Why do head teachers still scare me? They always did, as a kid: to me they were this stern, powerful figure of authority – something to be respected, avoided and feared. Of course, good little cripple that I was, I rarely had to see my headmaster, although I think he was involved that time I cracked my head open trying to ride my walker down the mound.

Yesterday, though, Katherine, the person I work with in my ‘job’, proposed introducing me to the headmaster of the school where I’m working. This is, of course, a good idea, and initially I thought nothing of it. Yet this morning I felt a slight pang of nervousness; I wondered whether I looked respectable. They were similar pangs I felt to the ones I used to feel when going to see a professor at uni. Part of me felt like a small kid again. As it turned out, the headmaster was busy, so our introduction will have to wait. But I still feel nervous.