| |
“How did it go?” Anna asked when she got back to school. “All sorted?”
“As much as it can be, for now.”
She considered confiding in Anna about what the tow truck guy had said, but then decided not to. Anna liked to gossip, and she didn’t want it getting around that someone had slashed her tyres deliberately. A chill ran through her at the thought. What if it wasn’t Violet, and was someone else she hadn’t even thought of? She liked to think she didn’t have many enemies, but that wasn’t exactly the truth, was it? Lately, it felt like she had more enemies than friends.
The bell rang to signal the end of school. While she wasn’t finished with her work yet, she knew the afterschool club Ollie attended allowed the children to have a play for fifteen minutes or so to burn off some steam. She caught his eye through the window and gave him a wave before he ran off again.
The phone rang, and she answered it. One of the parents was running late, and they’d need their child watched until they could get there—ten or fifteen minutes at the most.
Shouts came from the playground.
Her heart thumped, and she jumped to her feet. Instinctively, she knew it had to do with Ollie. Kristen ran out of the office and into the playground. Though school was over, some of the kids had been having a run around before going home, the mums standing in small groups and catching up on the gossip.
Ollie should have been with the afterschool club group, who were given a separate area of the playground, but instead she saw him tussling with Felix, a small gang of other boys standing around them.
“Hey!” she yelled. “Hey, stop that, now!”
She ran over and grabbed both boys, pulling them apart. She was shocked to see blood running from Ollie’s nose, while the bigger boy looked fine except for ruffled hair and his shirt pulled out of his trousers.
“What the hell is going on here?” she demanded.
Both boys stared sullenly at the ground, refusing to answer.
“Are you okay, baby?” she asked her son, fishing into her pocket for a tissue and giving it to him to put to his bleeding nose.
The clip-clop of high heels marched towards them.
She turned to discover Rachelle standing behind her, immaculately dressed as always, an expression of concern on her made-up face.
“Felix was fighting with Ollie again,” Kristen snapped.
“He started it,” Felix said, sulkily.
Kristen let out a huff of air. “Oh, please. How did Ollie start it?”
Felix poked out his lower lip. “He called me a name. I heard him!”
Ollie looked both baffled and worried. “No, I didn’t. I was just playing, and he told me to come over ’cause he wanted to ask me something.”
Rachelle stepped in. “Then we just have two children’s words against each other.”
Kristen ignored her and looked to Felix. “Is that true?”
“No! He called me an idiot. I heard him!”
“Even if Ollie did call you an idiot,” she said, “which I highly doubt he did, that’s no reason to punch him in the nose.”
“I didn’t. He must have hit it on the ground or something.”
“See,” Rachelle said, “Felix didn’t even hit him. It was just an accident.”
Kristen saw red. She’d had enough of this woman making out like her son was innocent all the time, when that clearly wasn’t the case. Before she had even considered what she was doing, she spun around to face Rachelle.
“I swear to God,” she said, shoving a finger into Rachelle’s smug face, “if you won’t punish your kid for hurting mine, I’ll do it myself.”
Her eyes widened, her mouth dropping open in aghast horror. “Did you just threaten my son?”
“I mean it, Rachelle. If Felix lays a single finger on Ollie again, I’ll show him exactly how it feels to be bitten, and hit, and pushed over.” Her fury was blinding, the words pouring from her mouth. She was so angry and frustrated—frustrated at the school’s insistence they’d done everything they could to protect Ollie, when that clearly wasn’t the case, and frustrated by Rachelle’s refusal to see and accept what a horrible little bully her son was. Kristen had never hurt a child, and had no intention of doing so, but she just wanted this all to stop. She’d worked hard for so many years to hold everything together, that to have it all fall apart because of one six-year-old boy felt horrendously unfair.
“You can’t go around physically threatening small children,” Rachelle snapped. “What the hell is wrong with you? You work at a school, and you think that kind of behaviour is all right? I’m afraid that if you plan to hurt my child, how many other children are you thinking about hurting.”
Kristen stuttered, jerking back in shock. “What? No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I don’t plan on hurting children!”
“Really? Because that’s not what it sounded like to me. Frankly, Kristen, I think this has become a safe-guarding issue now, and really needs to be reported.”
She spluttered with disbelief. “You have got to be kidding me! Your son is violent towards mine, day after day, and you think I’m the one who is the safe-guarding issue?”
“The boys are just children. They rough and tumble a little. It’s perfectly normal, and perhaps it will help Ollie to toughen up instead of being so overprotected all the time.”
Kristen clenched her fists to her sides to prevent herself launching at the other woman and clawing her face off. She’d never been a violent person, but somehow the combination of Rachelle and Felix sparked something inside her. All she was trying to do was take care of her child—that was all she’d ever wanted to do—and now somehow that was demonising her.
Just like her mother.
“Stop making excuses for Felix,” she managed to splutter. “It’s not play if one of the children involved doesn’t want to be and ends up getting hurt. I won’t put up with it anymore, Rachelle!”
Her eyes were hard and cold. “Yeah, I heard you. You’ll hurt Felix, isn’t that what you said?”
“Stop twisting my words and think about parenting your son properly instead.”
Not letting her get another word in, she took Ollie by the hand and marched him towards the bathrooms. She needed to clean up his poor nose and then she’d take him home early. Screw whatever Andrew might think about it. Taking care of Ollie was more important than trying to please a headteacher who was consistently failing him.
***
BACK AT HOME, SHE PREPARED dinner, close to tears the entire time. She kept replaying what had been said in the playground, wishing she’d handled things differently. She should have kept her temper, she knew that now, but that, combined with the slashed car tyres, and her sister, and Stephen, had all just been too much, and she’d snapped.
Kristen bent to take the tray containing the jacket potatoes out of the oven. Grabbing the edges in a tea towel, she slid the tray out.
“Shit!”
It had been hotter and heavier than she’d anticipated, and the tray slipped from her fingers, spilling cooked potatoes all over the floor.
Kristen stared down at their ruined dinner and burst into tears.
“Hey.” A concerned male voice came from behind her. “What’s wrong?”
Firm hands on her shoulders pulled her around, and she found her face pressed to a broad chest. Haiden’s comforting scent surrounded her, and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, holding her tight. The heat of his breath warmed the top of her head as she cried against his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” she said, embarrassed by her tears. “It’s just been a really horrible day.”
He released her and quickly stooped to pick up the potatoes. “Three second rule?”
She gave a wane smile. “More like three-minute rule.”
“It’ll be fine. We just won’t eat the skin.”
“Thanks Haiden.” She swiped her tears away with her palm.
“You want to tell me what happened?” he asked, setting the potatoes back down on the tray.
She considered not telling him, but realised she’d feel better by sharing. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, but a problem shared, and all that. She filled him in on everything, from the slashed tyres to the issues at school. Haiden listened, his normally smooth brow furrowed.
“That’s horrible,” he said when she’d finished. “No wonder you’re upset.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ve been through worse than this and come out of it. You just caught me at a bad time. I’m sorry I unloaded on you. This isn’t your problem.”
He reached out and touched her chin, so she lifted her face to his, her heart thumping for a whole different reason. “You can unload on me anytime, Kristen. I’m right here for you, okay?”
For the first time that day, she smiled. “Okay.”
It felt good to have someone on her side, for once.