The Job Nobody Put Their Hand Up For

The job wheel went up on the wall on the first Monday of every month.

It was a big paper circle with all the jobs written round the edge, and a wooden peg for every name, clipped on. Miss Bhatia turned the wheel and everybody held their breath.

The good jobs were well known.

Line Leader was the best. Line Leader walked at the front, all the way to assembly, and nobody could go in front of Line Leader, not even Rehan, who tried.

Bell Monitor was second best, because of the bell.

Plants was quite good. You got the little watering can with the long nose.

Board Duster was good if you liked being covered in chalk, which quite a lot of people did.

And then there was Cupboard.

Nobody put their hand up for Cupboard. Cupboard meant tidying the shelves at the end of the day, when everybody else was already outside. Cupboard was a boring job with a boring name.

That month, the pegs went on fast. Rehan got Line Leader and did a small dance. Anya got the bell and rang it four times to check it still worked, which it did.

By the time Miss Bhatia got to Nita, there was one peg left, and one job left.

“Cupboard,” said Miss Bhatia.

“Oh,” said Nita.

And then Miss Bhatia opened her drawer, and took something out, and put it into Nita’s hand.

It was a key. A small silver one, on a red ribbon.

“That’s yours till the end of the month,” she said.

Nita put the ribbon round her neck.

On Tuesday, the football went behind the cupboard door at lunchtime, and the football was locked in.

“Nita!”

On Wednesday, Ishaan spilt the blue paint, and all the cloths were in the cupboard.

“Nita!”

On Thursday, the chalk ran out in the middle of a sum. Miss Bhatia said the new box was on the second shelf, and looked round the room.

“Nita?”

By Friday there was a queue.

Four of them, waiting by the cupboard door with their arms full. A coat. A paint pot. Somebody’s lost shoe. And Rehan, holding the football and being extremely polite.

Nita went up on her toes and put the key in the lock and turned it. The door came open with its usual little bang.

Then she gave everybody their things, one at a time, in the order they had come.

At the end of the day she tidied the shelves. It took eleven minutes and it was still, honestly, quite boring.

Then she turned off the light and locked the door. She went out into the yard with the red ribbon round her neck, and the key going bump, bump, bump against her sweater.