The bank holiday weekend, and my birthday. 19 cards, plus phone calls from the family. The one from my Aunt Melina was apparently in Klingon. I phoned to ask for a translation but she was out. Aunt Melina is currently appearing at the Hippodrome as a knight trapped within a mechanical game invented by a seven-year-old. I suggested to my uncle that this sounded more like a pantomime than a summer entertainment. He agreed with a sigh, but said, “you know what your Aunt is like.”

But much more to the point, among saturday’s post I received, to my utter amazement, astonishment, delight, glee, general enhancement and I must admit a certain level of tension and apprehension (aren’t emotions complicated?), a letter from MI6. They expressed considerable interest in my application and suggested that I called them at once. I phoned at 10.03am and was told by one Wayne Hellinger-Sztompke that a field officer would visit my house at 10.15am. I was advised to keep the matter completely secret, so I am deliberately not writing this in my diary.

A Mr Roger Beshears turned up at 10.16am, apologised for being late but said it took him longer to walk down the garden path than he had anticipated.

I invited him in, offered coffee, offered a biscuit and offered to listen.

“You work for Mr Berlusconi ,” he said. I was about to deny it when I remembered that was the name of our headteacher. “When you return to school he will no longer be there. We are gathering data on his successor wish you to work with us. You will be assigned to MI17.”

“I thought you were MI6,” I said. “Foreign intelligence and security.”

“How do you know that?” he asked looking around cautiously. “Have you been approached by… others?”

“I’m just impressive,” I told him. “And I looked it up on the Guardian web site. That’s why I applied – overseas surveillance. I have been practising my dancing.”

“Dancing?” he asked curiously.

“A woman can pass herself anywhere if she knows enough dance steps,” I told him with more certainty than I felt. “What is MI17 Mr Beshears?”

“Administration,” he replied, adding, “call me Roger”.

“But I am already an administrator,” I said.

“An excellent qualification,” Call me Roger replied. “You are ideally placed. I look at you and cannot believe you are not really an administrator at all. You know how to administer, and I have heard on the climbing plant you are brilliant at the task. You will be in charge of co-ordination of data received, collating reports, and returning them to me.”

“No dancing?” I asked.

He confirmed there would be, as far as he could see, no dancing, although stranger things, he suggested, can happen to those of us inside military intelligence.

“But why are MI6 interested in Mr Berlusconi’s successor ?” I asked.

“That, of course, is secret, but I can tell you that the request has come from MI9. You will find your school changed.”

“Who are MI9?”

“Clandestine operations – escape and invasion.” He spoke in a tone that suggested surely I, as a respected member of MI17 would know that. I gave a nod to suggest that of course I did and was just testing him out.

I asked if there was a list of all the MI’s. “In your briefing pack,” he said, handing over a ring binder from his case. “Study it well, keep it safe. You live here alone?”

I told him I did, hoping he didn’t check the electoral roll. At the last count there was 86 in the broom cupboard. “The assignment,” he added “is to find out about the people running your school, as well as what happened to Mr Berlusconi . You will gather data and forward to me.”

I then suggested to my visitor that MI6 was surely already pretty much up to speed on the issue of how schools worked, and that if not they could ask the Department for Cushions and Soft Furnishings. Surely us worthy servants in MI17 had more we could offer in other fields. Whatever is happening at the school now is probably just a case of a lack of nutritional value in the custard and outbursts of swine fever among certain teachers.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Call, getting interested. Despite myself I had let myself get onto first name terms. “I knew you would be a first class operative. “File me more reports and we will get on famously.”

“But how?”

“You should wear your hat,” Call told me. “Would you like to come out for a meal tonight?”

I told him I was going dancing.

“I liked your notion of casual vandalism as a hobby,” Call said reminding me of what I put on my application form. “But we also need to know about the missing money from last term.”

“I like to keep up appearances,” I said.

“I’ll see you at the dance tonight then,” he said.

“What missing money?” I said.

“Do you jive or Salsa?” he said.

“But you don’t know which dance I’ll be at.” I said.

“The £2.5 million illicitly taken from the DfES,” he said.

“Ceroc,” I said.

“You can rely on military intelligence,” he said.

“We’re talking code, aren’t we?” I asked, “answering questions before they are answered,” but he was gone. I rushed down the garden path. “Where do we meet?” I asked breathless.

“At funerals,” he said.

“Any particular sort of funerals?” I aseked.

“Funerals of Romanians.”

“In Britain?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t they hard to find?””

“That’s the point.”

I bade him goodnight, feeling rather impressed. I appear to be a spy. And MI17 does seem to have a certain ring.