The Button by Catriona Windle

We have a new teacher at school. She has long legs and short skirts. We don’t like her, she has a bad temper. When I spilled some water she pulled me off my chair by my pigtailed hair and threw me to the floor to mop it up.

One day I picked raspberries for her, carefully concealing the one with the worm under the others. “Eat them now, while they are fresh Miss,” and she did.

She taught us Geography, pointing out the colonies, making sure we knew where Britain was – “The Little Mistress,” she said proudly. She pointed out America. “There’s a man in America who has a button. If he presses it the whole world will blow up and we will all be dead.” We stared at her, silenced at last. In the playground for days after we talked about it. What colour was it? How big was it? Could it be pressed by accident? If we heard a rumble – thunder, or a big lorry passing through the village, we would stop in our tracks, looking at each other, united in our anxiety, until it passed.