IN LOCUS PARENTIS

So often in our lives these days, nothing much happens. But this last Friday, we volunteered to do a job which turned out to be quite a responsibility. Our four year old granddaughter, Natasha, started school a week ago, and on Friday, she was going to be in a parade. Her parents - both working full-time - felt awful that they were going to miss this first big school event in their daughter’s life - but couldn’t see how they could get out of their commitments.

“We’ll come up and go to see her,” we said, thinking that it would be no hardship, and could be quite fun.

So we drove the 60 miles on Thursday evening, and stayed over night - to be fresh and ready for our first task - getting Natasha dressed properly for the occasion. She and her 29 classmates were going to be fish, and the girls were to wear pink and the boys, blue, and they would all be wearing fish on their heads to complete the costume. We searched out all the pink clothes in her cupboard. There were perhaps 10 items - in various shades. Some were too small, some were not the right shade of pink, some were not suitable for the season. Natasha wanted to wear her new pink shorts. I agreed, but only if she wore her pinkish Dora the Explorer trousers over them. “If it gets really hot you can take them off and just wear the shorts,” was the compromise. Then which of the pink tops? “I want to wear this one,” a white t-shirt with pink flowers on it.

Her dad came into the room just then. “That’s not pink. Here wear this one,” handing her a very pretty long sleeved blouse. “No, no, no. This one. I want to wear my Dora shirt,” she shouted.

“You must wear pink. It said on the note,” insisted her dad.

“I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.”

She was getting close to hysteria. “Why don’t you wear the Dora shirt underneath, and put another pink one on top,” I suggested, thinking as it had worked for the shorts, it might just work again.

“No, no, no,” she said, now close to tears.

“Well, what about a pink cardigan? Do you have one of those?”

So we searched the house over and found one that might possible do. “That’s red,” said her grampa, not helping at all.

“It’s a shade of pink,” I told him, giving him a look which means shut up and let me handle this.

So off we went to school at 20 to 9. The school is about half a mile away, but involves crossing a major road - but there is a pelican crossing. Natasha insisted on leading the way. No holding hands or waiting for us. But she did look both ways when she crossed the minor streets, and obediently stayed back with us until the green man finally flashed us to go on.

When we got to the playground, we looked around to see how “pink” the other girls were. Most of them were in school uniform. A few of the boys had dressed in blue, but of the 60 in the reception classes, I doubt if more than 10 had followed the instructions in the letter given to the children by their teachers. I wondered if some of those notes had never reached the parents at all.  But those who were pink, were in various hues and some quite purply-looking, if truth be known. Natasha looked quite smart, and took her place at the head of the line, waiting for the teacher to lead them from the playground into the classroom.

Andrea warned us, “She probably will want you to come into the classroom with her. And she might cry or not want you to leave. She hasn’t gone in alone at all so far, although she did look in envy at her friend Naomi who got a stamp on her hand for going in alone yesterday.”

But Natasha did us proud. She didn’t cry or look upset. She was very independent and pleased with herself.

Our next job that morning was to buy the shirt for the PE kit - driving to the other end of the town, finding a place to park, making the man go into the cellar of his shop to find the right size and colour. We also bought 25 (minimum order) iron-on labels - as all the previous labels had been used up.

When we got back, I had a look around the house to see what I could do to help. The dryer had three uniform blouses, which very obviously were going to need ironing. The washer was full, but the clothes had been washed, so I decided I could safely put them in the dryer. But looking at the labels, nearly all the items had a triangle with a big cross in it. I was pretty sure that meant they couldn’t be put in a dryer. So I found a clothes rack to put them on. We also soaked her uniform shirt she’d been wearing the night before - covered with the tomato sauce of our supper. Hours later, the stains were fainter, but still there. When the clothes came out of the dryer, I found out that I had forgotten to read some of the labels, and her dad’s underpants might have shrunk considerably in the process. So I quickly put them on the drying rack - thinking that they would assume it was the washing, not the drying that had done the deed.

Now it was time for our raison d’etre - the parade. We walked the mile of so to the building where it was to take place. But although the day had started fine, it was now spitting with rain. We worried that the children (and Natasha in particular) would get soaking wet. So we packed her cagoule, just in case, although I was pretty sure she wouldn’t thank us for forcing her to wear it if it meant covering up her pink outfit.

As we walked along the main street, we could look down the side streets and see the children from the school processing towards the objective. Obviously the parade had not been cancelled due to the threatening weather.

When we arrived at Victoria Hall, loads of other parents and grandparents were already lining the route. We watched many classes arrive and go into the hall, but no sign of Natasha’s group. We assumed they must have been one of the first groups there and had already gone inside.

We waited and waited. Various costumed teachers came out, and we knew that things were likely to start soon. A security man made us leave our good location, so the children had a clearer path for their parade. Now, at about half past one, the thing finally started. The theme was the 200^th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. Each class had their own aspect to show. It started with the loud speaker (drawn around the parade route by parents or teachers in top hats) playing the music of jungle book. The first lot of children had leopard skin and lion-like outfits, and carried alligators and tigers and elephants they had made out of paper mache.

We enjoyed it, but were still waiting to see our little one come on to do her bit. Finally the voyage of the slaves began across the sea, and out came the fishes. There were two groups, each child in each group hanging onto a blue bungy rope to keep them safe and together. They were very sweet and we took lots of picture, but we couldn’t see Natasha anywhere.

“She’s not there!” I shouted to Philip. “She must have been sick at school and couldn’t come.”

“Maybe her mother forgot to sign the consent form and so they couldn’t take her.”

“She’ll be so upset. I expect one of the teachers will have been left behind to take care of the children who couldn’t go. Maybe they tried to call us when we were out shopping. Maybe there was a message on the phone and we didn’t even think to listen.” I was feeling such a failure. My poor little grandbaby was no doubt crying her eyes out all alone at school, missing her first big event.

We just didn’t know what to do. The whole bunch of the school children had left the building and gone on parade - and not a sign of little Natasha. I wondered if we should ask somebody where she was. I wondered if we should go back to the school right away, to see if she really was sick and needed taking to the doctor. 

We decided to go around the building to the back, as the children were processing around the block, just to make sure we hadn’t missed her. It transpired that the leopard skinned children who had started the parade, had reached the end of the building, and were now coming out in front of us again. We would have one last look for Natasha when her group of little ones filed by.

Still looking at each little girl dressed in pink or purple or red, I nearly missed her. She had her blue jean jacket on - hiding all her pinks and reds and whites. And her fishy hat nearly hid her face - but it was her! I waved and shouted, “Natasha” and she grinned from ear to ear. She probably had thought we had forgotten to come, and had wondered why she hadn’t seen us before.

The relief! We walked alongside of her group, with Philip frantically taking pictures of each of her little classmates. Another full round of the block, and then the children were herded into the car park where there was a big stage. The older classes took it in turn to go on stage and do a little song and dance, and the little ones were told to sit on the ground to watch. We were still there nearby and she kept grinning at us - and posing as she does so well for the hundreds of photos her proud grandpa took. Then the little group got up and were ushered by their teachers back to their schoolrooms. It was now about 2.30 - and the pageant was still going on, but the object of our interest had left, so we retired to a nearby restaurant to get our equilibrium back, and rest our weary feet.

Not sufficient time for us to go home before we were to collect Natasha from school at 3.20,. we went to a nearby store and bought a kit-kat - which we thought she might like for an energy boost before the half mile walk back home. Then we sat in her playground waiting for her group to be released. I saw her waiting, and again she grinned her greeting of seeing us there to meet her. And when we were walking hand in hand out of the playground, she proudly showed the stamp on her hand.

“Was that for going in alone?” I asked.

“No,” she said, quite offended that I should think that. “It was for being good all day long. We only got the stamps now, after we had proved that we were good all day.”

“I’ve got a chocolate bar for you,” I said, thinking she would be thrilled.. “Would you like to eat it now?”

“Yes but you don’t have to tell my mummy,” she said, and I immediately knew we had made another mistake. But she was quite pleased to eat it, and had a piece of cheese as well on arriving home, which sort of made up for the junk food.

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing jigsaws with her, and finally her parents arrived back and our day of being in charge was over. Philip had downloaded the pictures of the day’s events onto their computer so her parents could see what they had missed. And we got in our car and returned home, rather glad that we didn’t have to do it every day.