"Molly!" Mrs Allworth spat the words as she slammed her open hand on the desk. Most of the children in the class were startled by the noise in the silence.

Molly jumped in her seat and looked up to see the substitute teacher sneering at her for no good reason. "Yes Miss?" Molly responded immediately when hearing her name.

"What do you think you are up to, you silly girl?" Mrs Allworth's left eye squinted and started to spasm as Molly felt her glare through to her soul.

"I'm reading Miss, like I've been told to" Molly spoke with honesty and conviction.

"You've been told no such thing you ridiculous girl, now put your book away and do the work I've given you!" Mrs Allworth's face was turning a funny shade of crimson.

"Miss I …" Molly began, but was quickly cut off by Mrs Allworth's sharp tongue.

"You are not here to backchat you silly girl, you are here to do as I say and I'm telling you to put your book away and do the work I've given you - NOW!"

The entire class had stopped working and were now looking at Molly who was looking quite puzzled and unsure of what to do next. Should she try and explain herself further to the substitute teacher or just close her book and pretend to do her work.

All the children in grade 6 at Banks Primary School new Mrs Allworth, she had a few children that went to the same school. One of her daughter's was in year 6. The others, a girl in grade 4, and the youngest, a boy in grade 2.

Her kids were real brats too and Molly wasn't alone in that thought, most of the other kids thought it as well. No-one ever did anything about them or even said anything to them when their behaviour was bad. It was and enigma; like the rules and regulations didn't apply to them because of who their mum was. It was all about connections…

You'll know the type of kids they are. They're always out there. Sweet as pie to the teachers, and some of the high-profile parents but mean as a hat full of bull-ants to the kids they didn't like. Mummy's pets that would snivel and whine until it became too much and some adult would give in just to shut them up.

Little precious things that would have everything they asked for or they'd perform, or the parents would be put on some guilt trip. They would always cave in – their cherubs would never go without. They were always perfect in their parent's eyes – they could do no wrong and yet they would be up to no good most of the time, wheeling and dealing.

Molly remembered when her little brother Jack was in kindergarten, only a year ago. Her brother came home very upset, because another boy in year 1 had pushed him into a wire fence and scared him.

Jack said that the boy held his arm across his chest and threatened him. Jack was crying when he told their Mum. He said the boy told him that he had to bring in all of his money every day and give it to him or he would bash him up.

Jack was really sad and frightened at the idea because he knew he didn't have any pocket money to give him and didn't know how to get any to stop the boy from bashing him or picking on him again.

Molly's Mum had heard of other instances where the same thing had happened to her friends' children. She was so livid, that she drove straight to the school to speak to the Deputy Principal, Mrs Springfield; who "chortled" when hearing what had happened.

It was "Just children playing" she said, "It's nothing to worry about, they'll sort it out and it will probably be forgotten by the morning".

This wasn't the case, as the boy approached Jack again the next day. Molly stepped in when she saw the boy hurting her brother and told him to get away from him and that he would be reported for being so mean.

Molly and Jack went to Mr Drysdale the Librarian who, was on playground duty at the time and Molly was surprised to hear the teacher say "dibber-dobber's-wear-nappies; now get back to your playground and finish your lunch before the bell goes. I don't want to hear any of this rubbish".

The culprit was little Allworth number 3, who was only in year 1 at the time.

Molly shepherded Jack, back to play with the other children and went off to be with her own friends, but keeping an ever watchful eye on the other boy that had been such a bully to her brother.

The school that Molly and Jack went to was a small school, in a newly built-up area and sometimes made it hard to attract teachers to come to work there because it was very new and didn't have as many facilities as the older and bigger schools did.

So, a number of teacher's that worked at the school, lived locally, often related to each other or had connections with each other somehow. Mr Drysdale was married to Mrs Allworth's sister, and it turned out that Mrs Springfield and some other staff members were having some work done by Mrs Allworth's family or her husband who was a builder and were having things done for them cheaply by their family connections.

How Mrs Allworth managed to teach any grade was a bit beyond belief. Maybe she was a good pre-school teacher or even a good kindergarten teacher, but in the higher grades, she was really hopeless. She treated everyone like they were babies or worse - just plain dumb!

Mrs Allworth would be the first substitute teacher Mrs Springfield would call if one of her staff called in sick or had a problem getting to work for some reason. Maybe because she lived right around the corner from the school, but Molly didn't think so.

Molly may have been "just a kid" but she and a lot of her friends were not stupid and they all worked out very quickly which teachers were ok and which ones weren't.

Molly's usual teacher Mr Jacobs, had suffered a mild heart-attack a couple of days earlier and was rushed to hospital so, Mrs Allworth was called in to take over his class. Thankfully Mr Jacobs was ok and recovering well and the class was told "he'd be back on deck" early the next week.

Molly and her friends couldn't wait until he was back at school. They all thought Mr Jacobs was the best teacher in the whole world and almost wished he could go with them when they went into high school next year. But for now they had Mrs Allworth…