Hecate, Queen of the Night

Ella emailed me on Saturday night. She really has gone too far this time and I told her so (but made a mental note to act as a character witness, should it come to it).

Ella is funny and intelligent, with the most pronounced sense of justice I have ever met and I admire her deeply for that. However, she seems to have a misguided naivety which sits uneasily on her personality and an amazing courage which unnerves timid old me.

I first met Ella over a year ago, at our usual bookshop cafe. Her son, Steven went to the school I had recently removed Pip from and she understood only too well why I had taken such extreme action during his GCSE year. Both Dee and I had been openly critical of what we saw as a failing school with little discipline and an incompetent headteacher and we knew we weren't alone in that. Dee set about to find the other disappointed parents.

It wasn't long before she found Ella, the mother of one of the new boys, whose behaviour was an obvious cause for concern. One night, at midnight, Dee phoned me, her voice breathless and hurried, her words tumbling out as she told me about the boy and his bitter mother. Within days we were all tightly wedged in our usual corner of the bookshop cafe, listening to Ella as she recounted the deception the headteacher had used to get Steven into school, agreeing with Ella that the school was not appropriate for him, then turning up at a tribunal hearing to say that she could meet all his needs and offering him a place, promising he could continue studying for five GCSEs when she didn't have the resources to teach three of them and then demanding more and more money from his education authority and social services as his behaviour deteriorated until he became a danger to himself and his fellow classmates. As the afternoon wore on, Ella's stories became funnier but her anger became more naked. We laughed when she recounted her regular meetings with the headteacher, her blatant accusations of lying, her parodies of the woman's clothes, walk and simpering. We gasped in horror when she told us of the day when she had marched out of a meeting, followed by the simpering headteacher, then turned on her and threatened her, swearing in solid, uncompromising anglo-saxon, then ran down to the car park, to throw up and empty her sweet wrappers on the ground, as the ultimate retaliation of a powerless woman. Ella had a loud voice and a booming laugh as we soon fell under her spell.

By that first meeting, although we didn't know it at the time, the headteacher's days at the school were numbered. Her boss, a determined and uncompromising accountant had to protect the reputation of his company and school. Although he rarely acknowledged our complaints and never apologised for the distress and upset our children were clearly suffering, he was carefully entering our complaints into his spreadsheets, analysing them, quantifying them and assessing the damage. He resolutely hugged his complaints procedure to his chest, refusing to implement it but he didn't need to, he could already see the headteacher was a liability and within six months she had left. However, by that time, fed-up with my powerlessness and aware that Pip was missing out on his education, I sent Pip to another school.

Ella kept Steven at the school, determined not to upset his education further. One Sunday evening she phoned up the school, to be told that he was washing staff cars, to atone for some previous sin, and hence was unavailable. She later found out that he had been in the city centre, climbing up the down-escalator. One evening he ran off to the nearest town with a very troubled teenager and tried to break into a shop. Another Sunday evening was spent running to the nearest railway station. The staff had been told not to follow him, so rang the police. By the time the police found him he was calm and asked to be driven back, but the school refused to accept him. The headteacher later told social services that the school could no longer care for him, as he had tried to jump in front of a train. Ella proved that the trains hadn't been running that afternoon.

Throughout the spring term we continued to meet up in the cafe, Ella recounting all the problems Steven was having, the lies the headteacher was telling and her pathetic attempts to remove him from the school. I told Ella about Pip's new school, his new found calmness, his successes and his achievements. Then suddenly, soon after Easter, Steven was expelled for threatening to throw stones at the headteacher. It was sudden, it was out of the blue and it was mismanaged by her. Ella found out later on that evening, when a social worker rang her to tell her what had happened and told her to wait for his possessions to be sent home. Steven found out later, when he arrived back home.

We found another school for Steven, with more professional staff and a keen understanding of his problems. But by then the damage was done. A year of poor behavioural management and lack of boundaries, failed GCSEs and months without the routine of school had taken their toll and he was unable to attend lessons. He developed a cruel streak and his parents could no longer deal with his anger. Neither could the police and it was decided to put him into care.

The months went by and we still met up for coffee, joined by more dissatisfied parents. The head teacher left and took up another headship at a state special school in a nearby city. Only Dee and Lulu kept their children at the school, the other four children having moved elsewhere.

Last week Pip was surfing the net and told me that he had found his old headteacher on facebook. I grunted a recognition but it didn't register. I should know by now that whenever he mentions her name he is always planning some obscure revenge which neither fits her crime nor is legal. The next comment shocked me and saw me running to the computer 'She's a witch.' Sure enough, as I scrolled down the page, I saw her link with a Wicca organisation. I clicked on the link and there was no mistake. 'That must be the friend she used to visit' said Pip, pointing to the blurry photograph of a middle aged woman who purported to advise on spells. I laughed and emailed Ella and Dee with the link.

On Saturday I got Ella's response, a copy of an email to the vicar of the church which neighboured the school and the managing director of the company which owned the school. 'Rest assured,' she wrote, 'if I had any idea that that woman was a witch, I would never have allowed my children to cross the threshold.' I phoned Ella up, to tell her I thought she had gone too far, feeling responsible for her actions because I had given her the link. 'It's only my opinion and my views, anyone is allowed to have an opinion!' she boomed 'I always said she was evil and I was right!' 'Well, I just thought she was incompetent,' my voice sounded weak and timid after Ella's determined tones. 'Shall I inform her new school that they are employing Hecate, Queen of the Night?' she giggled. 'That's too far!' I declared, for once sounding like I had a backbone to match hers 'don't you dare!'