Percy Dale walked home from Killara Station. He was eleven, and it had been some months since he had spent an enjoyable Christmas holiday period of his life with Jennifer Winters, the twelve year old girl who lived in the house behind Ordinairy Man Manor. He had been ten when he had met that girl when he was ten, and had since turned eleven.

On this particular day, he just come home from Waverton Boys Preparatory School, located two streets from Waverton Station. It was a Wednesday afternoon. Percy made himself a hastily prepared afternoon tea consisting of chocolate wafer biscuits and fruit juice. He then turned his attention to his homework.

Mathematics was easy for him. If he learnt the new rule or formula for the lesson at school, he could complete a number of homework questions in very little time. English grammar was similar, although compositions required and extra degree of thought. Social studies was the problem. Percy did not lend himself graciously to the task of exploring an atlas, and he had equal difficulty in writing an essay about a portion of world history. In time, Percy would move up into Waverton Boys High School, which was around the corner from its preparatory counterpart. There, Percy would discover, social studies was replaced by two subjects: history and geography. Fortunately, he would be able to abandon geography in pursuit of a foreign language subject in school year eight, also referred to as second year in high school. The foreign languages he studied in high school would prove useful in his adult Sneaky Spy adventures overseas.

After making a reasonable effort at his homework, Percy found other ways to amuse himself, until it was time for dinner. He then read a chapter of a novel before lying down, switching off his reading light and preparing to go to sleep. He could never drop off to sleep immediately after dinner.  

Having decided that dinner was the most counterproductive meal of the day, Percy would spend up to an hour reading in his bedroom between dinner and sleep, in order that the revitalising effects of the food would be somewhat negated.

Now it was time to relax and enter the world which was different in many ways, each time one went to visit it. To Percy, the world of dreams would alter at least once every twenty-four hours, depending on how many dreams he would have in one night.
Percy was soon sound asleep. The weeks and weeks of sixth class that he had, in reality endured that year had been replaced by the end of those Christmas holidays. He was still ten years old, and he was about to commence his first day of sixth class. He wondered about his teacher. Would learning be fun? It had been enjoyable in the previous year, if he ignored certain unpleasant events.

He arrived at school at half past eight, which gave him about half an hour to spend in the playground, before the school bell announced the unwritten instruction to move into the classrooms. One of the teachers had left the school at the end of fifth class, Percy remembered, and there had been some talk of rearranging the remaining teachers' classes, and leaving one free for the replacement teacher. Percy wondered about the likelihood of sixth class being taught by the new teacher. Sometimes new teachers were easier to get to know, because they were politely feeling their way around an unfamiliar system in a previously un-encountered area of educational territory.

"What did you do in the holidays, Percy?" asked one of the boys.

The question rang like a fire alarm in Percy's ears.

"Oh no," he thought, "I cannot tell people about Jenny. She was my little secret. Now she's gone. How would these boys understand about the cubby house in the bushes, the Christmas party we had, the chasings and the hide and seek in the gardens at night, the adventures as Sir Percival Knight and Princess Jentil, and worst of all how much it made me feel so sad to say goodbye to her?"

He thought about it and eventually replied, "Oh nothing much. I just did a few things at home."

"You never go away, do you? How boring. Good one, Percy."

Time rolled on in the dream world, and then the bell rang. Percy walked into the classroom and sat down in the front row. He would be close to the door at recess, lunch and at the end of the day. He would also have easy access to the garbage bin, and would have less distance to walk, if he needed to bring a question out to the teacher's desk in order to ask for help. There was one more reason for sitting almost in front of the teacher. Percy would be able to get on with his work, because any attempts to harrass him would be more readily seen by a teacher if he sat in the front row.

"I wonder if we'll get old Wacky," said one of the boys. The origin of the nickname of the teacher concerned had never been publicly declared. Percy had guessed at three possible reasons. Firstly, linguistic corruption could be responsible for converting Mister Jackson's name to Jacky and then Wacky.  Secondly, the word Wacky could refer to the suspicions held by numerous people, that Mister Jackson was becoming senile in his later years of life. Finally, Mister Jackson's nickname could act as an alternate adjective, pertaining to Jackson's reputation with a long thin stick. He was known, in the educational circles at Waverton Boys Preparatory School as being "the hardest caner in the prep."

"Well I hope we don't," said Percy, turning his head around to look back at the boy who had first mentioned Mr Jackson.

"Don't you have any respect for the school rules?"

The voice came from the doorway into the classroom.

It was not Jackson's.

Percy turned his head back to face the front of the classroom, feeling most unfortunate about the likelihood of the teacher arriving as soon as he had turned his back.

The voice sounded vaguely familiar, as it continued: "Yes, you. Turn around, face the front and stop talking. You should be quietly waiting for the first class of the year to start. Your behaviour is absolutely shameful for somebody in the first few minutes of sixth class."
"So we do have the new teacher, and all of the good things about that may not happen now," he thought, "I've gotten off to a bad start with a brand new teacher, and now all my hopes about a fresh new year have gone to waste. Why oh why did I have to turn my back and talk? It's just not like me to do that, but somehow I did."

Such is the confusion of events which occur in a dream, where a person can act in a manner which is highly inconsistent with his character, then recognise the fact and face the humiliating scarcity of explanations for such an apparently incongruous act of misbehaviour.

He felt a strange mixture of emotions revolving in his mind. This new teacher had been a surprise to him, a shock which had taken him into an unexpected round of embarrassment. Despite the surprise, Percy had the confused suspicion that he knew this teacher in some distant way.

He racked his brains and shovelled into the soil of his memory, searching for the chronological location of any clue which may serve to remind him of a possible previous encounter with this teacher.

"Well now that you're all quiet," said the teacher, "You can write my name in your home lesson books, and then copy down the class timetable as I write it on the blackboard. My name is Miss Winters."

"That's it," thought Percy, "but how? Jenny Winters didn't have a sister, and this lady doesn't look like Jenny's mother. She looks and sounds like an older Jenny. It makes no sense. Jenny should be twelve, and with her hair up in a ponytail. It's crazy. She's too different from Jenny to be Jenny; but she's also too much like Jenny for her not to be Jenny. I cannot be making it up. She had a voice I remembered even before I turned around to see her walking angrily into the room. She must be Jenny Winters. I've got to understand all this somehow."

Percy realised that he had been lost in thought. Miss Winters rubbed Monday's timetable off the board, in order to make room for Wednesday's.

She looked at least as  pretty as young Jenny Winters had been, probably even prettier, Percy decided. Percy turned to look at the timetable for Monday on the desk adjacent to his. The boy let Percy copy it.

"You again!" snapped Miss Winters, "What's your name?"

"You already know," thought Percy, before he almost made the mistake of saying it out aloud.

"It's Percy Dale, Miss Winters."

"Well Percy, why can't you copy from the blackboard like all the other boys?"

"I didn't get all of Monday's stuff written down, Miss Winters."

In truth, the brain has two sides, one that dreams and one that reads, making it impossible to read anything in a dream.

"Let's see what you're missing," she said as she approached his desk, "What? You haven't even started it! You naughty little boy! You can stay in at recess and I'll dictate the timetable to you then. I'll teach you to sit in my classes doing nothing."

Percy was almost in tears from the surprise. She did not remember him. There was no sense in attempting to relate the story of their Christmas holidays adventures to her. She would probably punish him further. There was nothing to do except try to find proof that she was Jenny Winters. Then and only then could he attempt to tell her the truth and ask her some questions.

"Well maybe it's good that I have to stay in at recess," he decided, "It will be just her and me. Maybe I can find out something then."

They finished copying the timetable, and then started the first lesson. It was social studies, and Percy found it unusually interesting, enjoyable, and for reasons only possible in a dream, he was able to do it well. He even scored full marks in the quiz at the end of the lesson.

"Jenny had a better way of teaching it just now than my old teacher had last year," he thought, and then he realised that he had called her Jenny without thinking, "but Jenny Winters and I used to be equals and friends and in love, like on television. Now this Miss Winters thinks that I am a trouble causer, and she's my teacher. She is older and looks down on me and doesn't like me. If only I could know it was really her and things could be happy again."

An idea suddenly came to Percy as he was putting his social studies quiz into his desk, leaving the desktop free to receive the mathematics exercises being handed out as Miss Winters paced the rows of the classroom. Jenny had been taller than Percy, and Miss Winters, a lady apparently in her mid twenties towered over these sixth class schoolboys. She was one of the tallest ladies Percy had seen. How had she managed to be so similar to Jennifer Winters, and yet so different?
"I know," thought Percy, "There is one way to make any teacher like me. I'll work very well, better than all the other boys. If I can do this well in social studies, the maths and English will be so easy. Then she will like me enough to believe that I used to know her, or someone very much like her. Then she can perhaps be like Jenny Winters again, sort of. I can see her every day at school. Imagine that. Instead of school being awful because I never see the girl I missed, I will be able to look forward to going to school for five days a week, and that will make the weekends worse than school instead, because school will be better. Maybe I can even see Miss Winters on weekends too. That would be something."

"Alright boys," said Miss Winters, "You won't be able to get your books from the school shop until after lunch. So these are just some more exercises to keep you all thinking until later. If you get stuck, go onto the next ones, and we'll go through it all in about twenty minutes."

Percy began to work through the mathematics exercise, until his train of thought was interrupted again by the voice of Miss Winters:

"Well I think you're all doing a good job at social studies. I've just worked out that Benjamin got the second highest mark, and the top mark was one hundred per cent in social studies, so someone else did even better."

Why had Miss Winters read out Benjamin's name and mark and ignored Percy's name?

"I got higher than Ben. Well I'll do even better in maths anyway," thought Percy.

To exceed a score of full marks is hardly a plausible feat. However, Percy's intention to improve on his social studies performance when he did mathematics was based on his hopes of achieving full marks while all other boys in the class achieved considerably less than Benjamin's social studies score, when their marks were totalled up for the mathematics quiz.

*          *          *          *

Percy achieved his goal, but he was still unable to comprehend why Miss Winters again declined to mention his name. He put his hand in the air and waited until Miss Winters noticed him and said "Yes Percy."

"Who got full marks each time in maths and social studies, Miss-"

"How do you know it was the same person each time?" asked Miss Winters.

"Well I don't, but I just meant whichever two people it was. I mean, I'd like to know."

"Why don't you mind your own business and think about your own marks?"
"Yes Miss Winters."

"You can all go to recess now, except for Percy Dale," said Miss Winters.

The other boys left the classroom, and Miss Winters began to dictate the timetable. Percy wrote it down in his book and wondered if she would say anything about the Jennifer Winters girl whom Percy could not forget.

"After all, we're alone now. Maybe Miss Winters was keeping it secret, and she does remember me," thought Percy.

"That's better. Now why can't you copy it off the board like everyone else in the class?"

"Well I'm sorry. I was just daydreaming by accident."

"Why do you daydream in class time? Are my lessons supposed to be too boring for you?"

"No, they're good. I was just thinking about a friend I used to know."

"Well please do your daydreaming at home. Any more of it in class, and you can do detentions after school to make up for the work that you miss out on while you're thinking about your friends."

"I won't do it again, Miss Winters."

"I'm a new teacher here, Percy, but that doesn't mean that I don't know what little schoolboys get up to. If you want to misbehave, then you'll be punished for it. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Miss Winters."

"I hope so, because if I have any more trouble from you, then you will have a lot of trouble from me. I'm here to make you all work hard for the whole term. You're in sixth class now, not kindergarten or pre-school. I just won't put up with all the antics that silly little boys get up to."

Percy put his home lesson book in his desk, and Miss Winters allowed him to venture out into the playground for the remaining five minutes of recess.

"Would you like me to carry your bag to the teachers' room, Miss Winters?"

"I'll carry it myself, thank you, and you just be seated at your desk quietly when class resumes in five minutes."