LITMIR.BIZ

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nodded. ‘She’s nice. We go for walks sometimes now. Which is nice …’

      She trailed off, then, and I let the silence lengthen. Then, while manoeuvring a particularly petulant piece of border into position, said, ‘I suppose it must be nice to get away from time to time. You know, from your little cousins – have some space for yourself.’

      ‘That’s what she said.’ She handed me the wall-stapler. ‘I’m not that used to it – having so many people around all the time … all the noise.’

      ‘That’s what little ones are best at usually, aren’t they?’

      She nodded. ‘And they want me to play with them all the time. And I try to – I want to be helpful, because I know my auntie’s always so busy …’

      ‘But sometimes you just want to scream – go away!’

      Her answering smile confirmed I’d hit the nail on the head, as well as the staple into the wall. ‘I know what you mean,’ I said. ‘And with the holidays coming up, you’ll have to brace yourself a bit, won’t you?’

      ‘I already am,’ she said, after a pause of presumably reflection. ‘I’m going to miss school – you know, seeing my friends, having stuff to do.’

      ‘You’ll be able to see some of them, though, won’t you? At some point over the holidays? Sales shopping, catching up, that sort of thing?’

      ‘I guess so,’ she said, ‘but it’s like family time, isn’t it?’

      I hesitated, sensing from her body language that she didn’t want to dwell on that. ‘And lots of tedious board games and leftover turkey,’ I decided upon. ‘Though I have a cunning plan for all that.’ I grinned at her. ‘And I know I’ll need to come in here at some point, so I’ll have an official “going to work” day between Christmas and New Year, when I’ll come in here, while it’s quiet, and get my classroom sorted out. Pull down the old displays, get all inspired, set up the backgrounds for all the new ones. That way, when term starts, I’m ready for action – with my walls set up for all the new term’s creations. And have a few hours peace and quiet. Bet it’ll work a treat.’

      I don’t know if it was her expression or just a bolt of inspiration, but an idea pinged on in my head then and there. ‘And you know what? I could always use a helper to do that too – what with being such a shortie. So, there’s a thought; assuming the head’s okay with it, and I telephone your auntie to ask her, would you perhaps like to come in one day and do that with me too?’

      Now it was definitely her expression that cemented it. ‘Could I?’

      ‘I don’t see why not,’ I said. ‘If it’s something you’d like to do.’

      ‘Oh, I’d love to, Miss,’ she said again.

      ‘Then I’d love that too. And I shall pay you in hot chocolate and pink and white marshmallows. That’s the going rate – how does that sound?’

      Her giggle warmed my heart for the rest of the day.

Chapter 18

      I woke up the next morning with my head still madly buzzing – with the same stuff that had preoccupied me when I’d gone to bed the night before: what was happening with the wicked stepmother, that I needed to speak to the head and to Shona’s auntie, whether I should take the plunge and ask if my class could do a turn at the Christmas carol service, whether I should call Gavin’s mother and see how things were – try to establish quite why she thought he was ‘mental’ … And it made me think of something Don had said to me towards the end of my first term in school, after I’d commented on the fact that I kept losing my keys, and seemed to have my head on back to front.

      ‘It’s called end-of-term-itis,’ he’d pronounced, nodding sagely. ‘And it goes with the territory. There’s a reason why teachers need the year broken up into terms; as they go on, you find it harder and harder to switch off and clear your mind. Have you found that?’

      ‘Exactly that. Like a kind of burn-out,’ I’d said, nodding.

      ‘Though only of a temporary kind, thankfully. Everyone gets it. Couple of weeks to recharge and you’ll be set for the new term. You’ll see.’

      And I had seen, and these days I was more in tune with the termly rhythms, but right now, however, we still had four weeks of the current term to go, and, what with all the drama we’d had lately – particularly with Imogen – I profoundly hoped they’d be mostly without incident. A happy, twinkly run-up to Christmas was what I was hoping for, so I sent a quick wish to the elves at the North Pole, hoping Santa would be so kind as to oblige me.

      I ran my hands over my face and sat in bed for a few moments longer, listening to the strangely soothing sound of Kieron downstairs, banging pans around while engaged in some sort of breakfast-related mission, and hearing Riley’s always dulcet ‘I’m-getting-ready-for-work-so-keep-out-of-my-way’ tones. It was getting to that time of year: dark in the mornings, even darker in the evenings – but with the joys of Christmas still very slightly over the horizon, however much the shops would have it otherwise. There was just too much work to be done between now and then.

      I got out of bed finally and opened the curtains, even if it was only to look out on a still inky darkness. Poor Mike was long gone. Would have been at work for an hour already. The shifts he did were particularly gruelling at this time of year. I glanced back at my bedside clock. I would have to get my skates on as well – there was a big important meeting to attend in school this morning, and before that I really needed to get organised. My mind was still on Shona, to some extent – I wasn’t sure I agreed that she should go back to mainstream classes this side of Christmas – but the main priority today was Imogen and what was going to happen there.

      Mostly, I was intrigued about what we’d find out. We’d been told snippets of course, but they were tantalisingly vague ones. That the investigation had turned up some ‘interesting’ background details, that there’d been talk of various measures that were now going to be ‘put in place’, but what all of that meant in practice was anyone’s guess.

      What had they found out? And about whom? Gerri, I guessed, but what about Imogen’s father? Could he really have been so naïve as to let such horrors go on under his nose? I fervently hoped so, for Imogen’s sake.

      ‘Yes,’ came the emphatic answer a couple of hours later.

      It was a larger gathering than I’d expected. So much so that we’d had to hold it in the conference room in the library, which was usually reserved for training, as we’d have struggled to fit us all into one of the smaller offices.

      As well as Gary and myself, present were Jim Dawson (my alter ego), Julia Styles (our Special Needs Co-ordinator, or SENCO) and, as well as Don (standing in for the head, who was at a financial meeting), there were two social workers, a tall man called Simon Swift, who had apparently now been allocated to the family, and a trainee called Helen Croft, who he explained was attached to him currently and who was apparently ‘cutting her teeth’ on Imogen’s case.

      The main purpose of the meeting was to bring us up to speed. So the first 20 minutes or so had been spent putting us fully in the picture, from the moment the investigation had been launched by social services, as a consequence of Imogen’s disclosures to me and Gary’s subsequent call.

      And I was all ears, because it was as much an education for me as it was for the trainee social worker. I’d had dealings with social services before this, both in my current job and as a youth worker before that, but this was the first time I’d been so much at the centre of a process that could – and would – have such a profound effect on a child’s home life; something that felt like quite a responsibility.

      No, it didn’t involve taking a child from their home – Imogen was already out of harm’s way, because she

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