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Amy was laughing as she went into her classroom and Ava wondered if maybe she could hit the woman up for some tips. After all, Amy’s kids were even younger than her own, so she must have some idea of how to deal with them.

She took a deep breath before she opened the door and walked into her classroom. There seemed to be children everywhere she looked. One was on top of a bookshelf. Teacher voice, she reminded herself.

“Good morning, children.”

“Good morning, Ms. Stanford,” mumbled a chorus of voices as twelve children fought to get back to their seats.

Ava suppressed a smile as she watched them all clamber back into their chairs. Maybe she could do this after all. At least for a few days.

THE WHITE BOARD marker felt heavy in her hand and Ava was beginning to question her sanity.

“No, listen carefully,” she said. “I give you four cats on Monday. On Tuesday, I take two cats back again. How many cats do you have?”

Nathan Jackson rubbed his nose with his hand and then said: “Three.”

Ava bit her tongue to stop herself shouting.

When she’d seen math on the curriculum she’d had a quiver of fear. But then she’d figured that even she could teach six-year-olds math. Indeed, the exercises had seemed quite easy and the class had been doing well up until right now. Three times she’d asked Nathan the question, and three times he’d given the same, wrong answer.

“Four cats minus two cats is how many cats?” she tried.

“Two,” Nathan said with confidence.

Ava frowned. “Alright, so if I give you four cats and then take away two cats, how many cats do you have?”

“Three,” said Nathan with equal confidence.

Ava was about to snap when she had a sudden thought. “Nathan, do you already have a cat at home?”

The small boy nodded with a grin. “So when you give me four cats then I have five cats and when you take two cats away then I have three cats,” he said.

“Right,” Ava said. She put down the white board marker. She was exhausted and really couldn’t handle any more of this. She glanced down at the lesson plan that was on her desk. Whatever was next was going to start early, her math teaching career was at an end. “Let’s put our books away and…” She peered at the lesson plan. “And get ready for art.”

“Hurray!”

There was a bustle of busy noise as everyone put away their math books. Ava read the lesson plan a little more carefully. The children were supposed to paint insects, since insects were the over-arching theme for the next couple of weeks. Later there’d be a story called James and the Giant Peach, which was somehow insect related. But first, painting.

“The art cupboard is over there, miss,” piped up Alice, pointing to a cupboard to one side of Ava’s desk.

“Thank you, Alice,” said Ava.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Art. That was easy. Even she couldn’t screw this up. She might even get to sit down for a few minutes. What could possibly go wrong?

SHE LOOKED AROUND the classroom and couldn’t see a surface that didn’t have at least some paint on it.

The normal collection of various skin-colored faces that looked up at her were now purple and green and blue and, in the case of Carter Edwards, a rather startling yellow.

Not only that. The neat outfits that the children had worn into school this morning, with their white polo shirts that had the school logo and their blue pants and skirts, were now equally kaleidoscopic.

Ava let out a small moan that she hoped no one heard.

It hadn’t started badly. The children had taken paints and brushes and paper and had settled down to work with quiet industriousness. It had taken a good ten minutes before Ava noticed that Clara Buxton had painted the top of her desk as well as her paper. And another minute before she’d seen that Adesh Khatri’s centipede had extended down onto the floor.

Things had gotten rather worse since then, and asking the children to wash their hands had resulted only in paint all over the sink as well as the wall.

Ava moaned again. What was she supposed to do? She had no idea how to clean all this up, not to mention what to do about the children and their uniforms.

“Ms. Stanford?” said a small voice.