Kristina lay on her couch, staring at the ceiling. Underneath her blanket was nice and warm, and it felt safe.

The TV was still mumbling something in the background, but her mind was too hazy to even contemplate what was on right now. It had been on all night, but she hadn’t paid any attention to it, nor had she got a wink of sleep. She kept replaying the incident with the year 9 class over and over again.

She felt ashamed; she had utterly overreacted to the situation, and she had lost her cool. She doubted she’d ever be able to recover her credibility from what had happened — at least among that class, and probably now among the rest of Year 9, too — and knew that she had made a huge mistake. But there was no turning back now.

The stress had been gradually building in her head for some time now. How much she noticed it depended on how good a day she had had, but it was always there in the background, rumbling away like the noise from the TV in her living room right now. It never truly left; the feelings of inadequacy, of worrying that she couldn’t match up to people who did her job far better than she did; the feeling of panic that she would be somehow letting her young charges down through her own incompetence.

She screwed her eyes up and rolled onto her side, burying her head in the couch cushions. It was a futile gesture, of course, since anxious thoughts are not something you can blot out like unpleasant noises, but it made her feel momentarily better to try and escape from her own feelings. Then they caught up with her and she felt like she wanted to cry, but instead she just rolled onto her back again and stared at the ceiling. No tears came; she simply didn’t have the energy to do anything.

She heard her phone buzzing on the table where she left it, but didn’t move to answer it. She had no idea what time it was or who might be calling her, and right now she didn’t care. She just wanted to sink into the couch and disappear, never to be seen again.

I’ve failed, she thought. I’ve failed utterly. This is the one thing everything in my life up until this point has been leading towards, and I’ve ruined it.

Finally, a tear spilled from the corner of her right eye and rolled down her cheek, but she still couldn’t muster the strength to actually cry properly. It frustrated her, because she felt it would probably help to release all the tension currently wracking her body, but it wasn’t happening.

She closed her eyes and was immediately confronted with the image of what had happened again, replaying over and over. She could hear herself screaming, could see the sneering face of the boy she’d sent out, could feel the mocking looks of the children she was being paid to look after and educate. She had let them down.

*  *  *  *

There was a banging on her door, and it happened to coincide with one of the rare instances where she had got off the couch — this time to get herself a drink to soothe her parched throat.

She had spent most of the day on the couch with the curtains drawn, so she had no idea what time it was — nor did she know who might be banging on her door at this hour. She had a feeling she didn’t want to know, either, but despite part of her brain urging her to just return to the couch and continue to wallow in her own depression, she walked to the door and opened it.

She was relieved to see it was Maxine — the one person she felt like she could be reasonably comfortable with right now.

“Hey, you,” began Maxine, before looking Kristina up and down. “Man, you look like hell. What happened?”

Kristina was clad in her pyjamas — a rather immature, girlish pink top with a picture of a rabbit on the chest, and some ill-matching striped bottoms that weren’t at all flattering to her figure. Her hair was bedraggled, her eyes were puffy from sporadic bouts of crying, and her lips were dry and cracked.

“I…” said Kristina. “I’ll tell you in a bit. Come in. I’ll put some coffee on. I need it. Now.”

Maxine followed Kristina inside, a concerned expression on her face. Kristina wordlessly walked into the kitchen and began preparing the coffee. Maxine sat down on the couch, moving Kristina’s blanket aside and turning the television off. The familiar loud buzzing of the coffee machine emanated from the kitchen.

Kristina returned a moment later with two steaming cups of coffee and sat down on the couch. She handed one of the cups to Maxine, sat down and wrapped her legs in the blanket.

“I was going to tell you some stuff,” said Maxine. “But you haven’t been answering your phone all day and… well, you look like you might need to talk first.”

Kristina sighed.

“No,” she said. “You go first. I think I need to work up to mine.”

“All right,” said Maxine. “I went back to work today. Mark was there, but I steered well clear of him.”

“He was there?” said Kristina. “I’m surprised he wasn’t locked up.”

“No,” said Maxine. “By the time the police got there, he’d long gone, and there was nothing I could do to prove what had happened. At least, not then. But while I was away he sent me a ton of threatening messages. Messages that proved more than adequate evidence to show to work.”

“Oh!” said Kristina. She could feel her anxiety and depression lifting — temporarily at least — and was grateful to Maxine for providing a distraction. “So you…”

“Yep,” said Maxine. “First thing I did today was go see my boss, explain what had been happening and show her those messages. By the time I got back to my desk, Mark was nowhere to be seen in the office, and I somehow don’t think he’ll be back.”

“Well, that’s good,” said Kristina. “Just be careful. He strikes me as the sort of person who will probably hold a grudge for something like that.”

“Well, if he does, I have plenty of ammunition to give to the police now, too,” said Maxine. “I’d like to think that he’s not so stupid as to jeopardise his wellbeing further, particularly as I discovered he’s got a kid he’s supposed to be taking care of, too.”

“A kid?” asked Kristina, suddenly curious. “You never mentioned that.”

“Neither did he,” said Maxine. “And I never saw any sign of them, either. But apparently it’s true.”

“Huh,” said Kristina. “Well, I can’t judge his parenting, but if he behaves anything like he does towards you towards his kids, then…”

“Yeah,” said Maxine. “I’m not sure what the deal is. And frankly I’m not sure I want to know any more.”

The pair took the opportunity presented by the natural break in the conversation to sip their coffee. Kristina leaned back, exhausted, after she swallowed.

“Oh, gosh,” she said. “I needed that. I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night.”

“Yeah,” said Maxine. “Come on, spill it. What’s going on with you?”

Kristina took a deep breath and recounted the story of what had happened the previous day. Maxine’s face alternated between horrified and sympathetic towards her friend.

“Man, you’ve got to get out of there,” said Maxine after Kristina had finished. “It’s killing you. Possibly literally.”

Kristina shivered. She’d never actually gone so far as to seriously contemplate suicide, but had found her thoughts wandering to dark places in particularly stressful times; last night had been particularly bad.

“Yeah,” she said. “But it’s not quite that simple, unfortunately. I can’t just quit. I’d be letting everybody down. I’d be letting the kids down, letting the staff down—”

“Fuck those guys,” said Maxine. “Right now, you’re the most important one. You need to take care of yourself. And do you really think you won’t be letting them down if you collapse in the middle of a lesson from a heart attack or, I don’t know, fly into a crazy violent rage or something?”

Kristina knew that Maxine was joking, but shuddered at the possibility of actually hurting one of her young charges in anger. Sometimes it was so, so frustrating, and in her mind’s eye she saw herself dealing with the problems with force. She was ashamed of those thoughts, but she knew at the same time they were nothing but fantasies that no-one really needed to know about.

“Yeah,” said Kristina. “I’m… going to take the rest of this week off, then see how next week goes. It’s Parents Evening, so I really need to be there to talk to these kids’ folks on how they’re doing. I’ll decide what to do once that’s all dealt with.”

“Jeez,” said Maxine. “You have a twisted sense of duty to that place.”

“It’s how we’re trained to be,” said Kristina sadly. “However shit it gets, you’re supposed to just deal with it and keep on carrying on.”

“That’s no way to live,” said Maxine.

“No,” said Kristina. “It’s not.”

Internally, she had already made her mind up and knew what she was going to do, but had decided to maintain the appearance that she was going to “try” going back next week to see what would happen. She knew that she had already given up, though; there was no going back. She needed a clean break, though, and Parents Evening felt like a good time to cut the cord and escape.

*  *  *  *

Kristina invited Maxine to stay the night. She wanted her friend to be safe from any potential repercussions of her reporting Mark earlier, and also wanted to not be alone, though she didn’t admit the latter part. Maxine immediately saw through her, though, and agreed to stay.

Later that evening, while Maxine was in the bathroom, Kristina looked at her phone for the first time that day. She had heard it buzzing off and on as the hours had passed, but had deliberately stayed away from it. She didn’t want to know.

Now, she picked it up. It was down to 5% battery, so she knew it wouldn’t last much longer, but she also saw that there were ten missed calls, some from the school’s number, others from mobile numbers she didn’t recognise. There were three voicemails, too, but she didn’t feel up to listening to those right now.

She started feeling the grip of anxiety around her stomach again. She felt like she’d done something really wrong, and that she’d have to somehow make up for it.

But then the rational part of her brain kicked in, and thought of her plan. Not much longer to go, she thought. Then I can escape.

She hadn’t thought of what she would do after she escaped, of course, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

“Oi,” came a familiar voice. Sian turned around to face it.

“Oh, hey,” she said , with a smile. Jasmine didn’t return it, and neither did Nicola, who was standing next to her.

“We know what you’ve been up to,” said Jasmine. “We’ve seen you.”

Sian didn’t know what they were referring to.

“What?” she asked. “Um, what?”

“You’re going out with Edward, aren’t you?” said Jasmine, pointing an accusatory finger at Sian. “Don’t try to deny it.”

Sian raised her eyebrows in surprise. She didn’t quite know how to respond to that.

“We’ve seen you!” said Nicola, chiming in. “We saw you walking together with him and going back to his house. And we saw you coming out.”

Something broke in Sian’s mind.

“What is this, are you stalking me or something?” she snapped. “Why is it any of your business what I’m doing?”

“So you don’t deny it?” said Jasmine, a triumphant expression on her face, her finger still pointed at Sian.

“I won’t deny I’ve been talking to him,” said Sian. “But I’m not going out with him. Are you really that shallow?” She was getting angry now. She didn’t get angry often, but things she perceived as injustices pushed her buttons more than anything else, and Jasmine and Nicola were the last people in the world she expected to be the source of them.

“What’s it like?” said Nicola, a mocking tone in her voice. “How is he?”

Sian turned to her.

“What?” she said, wanting very much for this conversation to be over as soon as possible, but knowing there was nowhere it could go from here but an escalation into a full-on argument. She knew she should just walk away and be the bigger person here, but she also knew what Jasmine and Nicola could be like once they got started. She’d occasionally found it funny in the past, but then their ire had never been directed at her before. Now it was scary.

“How is he?” Nicola repeated. “Come on, tell us. What’s it like shagging a crazy person? You have done it, haven’t you? Bet that’s what you were doing in his house.”

“No!” screamed Sian. “What the fuck is wrong with you two? Why are you suddenly doing this to me? Do you hate him that much?”

“He’s a fucking psycho!” yelled Jasmine back at her. By now, people were stopping and staring, and Sian wished Jasmine hadn’t picked the middle of one of the busiest corridors in school at lunchtimes to have this particular confrontation. “He’s scum! The worst kind of scum! And you’re sticking up for him?”

“I…” began Sian, but she knew it was no use. They’d made their minds up based on circumstantial evidence, and there was no way she was going to convince them; no way that they were going to listen to her explain the situation. And besides, she’d promised Edward not to tell anyone anyway.

She’d told Kristina, of course, but that was a different situation. It was unlikely that Kristina would tell Edward that Sian had spilled his secrets. It was–

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted. Everything happened in a flash.

First, there was the shout; a dreadful, otherworldly yell of pure rage. Then, there was the blur of movement; it knocked Sian aside and toppled the two other girls to the floor. Dazed, Sian took a moment to come to her senses and realise what was going on.

It was Edward; he’d knocked Jasmine and Nicola to the ground  and was now sitting astride them on the floor. He looked furious; they looked terrified.

“Leave her alone!” he screamed in their faces, and raised his fist as if he was about to punch them.

Sian stepped forward and laid a hand lightly on his shoulder. He hesitated — just in time, Sian thought — and turned to look at her, red-faced, his eyes brimming over with tears.

“Leave her alone,” he said in a much weaker voice. “Leave her alone,” he said again, rolling to one side to release his captives. He slumped back against the lockers that adorned one side of the corridor walls and suddenly looked utterly defeated, all trace of the anger that had fuelled him a moment ago suddenly dissipating.

Jasmine and Nicola stumbled to their feet and ran away. Sian knew it wouldn’t be long before they were back with a teacher in tow.

*  *  *  *

Sian glanced around at the walls of the office. She’d been in here before a number of times, but never in the circumstances she was here right now. She knew that she’d done nothing wrong and felt that she was, at least to a certain degree, something of a victim here. But she couldn’t help herself worrying that she’d get into trouble for this — the first strike against her in eleven years of school.

The door opened behind her and Rhodes entered carrying several sheets of paper. He sat down behind his desk, stacked them carefully then took out an expensive-looking pen.

“Okay, Sian,” he said with that familiar kindly old uncle tone. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Sian proceeded to explain everything — how she had, against all odds, befriended Edward; how he had confided in her; how Jasmine and Nicola had seen her and apparently misinterpreted the situation, then attacked her for something that wasn’t true. She left out anything involving Kristina; she couldn’t help but feel that bringing that up would add a whole other layer of complication to the a situation that really didn’t need it.

When she finished, she looked at Rhodes’ face to try and determine what he thought of it all. He remained inscrutable.

“Okay,” he said, writing something on one of the sheets of paper. “Thank you. You can go.”

Was that it? She was expecting some sort of admonishment, but it sounded like he had either believed her story, or was waiting to hear from the others before there were any consequences. She blinked and stood up.

“Sorry,” she said as she walked away, opened the door and passed into the corridor. She felt she had let him down.

Out in the corridor, Jasmine and Nicola were sitting on the chairs outside Rhodes’ office. Edward was nowhere to be seen; he’d been taken down to the Unit after the incident. He was in no state to give a coherent account of what had happened, anyway, thought Sian.

Jasmine and Nicola glared and Sian, but she pointedly ignored looking at them and passed back out into the main corridor of the school, and headed for the music room. She knew that Kristina normally spent her lunchtimes in her room rather than the staffroom, and she really needed to talk to someone right now.

Sure enough, there she was, sitting at her desk, eating a sandwich. Although her desk had briefly been clear, there were already new stacks of paper starting to build up on top of it. Sian smiled despite the grim feelings bouncing around inside her head; some things could always be relied upon.

She walked in without knocking.

“Oh,” said Kristina, putting down her sandwich hastily. “Sian! Hello.” She paused. “Are you all right? You look upset.”

Sian was about to respond when she suddenly, without warning, found herself bursting into tears. She ran over to Kristina and hugged her — a completely inappropriate gesture, she knew, but right now she didn’t care. She just wanted comfort, and the only place she felt she could find it was here.

She felt Kristina’s hand on the top of her head; hesitantly at first, but then it started gently stroking her hair. The tender gesture made her want to cry even harder; she let out huge, gulping sobs and would have found the whole situation terribly embarrassing were it not for the swathe of other emotions that were bubbling up right now.

Eventually, Kristina gently but assertively pushed Sian away and held her at arm’s length. Sian felt utterly wretched and stood like a limp rag doll; she looked as if she might collapse the moment Kristina released her hand.

“What’s going on?” said Kristina. “This isn’t like you at all.”

“No,” said Sian, sniffing. “It’s been… a bad day. A really bad day. And I don’t think I can deal with it right now.”

“I know the feeling,” said Kristina. “I have days like that all the time. I won’t insult you by saying things will get better because they don’t always, but I want you to know you can talk to me any time you feel like you need to.”

“I…” began Sian, then stopped. “I’m sorry. I’m not quite sure where to begin right now.”

“Perhaps we should talk about it after school,” said Kristina.

*  *  *  *

Sian somehow made it through the afternoon classes without bursting into tears or anything else of note happening. Once the bell went, she headed straight for Kristina’s classroom. Kristina already had her coat on and was ready to leave.

“Come on,” said Kristina. “Let’s get out of here. I have work to do, but between you and me it’s the last thing I want to do right now. Coffee?”

The pair of them headed out of the school gates and to the nearby supermarket, and went straight to the café. Sian sat down and waited while Kristina ordered; a moment later, she came back with two tall lattes and two gigantic slabs of chocolate cake.

“You looked like you could do with it,” said Kristina with a smile. “Oh, you’re not allergic or anything, are you?”

“No,” said Sian with a weak chuckle. “Thanks.”

“Don’t get used to this,” said Kristina. “We teachers don’t earn all that much. At least not newbies like me.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” said Sian. “One day, anyway.”

“All right,” said Kristina, her face turning serious. “Now why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Sian reiterated the same story she’d told Rhodes earlier in the day. She could feel the tears welling up again as she recounted what had happened, but fought them back and pressed on. When she finished, Kristina reached out her hand and took Sian’s in her own.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Kids can be complete shits. Present company excepted, of course.”

Sian chuckled and sobbed at the same time.

“Yeah,” she said. “We can. I just thought I was doing something good, you know? I thought I was actually helping him out. But am I just making it worse?”

“Believe me,” said Kristina, sipping on her coffee, “I ask myself the same thing most days. My job is about helping people, and yet an awful lot of days I find myself wondering why I’m bothering.”

She suddenly looked very deflated, and Sian felt guilty at having brought it up.

“Don’t feel bad,” said Kristina. “I’ve been feeling this way for a while. It’s worse when I see one of the good ones like you suffering. It either makes me want to try harder, or just give up altogether.”

“I hope you don’t give up,” said Sian.

“Me neither,” said Kristina with a sigh.

The pair of them started eating their chocolate cake. Not a word passed between them for several minutes.

Sian had had trouble concentrating all day. She and her peers had noticed the inspectors milling around in the school, and they all knew that everyone had to pull together. The pressure had proven to be rather distracting; she hadn’t got into trouble, but several of her teachers had commented that she didn’t seem to have completed as much work as she usualy did.

Longmore had its share of disruptive kids, sure, but even the very worst-behaved students wouldn’t want to see their school close down after a poor inspection — though very few of them would actually admit that. Even Edward probably doesn’t want the school to close down, Sian thought to herself with a slight smile.

She’d found herself thinking about Edward quite a lot over the last few days. It wasn’t that she was developing romantic feelings for him — she’d never been in a proper relationship, and somehow felt that jumping into such an entanglement with someone as volatile as Edward probably wouldn’t be a good idea — but she did acknowledge that, in spite of everything, she cared about him and wanted to see him succeed, or at least not to fail.

She knew that Edward didn’t really have any friends. On the rare occasions when he was in school, he was always by himself; occasionally his peers would egg him on when he got into a rage, but this was more for their own amusement than offering him actual encouragement. In fact, more often than not such confrontations tended to end with Edward getting into trouble as his peers just laughed and jeered at him, and Sian always found herself pitying him when such incidents occurred.

She put up her hood against the chill wind that was blowing outside. She was waiting for Jasmine and Nicola, but had seen no sign of them as yet. Where could they be?

“Uh, Sian?” came a voice behind her. She instantly recognised it, and turned around to face the person who had addressed her.

“Edward,” she said with a smile. “How are you doing?”

“Not bad,” he said, a sullen expression on his face. “I nearly finished my music composition.”

“That’s great,” she said. “You got that done quickly.”

He looked a little embarrassed.

“I spent most of the day working on it,” he said. “Miss let me use the computer after I got kicked out of lessons in the morning. I got bollocked at lunchtime for wandering off, but I don’t really care.”

Sian smiled.

“Well, I’m glad you managed to get some work done,” she said. “I’ve nearly finished mine, too. I’ve been working on this one for ages, I’ll be glad to get it over and done with.”

Silence fell between them. Edward gazed at the floor. Sian wasn’t sure where to look.

“Uh,” he grunted after a moment. “Would you mind coming home with me again? I need to talk about some stuff.”

Sian raised her eyebrow quizzically, but didn’t object.

“Sure,” she said. “I was waiting for my friends, but they don’t seem to be coming. Are you ready to go now?”

“Yeah,” he said, and immediately started walking. Sian quickly caught up with him and walked alongside him.

“So what did you want to talk about?” she asked as they left the school gates and began walking up the road.

“It’s… sort of a bit weird and embarrassing,” he said. “But you’ve been nice to me, so I think I can talk to you about it. I need to talk to someone about it because it’s just been building up and building up inside my head and — augh! You know what happens when I get frustrated.”

Sian nodded grimly, but said nothing. The pair continued walking up the road in silence for a moment, the only sounds the crunching of their feet on the pavement and the distant sounds of their peers laughing and shouting.

“You mustn’t tell anyone about this,” he said eventually. “You mustn’t. Will you promise me?”

“Sure,” said Sian, though she already felt wary of what secret she was about to burden herself with.

“Okay,” he said. He took a deep breath, then began to speak.

“It’s my Dad,” he began. “Ever since my Mum left, he’s been a real mess. He doesn’t know how to deal with being by himself, and he doesn’t know how to deal with me or talk to me. He gets angry at me all the time and treats me like shit, and that’s what makes me angry. But because I get so angry, no-one believes me that it’s all because of him; they just think it’s me being an arsehole. And maybe I am. Everyone hates me, so I must be a complete dick, right?”

“No,” said Sian. “I don’t think you’re a dick. I wouldn’t be here right now if I did, would I?”

Edward contemplated this for a moment as the pair continued to walk up the road.

“No, I guess not,” he said. “Anyway, when he gets angry, he kind of takes it out on me a bit. He—” Edward paused here for a moment, apparently collecting himself. “He hurts me. He always makes sure never to leave a mark or do anything that people might notice, but sometimes he really hurts me. Some days I just can’t face coming into school, the pain’s so bad. I’m not just skiving — I mean, sometimes I am — but sometimes there’s just no way I can get out to school after he’s done a number on me.”

“I’d have thought you’d want to get out of the house if something like that happened,” said Sian, shocked at what she was hearing. “I’d want to run away.”

“I’ve got nowhere to go,” he said. “And besides, by the morning he’s either gone out to work, or he’s forgotten everything that happened the night before.”

“Forgotten?” said Sian. “How?”

“He drinks,” said Edward, looking at the ground as he walked. “He drinks a lot. He doesn’t know when to stop. He just comes home, chugs it back and then he gets angry and aggressive, and I can’t do anything. I’ve got nowhere to go and nothing I can do.”

“Haven’t you called the police or something?” Sian asked. “Surely they could help?”

“He’s my Dad,” said Edward. “He may treat me like shit but he’s all I’ve got. What kind of shit would I be if I dobbed in my own old man?”

Sian wasn’t sure what to say to that. It sounded like Edward was caught in a very difficult situation.

Presently, they arrived at Edward’s house. As before, no-one was at home, and Edward led Sian into the kitchen, pouring her a drink without asking.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I know I can’t keep doing this. I get so angry. I’m surprised I haven’t hurt anyone or got kicked out of school yet. I don’t know why they put up with me.”

“Edward,” said Sian. “It’s not your fault. Listen! It’s not your fault. Your Dad’s dealing badly with something in his own life, and that’s something he’s going to have to learn to deal with on his own — especially if he wants to keep you around. But you can’t keep just taking this. It’s not fair to you. I really think you should say something to someone.”

“They wouldn’t believe me,” he said.

“They have to listen,” said Sian. “You should really try it.”

“No!” said Edward forcefully, putting his glass down on the counter with a “bang”. Sian said nothing further.

“I’m sorry,” he said eventually. “I just don’t know how to deal with this. He’s been behaving really weirdly lately, particularly in the last week or so. He’s up to something. I don’t know what, but he is. He even locked me in my room a couple of times, and I could hear something going on downstairs, but I couldn’t hear what. I don’t know what he was doing.”

“He locked you in your room?” said Sian. “That’s…” But she held her tongue. Edward had made it clear that he didn’t want to tell anyone — except her, apparently — and so she didn’t push the matter.

“He’s going to be home soon,” he said, looking at his watch — a battered, retro-looking digital affair. “You should get out of here before he comes back.”

“Okay,” said Sian. “And Edward, if I can do anything to help, just let me know.”

She took out a pen and tore a strip from a notebook she had in her bag. She wrote her phone number down on the scrap of paper and handed it to him.

“I don’t have a mobile,” he said. “But thanks.”

Sian blinked, and there was an awkward silence for a moment. She was the one to break it.

“I’d better go,” she said. “I hope things aren’t too bad tonight.”

“I hope not,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”

Sian turned away from him and headed for the front door, smiling. That “see you tomorrow” was the most positive thing she’d ever heard him say.

*  *  *  *

When Sian eventually got home, she went straight up to her room to do her homework. It was mostly catch-up work today, and quite a bit of it due to the fact she had been distracted by the inspectors. Once she put on some music and got into a good groove with it, however, she found that most of it didn’t take long to complete at all.

Tossing her pen aside as she finished writing her answer to the last question, her thoughts turned back to her earlier conversation with Edward. Her stomach churned at the thought of his father abusing him, and in such a careful, calculated way as to hide the signs of abuse from prying eyes, too. The thought that people such as that existed in this world made her feel a little sick, and she noticed her hands were trembling at the thought.

She had to talk to someone about this. She knew she’d promised Edward she wouldn’t, but there was no way she could bottle this up inside.

She didn’t think Jasmine and Nicola would handle the situation with any degree of maturity, and she didn’t feel comfortable talking to her parents about it; she felt pretty sure they’d misunderstand the situation and assume she was in a relationship with Edward, which would lead to all sorts of what they thought were light-hearted mocking comments, but which Sian found intensely frustrating. It had happened before.

That left Kristina, really, and she didn’t know if she should share something like that with her teacher. Or her friend. What was she to Sian?

They’d agreed to be friends, with an implicit agreement that they’d help each other through tough times. Kristina had already opened up to Sian and shared her worried about her friend, so why shouldn’t she reciprocate? After all, Kristina was an adult, and might know what Sian should do, if anything.

Kristina, Sian typed, then stared at the screen for several minutes wondering what to say next. I’m sorry to bother you, but I need your help. She deleted the word “help” and replaced it with “advice”. Then she deleted the words “your advice” and replaced them with “to talk to you”.

I need to talk to you, she continued. Is it all right to share some stuff with you?

Vague enough, she thought. I don’t want to jump straight into it.

A few moments later, the response came through with a beep.

What’s up? it said.

Well… Sian paused before she continued, as if she was speaking the words aloud. I’ve been talking to Edward like I told you the other day, and he finally told me some… stuff.

She sent the message. She didn’t want to give away too much detail at once. She wanted to give Kristina the option to back out of this conversation if she wanted to.

What sort of stuff? came the response.

He’s having problems with his Dad, Sian wrote. Really bad problems, I think. It sounds like his Dad’s hurting him. I don’t know what to do or how to help him. Is there anything I can do?

Sian waited for the response. There was none for several minutes. Sian’s stomach was in knots.

I’m not sure, replied Kristina eventually. But we’ll figure something out, I promise.

Kristina was rudely awakened by some braying idiot bellowing nonsense into her ear.

She’d been meaning to retune her bedside radio for months now — ever since her favourite morning DJ had moved on to pastures new — but had somehow never gotten around to it. It was one of those things that, while very simple and straightforward to do in terms of effort required, she never quite felt the inclination or motivation to do.

Besides, if the last few weeks were anything to go by, it was rare she’d actually make it to her bed; she’d been sleeping on the sofa almost as much as she had slept in her own bed recently. The sofa was comfortable, and it allowed her to fall asleep to the quiet background noise of the TV, whereas the bedroom was often eerily quiet — an unwelcome atmosphere while she had so much anxiety racing around inside her head.

It was likely to get worse before it got better, too; after all, this was the week that the inspectors were due to come back. It felt like they had only just left, but Kristina knew that was what the Special Measures badge of shame meant; the inspectors would keep coming back, ostensibly to help the school get back on track, but she couldn’t help seeing them as “the enemy”, regardless of their supposedly good intentions.

She lay in bed staring at the ceiling for a little while, letting the irritating noise from the radio just wash over her. She wasn’t listening to the new DJ’s words; it was just a mumbling in the background that was having a faintly soporific effect on her.

Her eyes gradually started to close again. Just another few minutes, she thought. Just a…

*  *  *  *

Kristina’s eyes snapped open, and she sat up. The radio was no longer blaring, and she had a sudden, horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Shit,” she said. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”

She looked at the glaring red numbers on her bedside radio and it took her a moment to process them. As her brain gradually kicked into gear, she realised that she wasn’t late for work — yet — but it would be a close-run thing, and there would certainly be no time whatsoever to get coffee or anything on the way. She’d arrive, and she’d be thrown straight into work. At least 7C offered a relatively gentle introduction to the week.

Her thoughts turned to Maxine. After she’d called the police at the weekend, all she’d heard from her friend was a brief phone call thanking her, and telling her that she was going to go and stay with her mother for a few days. Since then, she hadn’t picked up her phone, hadn’t returned any of Kristina’s messages and, to all intents and purposes, appeared to have disappeared off the face of the planet.

She didn’t have time to worry about Maxine right now, though, as harsh as it seemed. She didn’t even really have time to sort her bird’s nest of hair out, nor to have a shower.

She clambered out of bed, her joints aching and making her feel about twenty years older than she actually was. She surveyed herself in the mirror on her dressing table and pouted; she looked a complete mess, but there was no time to do anything about it right now. She quickly ran a brush through her hair to get the worst of the tangles out and threw on some clothes that weren’t too wrinkled and didn’t appear to smell too bad.

*  *  *  *

As Kristina had suspected, the inspectors were back in school when she arrived. The team of them were in attendance at the staff briefing just before registration, glaring at the teaching staff with their all-seeing eyes. Kristina couldn’t stop stealing glances at them — so much so that she didn’t hear a word the Head said in the briefing.

The inspectors filed out of the staff room first, followed by the rest of the teaching staff. Kristina waited until most of them had departed before getting up from her chair.

“Are you all right?” said Martin. “You look really tired.”

Kristina was still feeling bitter towards Martin for his behaviour towards her the previous week, but he appeared to have forgotten all about it. She grit her teeth and tried to be mature.

“I am,” she said. “Sorry, just a rough weekend. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” he said. “But let me know if I can do anything.”

That was more like the Martin she had come to know when she had first arrived at the school. Just recently, she felt like their relationship had soured somewhat, though now that she thought about it, that feeling coincided somewhat with her growing sense of anxiety and that she was somehow an “impostor” that would be found out at any minute.

She shook her head and stood up fully.

“Thanks,” she said, and walked out of the room, picking up a few papers from her pigeonhole on the way.

The papers immediately went onto her desk as soon as she got into her classroom, but then she caught herself and examined them closely. None of them appeared to be particularly important until they reached the last one, which was a memo from the special educational needs unit.

“Edward Jennings is having some difficulties at home,” it read. “We ask that all members of staff be especially understanding towards Edward at this time. Please report any inappropriate behaviour directly to us, and do not attempt to get into a confrontation with Edward as he has been known to become violent.”

Great, thought Kristina.

She crumpled up the pieces of paper and threw them straight in the bin, then sat down at her desk and rested her head on her hands. She sighed. She really did not want to be here today, but knew that she needed to do her part in order to try and help the school through its difficult time.

It’s not fair, she thought. I know it’s childish to think that, but I don’t care. I’m trying my best, but it’s not good enough. I feel like whatever I do, it turns to shit; how am I going to make it through this?

She exhaled a long breath, then stood up, walked to her classroom’s piano and sat down. She fumbled through the stacks of music laid atop the battered old instrument, and selected a book of popular song arrangements that she always enjoyed playing pieces from.

There were probably more productive ways that she could spend her time, but she didn’t care right now; she wanted to relieve some stress, and music was as good a way as any to do that.

She started playing one of the pieces — a cheesy ballad originally recorded by a girl group from one reality show or another. The song had always been something of a guilty pleasure for her, both to listen to and to play the piano arrangement of; it was predictable enough to be oddly comforting in a strange sort of way. The pleasingly obvious chord progressions felt like they were massaging her brain as they played, and when she reached the end she felt a little better.

So she played it again. And again. And then the bell went for the end of registration, and it was time to begin work.

*  *  *  *

7C arrived in their usual manner — chatty but friendly, and receptive to Kristina’s instructions. Just as she had got them quietened down as they lined up outside her room, a middle-aged woman whom Kristina recognised as one of the inspection team walked up to them, her low heels clacking on the floor as she approached.

“Miss Charles,” she said with a nod. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” said Kristina.

“I’ll be observing part of your lesson today,” she said. “Please, don’t mind me and continue as you always would.”

Fuck, thought Kristina. This is the last thing I need, though I guess there are worse classes than 7C to be observed on.

“All right,” she said, hoping her tone wasn’t too obviously acidic. “Would you like to go in and make yourself comfortable?”

“I’ll follow the class in, thank you,” said the inspector. “Please continue.”

“Miss, who’s that?” said Becky, a young-looking girl who stood at the head of the line and who was secretly one of Kristina’s favourite students.

“She’s come to see how you’re getting on with your work today,” Kristina said. “So make sure you work hard, please.”

Becky smiled. Kristina wanted to pat her on the head and ruffle her hair.

“All right,” said Kristina. “Let’s head in, please.”

*  *  *  *

The lesson proceeded without a hitch; Kristina took great care to tick all the inspector’s boxes by ensuring she had a starter activity to begin the lesson, keeping her “teaching time” down to a minimum and getting the children engaged in practical activities as soon as possible.

But then her door flew open, and she knew everything was about to go horribly, horribly wrong before it happened.

She also knew who had thrown her door open like that long before she looked over.

Sure enough, it was Edward, and the force with which he’d thrown open the door, banging it into the wall in the process, had caused all eyes in the classroom to turn to him.

He looked furious, aggressive and dangerous, and Kristina suddenly felt scared. But she also thought back to the music lesson where she had successfully got through to him the other day, and knew that she had to make a choice.

“Miss!” said Edward, not waiting to be invited in. He stormed into the centre of the room, fists clenched. “I’m coming in.”

Kristina blinked, then looked around the class. All of 7C had turned their gazes to her to see what she was going to do.

“Back to work,” she said, hoping she sounded more assertive than she felt. “Now, please!”

She turned to Edward. “What are you doing here?”

“I got fuckin’ sent out,” he said. “I got angry. I’m still angry. I could… argh!” He swiped aggressively at Kristina’s pencil case that was laying on the edge of her desk, and it fell to the floor, scattering pens and pencils everywhere.

“Edward,” she said, not wanting to provoke him. “Would you…”

She considered asking him to clear up the mess he had caused, but assumed that he probably wouldn’t respond all that well to orders or even requests right now, so she bit her tongue. Instead, she finished her sentence in a different way.

“Would you like to go on the computer and continue with your coursework?” she said. “So long as you’re quiet and don’t interrupt 7C’s work, you’re welcome to do that.”

She knew it was most irregular to allow a student to behave in such a manner, and that she’d probably be accused of “rewarding” Edward’s poor behaviour by allowing him something that he wanted to do, but she didn’t care right now; he was a disruptive influence in the classroom, and she either wanted him gone — which looked unlikely to happen — or at least out of the way — which was at least possible.

He nodded mutely, and walked over to the computer in the corner of the room without another word. He donned the pair of headphones that were perpetually attached to the system, fired up the composition software he’d been using to work on his piece the previous week and didn’t bother the class again.

Kristina looked over at the inspector, who had been sat in the corner of the classroom all this time. She was writing frantically in her notepad.

Sian enjoyed coming into town on a Sunday. There tended to be fewer people than on a Saturday, and the staff in the shops she liked to visit tended to be look considerably less harassed.

Today she had come out with the express purpose of looking at shoes. She didn’t have the money for new shoes, of course, but she thought it’d be nice to get some ideas. There would be parties around the end of term, and she knew from experience that everyone — male and female — would be judged by their peers on how well they dressed.

Sian was reasonably confident enough in her appearance, but not enough to feel like she could get away with not making an effort. She was always rather envious of Jasmine in this respect; even on days where her friend claimed she’d overslept and hadn’t had time to spend on her appearance, she still looked gorgeous, and as such it was unusual for a party to come and go without Jasmine having at the very least shared a kiss with some of the more desirable boys in the year.

Sian, meanwhile, was yet to give her first kiss to anyone — not that she really minded, of course, since there was no-one in particular she had her eye on. She often fought with herself internally about this; her own sense of maturity meant that she often felt like many of her peers were too immature for her, and she was in no rush to jump into bed with the first guy who paid her any notice.

That didn’t mean that she wasn’t interested in a relationship, of course; just that she wasn’t actively pursuing one right now.

As these thoughts flowed around her head, she realised she’d been staring at the same pair of shoes for a good few minutes now. She blinked, looked around — no-one seemed to be giving her any funny looks — and sauntered down the aisle to look at some other pairs.

Nothing was really grabbing her right now, so she decided to leave the shop. The high street was busy, but not unmanageably so. Time was marching on towards the end of the year, but the populace hadn’t quite switched into full-on Christmas panic-buying yet — that would probably start from next week, Sian thought, and continue throughout the rest of November right up until Christmas.

She sighed. She was struggling to muster up much enthusiasm today, despite leaving the house earlier with some enthusiasm. She was discovering that her relatively new-found freedom from incarceration at home by her parents wasn’t particularly exciting after all — though secretly she’d always suspected this — and was now wishing she’d stayed in her room, listened to some music or played some video games.

“Oi!” came a yell from further down the street. “Get back ‘ere!”

The source of the yelling was the middle-aged owner of the newsagent that bookended one end of the main shopping drag in the high street. Even as the rest of the street had gradually started to be taken up by nothing but clothes shops, leading to several half-hearted residents’ campaigns to “save our high street”, the newsagent’s had steadfastly refused to move. He was always doing good business, too, even with a larger WH Smiths further down the street.

Now it looked like he was having some trouble, though. Sian followed the sound and saw the owner standing outside his shop yelling, and a figure running down the road, knocking people out of the way as it went.

It looked strangely familiar. In fact, Sian knew exactly who it was without having to look too closely.

She started up the street in the direction of the running figure. She didn’t break into a run of her own, though; she figured that the shoplifter would probably tire himself out before long, and that’s when she’d find him.

Sure enough, it didn’t  take all that long; after glancing down several side streets after seeing him apparently vanish from the main road, she eventually found an exhausted-looking Edward leaning breathlessly against a wall, clutching a bundle of magazines to his chest.

“Hey,” she said. He jumped in fright and dropped his magazines on the floor; she was unsurprised to see that they were made up of a combination of men’s interest magazines with scantily-clad women on the front, and outright pornography, some of which were bagged and had a covermounted DVD. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone you’re here.”

He gave her a look that was somewhere between terror and anger, and said nothing. To Sian’s eye, he looked like a wild animal cornered by a predator, unsure whether to fight or run away.

She took a step closer and he visibly stiffened, pressing himself back against the wall as if willing himself to sink into it. She paused and looked at him.

“What’s up, Edward?” she asked, trying to use as calm a voice as possible. He still didn’t answer; his face was turning more and more wild by the second — now it was contorted into an outright snarl.

She took another step closer to him, and this time he moved; he bolted, leaving his stack of magazines on the floor. Charging down the side street, he knocked several dustbins over before disappearing around a corner at the end. Sian took off at a jog after him; she felt fairly confident that she’d catch up to him again before long.

She was right; Edward had barely got around the corner before having to stop to get his breath again.

“What do you want?” he yelled. “Leave me alone!”

“I just want to talk to you,” said Sian. “I’m not going to tell anyone where you are, I said that before.”

“Why do you want to talk to me?” he said breathlessly, a little less aggression in his voice now. “You saw what I did, didn’t you?”

“I did,” said Sian. “But I don’t care.”

Sian surprised herself by saying that, but after a moment of reflection she realised that she meant it. She detested the kids in her year — mostly boys, but there were a few girls, too — who wore criminality like a badge of honour, vandalising property and shoplifting in ever-increasing attempts to look cool. But she also knew that Edward wasn’t like that; because he’d alienated pretty much everyone around him, there was no-one for him to look cool in front of — except perhaps Sian, and she believed he was intelligent enough to know how she felt about that sort of thing — and thus he was obviously indulging in this behaviour for another reason. Perhaps stress relief?

“Huh?” he said, panting. His breathing was slowing a little now.

“I don’t care,” she said. “You did something wrong, but I don’t believe you wanted to actually hurt anyone. And if you were really that attached to those magazines you’d have taken them with you.”

He said nothing and just looked down at the cracked surface of the pavement on this side street; a far cry from the fresh, clean paving slabs of the high street.

“I hate myself,” he said after a moment’s pause. He didn’t look up, and kicked the ground lightly. “I don’t know why I do the things I do.”

Another pause.

“Well, I do. But I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

Sian said nothing. She wasn’t quite sure what to say to Edward right now. He sounded like he wanted to get some stuff off his chest, but also that he was embarrassed by it. Sian felt it would be better to let him say what he wanted — if anything — at his own pace.

“I want to take the stuff I nicked back,” he said after a long moment’s silence. “I’ll get in trouble but I don’t care. I want to do it.”

Sian was surprised at his proposed course of action, but didn’t argue. As he started walking back in the direction the pair of them had come, she followed along behind him.

“You don’t need to come,” he said, looking over his shoulder.

“Yeah, well, I think I’m going to,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”

“Whatever,” he replied, turning his eyes back to the front.

He led the pair of them back to the side street and picked up the pile of magazines that lay where they had fallen just moments ago.

“Shame,” he said, looking fondly at the cover of one of the pornographic magazines. “This one looked pretty hot. But I can’t afford to buy it.” He looked over at Sian.

“If you can’t afford it, I’m not buying it for you,” said Sian with a laugh. “You buy your own porn.”

She had to admit she was morbidly fascinated with the magazine and its covermounted DVD; she was familiar with the idea of porn and had even looked some up on the Internet out of curiosity once or twice when her parents were out — taking care to delete the browsing history afterwards, of course — but had never actually seen a pornographic magazine or DVD up close.

She caught herself staring and looked away, feeling her cheeks flushing slightly.

“You sure you don’t want it?” asked Edward, a mocking tone in his voice.

“No,” said Sian, firmly.

Edward gathered the magazines, clutched them to his chest and led the pair of them back out of the side street into the relatively bright daylight of the high street. They proceeded up the pavement towards the newsagent’s until they reached the doorway; Edward paused before going in.

“Do you want me to come with?” asked Sian.

“No,” said Edward. “Yes. No.”

Sian giggled.

“Come on, then,” she said. “I’m coming in.”

Edward walked into the shop with Sian in tow. She immediately saw the owner stiffen behind the counter as if preparing for another confrontation, but she was grateful that he didn’t seem to have called the police as yet. She got the feeling that this wasn’t the first shoplifting incident he’d suffered, and ultimately a few “specialist” magazines going missing probably weren’t going to cut into his profits too much.

Edward plopped the bundle of magazines onto the counter in front of the owner, who looked at them in surprise.

“Sorry,” Edward muttered, then looked at the floor.

“He wanted to return them,” Sian explained. “He really is sorry. He’s just… going through some things at the moment.”

“Hmm,” said the owner, looking Edward up and down. Edward, meanwhile, was still staring at the floor.

There was an awkward silence for a few minutes. Then the owner spoke again.

“All right,” he said. “I believe you. After all, you did bring them back. Just… please don’t do it again.”

“I can’t promise anything,” Edward muttered. He looked up at the owner, then over at Sian. “Things are worse than they’ve ever been. Or perhaps they’re better than they’ve ever been. I don’t quite know. I’m so confused. I don’t know what to think any more.”

Suddenly, without warning, he started to cry. Sian looked over at the newsagent, who looked slightly embarrassed, then back to Edward, who clearly didn’t care what a spectacle he was making of himself right now.

“Shhh,” said Sian, laying a tentative hand on his shoulder. He immediately flinched.

“Don’t touch me,” he said through huge, gulping sobs. “Don’t ever touch me.”

Then he ran, leaving a very bewildered Sian standing, confused, in the middle of the newsagent’s, with the owner and several customers looking curiously at the door Edward had just charged through.