gone. Her tears mixed with quickly solidifying chocolate. She had some soul searching to do. Mr Splendid left without another word. If it was even possible he looked even more tired, completely spent.

***

Brad’s window could never lock properly. If you turned the key it would just click and keep turning. This made it easy for him to sneak out in the night. He’d done it before, but only once. He’d gone to the end of the street, just to see if he could. He could. This time it would be different. This time he had a mission. Mr Splendid’s house was not too away. He’d looked it up and planned his route in advance. Following his plan to the letter was easy despite it still being quite busy around that evening.

Brad noticed lots of details others would have missed. The garden was ten point seven metres long, which was bigger than the average lawn in the area. The house was also about twenty-six percent bigger than other houses around it. This meant it was an expensive house and Mr Splendid did not have money troubles. Brad enjoyed the feeling of being right before heading around to the back of the house to see if he could get in. That’s when he heard the raised voices. Mr Splendid had said he’d been arguing. This sounded more intense than that. It was coming to a head.

“Get out!” a woman’s voice shouted. It was thick with emotion, she must have been crying. Brad backed off instantly. He had never been good when people started to cry. He could not think of the right thing to say to fix it. So Brad stayed outside.

“I can’t leave now, I can’t let you get away with it.” That was Mr. Splendid. His voice was torn through with anguish too. Brad had never heard his favourite teacher sound like that before.

“This is my house,” shouted the woman’s voice. That explained the size of the place. “you can’t tell me what I can and can’t do under my own roof.”

“You mustn’t do that to the children. It’s wrong.”

Brad had no idea what they were talking about. He felt like that a lot of the time but he itched to go and found out so he inched closer to the house.

“Look at it from my side for just a minute,” she pleaded, “If I do this, I save lives. If I was in charge, think of the good I could do. All the things we’d talked about. I would end suffering. These people, they have no life. I would be setting them free. I’m saving them.”

“You’d be killing them. Murder is murder. No matter how you dress it up,” he said angrily. “I have a duty, a responsibility.” There was a power to his voice again.

“Go live your life as Splendid. The teacher. You’re good at that. Leave the special life for us who have the courage to do what is needed.”

Brad snuck up to window to get a look at the woman who was upsetting Mr Splendid so much. What he saw shook him to his core.