Louise arrived back at St Michael’s too late for the headteacher to conduct the bitter interview that she had planned. Tight-lipped, she put it off until the end of afternoon school. But her anger did show through, quite clearly.
‘Miss Shaw,’ she said. ‘This must be sorted out. I will no longer tolerate such behaviour in my school.’
Miss Shaw indeed! Louise felt her chest tighten angrily.
‘What behaviour?’ she said.
‘There are rumours flying everywhere. All the children say Simon Mason killed the gerbil. They say he poured paint everywhere, wrecked the resources centre.’
‘What nonsense!’ replied Louise robustly. ‘What does Mr Taylor say? It isn’t true.’
The buzzer was clattering on the wall above Mrs Stacey’s head. Passing children - teachers too - had looked at them with open curiosity.
‘Nevertheless,’ snapped the headteacher, ‘I want it sorted out. I want an explanation from you. At break.’
‘I’m sorry, I won’t be free at break. I—’
‘At final bell, then! In my room!’ She paused, momentarily. ‘There are standards in this school, Miss Shaw, and they must be maintained. I expect you to maintain them, as my deputy.’
She turned and steamed off, her shoulders and her bottom swaying aggressively. Ten seconds later Brian appeared beside Louise. He had been watching from a distance.
‘I’ll swing for her,’ said Louise flatly. ‘She’ll drive me up the wall.’
Brian’s face was troubled.
‘Look, Louise,’ he said, ‘I’ve got some news for you. Bad news. About your Simon Mason.’
Her stomach hollowed.
‘Go on.’
‘I caught him out at dinner. He attacked the Royle boy. Snot and sandwiches everywhere.’
‘Oh no! Oh, Brian… was it serious?’
‘He used a rock again. It could have been appalling.’
Mrs Stacey, it quickly became clear, wanted to make an issue out of it. The two women faced each other across her desk, but it might as well have been the Grand Canyon, they were so far apart in attitudes.
She had spoken to Mr Taylor, she told Louise, and she had gained an admission from him that paint had been thrown about. She had spoken to several of the children at random during the afternoon and been told – clearly and categorically – that Simon Mason had left the lid off the gerbil cage and that Butch had eaten the animal.
‘This,’ she said, importantly, ‘is not what you told me, Louise.’
‘It is not what I told you,’ she replied, ‘because it is not what I knew at the time. I still do not know that it is the truth. Children, in my experience, don’t make the most reliable of witnesses.’
Mrs Stacey was impatient.
‘Some children do. One can tell the ones who lie habitually, can’t one? And Mr Taylor has confirmed it. Isn’t that enough?’
‘Confirmed that Butch did the eating?’ Louise could not keep a small note of sarcasm from her voice. ‘I should have thought only Butch could—’
Mrs Stacey’s face went red. Her lips tightened and she drew in a sharp breath through her nose.
‘Louise! I insist that you take this seriously! Here we have a boy who is a liar and a bully! Off your own bat you gave him every chance, and he behaved abominably! Still you defend him, and now you stoop to silly jokes! I will not have it!’
They stared at each other, tight with anger. Louise regretted her sarcasm, but she could not say so now. What could she say? That she was not convinced? That there was still no evidence?
But Mrs Stacey had not finished.
‘Before you go on,’ she said, ‘perhaps I ought to tell you of another thing. This too is rumour, or hearsay at least, but you ignore it at your peril. There was another incident at lunch-time. Your Simon attacked the Royle boy. Mr Kershaw had to intervene. I am due to speak to Brian in a few minutes, and if he confirms it, I intend to take some action. This is bullying, Louise, and I am going to stamp it out. That is a promise.’
All Louise could think of, for the moment, was that Simon had been called ‘hers’ again - the second time. Odd, she thought, how people pinned their problems on to someone else.
‘Mrs Stacey,’ she began, after a pause. ‘Simon Mason has got problems, I’m well aware of that. But…’
There was a knock, and Mrs Stacey moved immediately to the door and opened it. It was Brian, looking rather sheepish. Bang went Louise’s chance to have a quiet word with him before the interview.
‘Ah, Brian,’ said the headteacher. ‘Do come in. Louise is leaving now.’
As she passed him, Louise tried to mouth a message. He tried to read her lips, pretending not to. They said, quite plainly, ‘don’t tell’.
But as she walked along the corridor, she knew that she was clutching at straws. How could he not tell? What else could he say?
It was hopeless.
Simon, throughout the afternoon, had only one thought in his head - escape. He paid even less attention to anything than usual, and jumped like a startled rabbit when Mrs Earnshaw shouted at him. He worked out plan after plan for getting away at home-time, and did not think that any of them would work. Anna and Rebekkah - with a little help from David - would have all routes covered. They would grab him and frog-march him to the field and fill him in. This time there was no escape.
Strangely, it was easy. When the buzzer went he ran for the door, ignoring Mrs Earnshaw’s outraged shout. He ploughed through the children trickling out of other class-rooms to collect their coats from the passageway, and he was in the inner yard within twenty seconds. He left the main gate so fast he almost ran underneath a car, despite the outer barrier that was meant to stop such things happening, and by the time the first knot of children came on to the pavement he was two hundred metres down the road and going well. He arrived at his own front door half an hour earlier than he could remember ever having done before.
His mother was at home, and she was surprised to see him. She too had spent the afternoon worrying, and had hurried back from Baxter’s the moment she was free. She had decided to make him a nice tea, beefburgers and chips and the vile tinned peas that were his favourites. Miss Shaw’s visit had upset her horribly, and she had decided to be calm and nice, and talk it through with Simon sensibly, find out what had been happening. The moment they set eyes on each other, it started to go wrong.
The trouble was that Simon wanted to tell her, too. He wanted to tell about the way Anna and Rebekkah bullied him, about the way Butch had killed his gerbil, about how he’d been driven to a violent rage at dinnertime and spilled David Royle’s sandwiches. He would never have admitted it, but he wanted to fall into her arms and sob his heart out.
She stood in front of him, pale-faced in her apron, an open tin of peas in her hand. His lip began to wobble and his mouth began to gape. He tried to speak, to get it out, but only made an ugly noise that juddered in his throat.
‘I’ve been,’ he said. ‘I’ve been… These kids…’
As his mother watched, a small run of snot appeared from his left nostril, and grew into a bubble. He wiped his jumper sleeve across his face and left a trail across his cheek. Something in her broke.
‘You’ve been bullying!’ she shrieked. She raised her hand in a sudden gesture and peas flew from the open tin in a glutinous, slimy mass. They fell on to the cooker and the work surface, and dripped on to the floor. ‘Your teacher’s been and told me everything! You’ve let me down again! Oh Simon, why do you do it? Why?’
Simon’s eyes were now wide like his mouth. He was full of horror.
‘What teacher?’ he gasped. ‘Who?’
‘Never mind who! It could have been any one of them, couldn’t it? You’ve been lying to me, you’ve been telling lies again! What have you been doing, you bad, bad boy!’
‘Nothing!’ he yelled. ‘Nothing! Nothing! Nothing! Why don’t you believe me, why do you believe that old cow! It’s kids, not me! They’ve been getting me, not me getting them!’
‘Liar! That woman drove here! She said you’d been up to your usual tricks! Bullying!’
It could only be Miss Shaw. Mrs Mason slammed the tin down and Simon flinched, backing himself up to the door frame. She touched her hair, leaving a large green splash of pea juice, and he slid further along the wall. He was not frightened, he was still full of horror. It could only be Miss Shaw, and he’d called her an old cow, and he had not meant it. Somehow, against all the odds, he had thought that she was on his side. He’d been wrong.
Any danger of his mother hitting him was past. She stood unmoving, with peas and slime all down her arm. She was exhausted.
‘Why do you do it, love?’ she said. ‘Why do you do it to me, Simon?’
He turned and ran away, out into the street. He did not go to the chalkpit, but up the hill the pit was carved out of. He crawled into a bush and looked out at the sea from deep inside its thorny heart. There were some sailing boats with multi-coloured sails, but they did not interest him.
He thought of Diggory.
At the chosen field, Anna and Rebekkah had their court case, and sentenced Simon Mason - in his absence - to a real good battering. David, who was certain now that everything would end up badly, spent the whole trial muttering and sulking.
‘If you won’t take part, shut up!’ said Anna, at one point. ‘You’re spoiling it.’
‘You’ll end up in the dock as well,’ warned Rebekkah. ‘For you we might bring back the death sentence. Stretch a point.’
‘Stretch a neck!’ said Anna. ‘Look, David, it’s all quite legal, this. You can try people if they jump their bail.’
David secretly thought that if they used their brains, they could have found where Simon had jumped his bail to pretty easily. He’d have put good money on him skulking in the chalkpit, where they knew he played alone a lot, having stalked him on occasion. But he was having nothing more to do with the so-called trial, if he could help it. Whatever fun there’d been in baiting Simon had dwindled long ago.
There was not that much fun, indeed, even for the girls. It had not occurred to them that he would not come, they had not dreamed he might be brave enough to dare defy them. When the sentencing was over they joined David.
‘He’ll regret it,’ Anna said. ‘I vote we give him extra for annoying us. Wasting our time. Three Chinese burns, until he cries. What’s up with you, you little bore?’
David was kicking at the turf. His face was troubled.
‘Look, this is daft,’ he said. ‘We’re in enough trouble as it is, killing the gerbil. Let’s leave him alone.’
The girls bore down on him, pushing him backwards towards the bushes.
‘What?’ said Rebekkah. ‘Who killed the gerbil? We didn’t kill the gerbil, did we?’
‘We left the lid off, didn’t we? If anyone finds out—’
Anna was jabbing him in the chest.
‘If anyone finds out,’ she said, timing the words to finger-jabs, ‘we’ll know who split on us, won’t we? Just keep your mouth shut, David.’
‘You’re stupid, anyway,’ added Rebekkah. ‘We only did things because we had to, didn’t we? Simple Simon hit Anna, and got away scot-free. He got rewarded, actually. Is that what you call justice? Is that what you call fair?’
Not fair on the poor old gerbil, either, David thought. But his sister’s jabs were hurting him. They were sharp.
‘Well?’ demanded Anna. ‘Is it?’
‘No,’ said David.
‘No. Good. And don’t you dare forget it, will you? Who killed the gerbil, David?’
‘Simon.’
‘Good. And tomorrow - he’s going to pay.’