Jonesy has got in trouble. I worry as she can’t help getting into trouble sometimes. She tries really hard to stay away from it, but then she will find some way despite herself to slip up.
I’ve tried to help her but you can’t. She’s a good person, there’s not an ounce of nastiness in her. I worry that there’s a part of her that can’t help pulling her in the wrong direction, even if she wants to go the other way. I don’t get in trouble that often, and when we are together it doesn’t happen that much because if I can stop her I will.
She got caught with a bag of sweets. Got a dozen off the belt.
It wasn’t her who stole them. She was given them.
The Homes has a general store to buy things from. It sells supplies for the cottages like food and milk and we regularly get sent there by Cook to get her things. It also has sweets we can buy, as we get a small amount of pocket money each week, plus I occasionally have money from Gran. She is not supposed to give me money as some children don’t have grans or visitors so it’s unfair, but many times after she has visited I will find some coins in my pocket that she has slipped in when I wasn’t looking.
Some of the older boys worked out a way to get into the shop when it was closed. They climbed up a pipe, stepped onto a ledge and got in through one of the back windows. They were going in every night for the last week; they waited until lights out, sneaked out of their cottages then climbed in and took some sweets. They were clever about it; they only took a few so that the adults wouldn’t notice. If they had taken all the sweets in one go an adult would have figured it out straight away.
It was the McAdam brothers who did it – well, definitely one of the McAdams was involved. They are in Cottage 13, or unlucky-for-all if you live with them. It’s away over the other side of the Homes. They have another sister besides Glenda, Angela, who is in Jonesy’s class; she’s less big and less crazy than the rest of them. She gave Jonesy some of her share of the sweets, as they are sometimes friends, so it’s not even like she stole them herself.
Eventually someone realised that kids had been stealing from the shop so the houseparents were told to search everyone’s bags after school and anyone with more than two sweets was going to get the belt.
Jonesy had far more than two sweets. It was obvious. Mr Paterson gave her a dozen.
When I come home from school she is crying in our bedroom. She tells me what a bastard she thinks Mr Paterson is and how he really whacked her. She shows me her bum and it’s beaming red. There is blood in two parts. Jonesy never really swears, none of us girls do, but she’s right, he’s a real bastard when he’s got that belt.
Jonesy’s lying on the bed on her front so she doesn’t have to sit down. She says she thinks Mr Paterson enjoys doing it. Mrs Paterson could have done it, but she didn’t.
I often think he hates us littler ones, especially Jonesy and Eldrey. Perhaps that’s why the Patersons never had kids, as they can’t handle them. He can deal with them when they are bigger; maybe they are not as annoying then. Mrs Paterson doesn’t like the bigger ones and their ‘teenage drama’, as she calls it.
I know what Jonesy is talking about. He’s used the belt on me before. I got back from school late for tea. It wasn’t even my fault; the bus had broken down. We had to wait by the side of the road for an hour for another bus to come.
I had chores I was supposed to do that day, to help with the washing, and I missed them. When I got in the kitchen he just said, ‘Beaton – THREE.’ That means you are getting three lashes with the belt. He then wrote it down in his notebook. He writes it down like a to-do list of who needs to get them and how many. He will either do it on a Saturday all at once, or if it’s really serious, like it was with Jonesy today, he calls you into his study and does it straight away.
I had to wait three days until the Saturday. I tried to tell him that it wasn’t my fault, but he didn’t want excuses. He said if he let me off then it wasn’t fair on others, which means he did know it wasn’t my fault and he was going to do it anyway.
I told Mrs Paterson and she said not to complain about her husband and that it’s harder than you think to keep the house in line, so just accept it. I did accept it, I didn’t complain, doesn’t mean it wasn’t wrong. He didn’t even give me light stripes, but big whacks, ONE-TWO-THREE.
I can’t bear to think how bad twelve must hurt.
Jonesy’s face changes. ‘I’m gonnae get him one day,’ she says. ‘I’m gonnae get him and then he’ll be sorry. I don’t know how, but I’m gonnae get him back.’
Sometimes her face gets so serious that she looks crazy. When she goes like that there’s nothing you can do but agree with her. I’ve tried arguing before but if her face is like that there’s nothing that’s going to get to her.
‘Aye, sure you will,’ I say, nodding.
‘You don’t understand, Les. If I says I’m gonnae do it, I’m gonnae do it.’
Shona and Eldrey come into the room. They see Jonesy with her bum in the air lying over the bed and they can see she’s been crying. They had been talking on their way in but as soon as they see her they go quiet.
Then Eldrey says, ‘Belt?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Whit for?’
‘Sweets.’
‘From the shop?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘The stolen ones?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Angela McAdam got it too.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘Moira Campbell told us.’
Moira Campbell is in Angela’s cottage.
‘Aye, she got ten,’ says Eldrey.
‘Ten?’ asks Jonesy. ‘But I got twelve.’
‘Aye, but no off the Superintendent ye didnae.’
Jonesy’s right, Mr Paterson’s a bastard. The Superintendent is a bastard and he’s a bastard. Mr Paterson can be nice to you, though he tries his hardest not to be. Mr Gordon isn’t nice to anyone ever; I don’t think there’s a nice bone in his body.
Jonesy lets out an ‘ooofffff’ sound and she starts to smile. Which makes me, Shona and Eldrey smile.
That might be the one lesson I’ve learnt in the Homes; no matter how bad it gets, there’s probably someone getting it worse.