Authors: Jaimie Admans
CHAPTER 24
As Debs and I are walking up to the cafeteria for a flapjack
the next morning, Lloyd is standing in the archway on his own.
“Chessie!” He beckons me over.
“Oh my gosh, is he… actually
calling you, Chess?” Debs whispers.
I smile and wink at her
knowingly.
“Hey,” Lloyd says warmly as we
go to stand underneath the archway with him. “How are you this morning?”
“Okay, thanks. Healing.”
“That’s good. Here, I brought
you something.” He roots around in his school bag and finally produces a stack
of leaflets and hands them to me. “Here you go. I found all the pamphlets I
could. I hope they’ll be of some use to you.”
“Thank you,” I say. “That’s so
thoughtful.”
I can see out of the corner of
my eye that Debs is looking on in amazement. I can’t wait to tell her how I
bagged Lloyd Layton. Well, not bagged him exactly. Not yet anyway. But at least
I got his attention.
“You know,” Lloyd is saying. I’m
not paying too much attention. I’m staring into his dreamy blue eyes instead.
“I don’t want to pressure you or anything, but Miss Gleave is the head of
faculty here, and I think she’s the best person to talk to. I know that she
spends breaktime in her classroom if you want to go and have a chat with her in
private. I’ll come too if you want.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say,
suddenly worried. “No, I don’t think I can… Not yet…” I try to give him my most
pleading look.
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry, you’re
right. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
“It’s fine. Thank you for the
leaflets. We should… um…” I point towards the cafeteria. “Go… We should go.
Before we’re late for class.”
“Yes,” he says. “You girls have
a good day. I’ll see you in maths, Chessie.”
“Great.” I smile. “See ya.”
I never thought I’d look forward
to maths.
As soon as we walk away Debs
pulls the pamphlets out of my hands and starts rifling through them.
“NSPCC,” she reads.
“Anti-bullying. Domestic violence. Childline. Victim No More. Chessie, what the
hell is all this about?”
“Can you believe Lloyd Layton is
actually talking to me? He knows who I am, Debs. In fact, he went home last
night and actually thought about me. He thought about me at home. As in, outside
of school. He must have because he thought about me enough to find all that
stuff for me.” I take the pamphlets back from her and look through them myself.
God, this is serious stuff.
“Chessie, I’m not sure I want to
know, but why is Lloyd Layton bringing you leaflets about Childline?”
“He might think, you know, just
a little, that mystepfatherisbeatingmeup,” I mumble.
“Pardon?”
“All right,” I say louder. “He
might think that my stepfather is beating me up.”
“You don’t have a stepfather.”
“I know that, but he doesn’t,
does he? And in the meantime he’s talking to me like a normal human being. That
makes two conversations he’s started with me now. Two. In as many days.”
“But he thinks your stepfather
is hitting you?”
I nod.
“The stepfather you don’t have.”
I nod again.
“I swear, Chessie, I don’t know
what planet you’re on sometimes. Where on earth do you get these crazy ideas?
What was that about going to see Miss Gleave at breaktime?”
“Oh, he wants me to report it to
Miss Gleave.”
“Report what to Miss Gleave?”
“You know. It. About my
stepfather beating me up.”
“You don’t have a stepfather.”
“I know that,” I say, getting
increasingly frustrated. “But it was his idea. It’s not like I went up to him
and told him, he just assumed it was that way.”
“And you didn’t think that it
might be a good idea to correct him?”
“Well, yes, but then I would
never have the chance to get to know him. If I play this right, then we could
become friends and by that time he won’t care that I don’t have a stepfather
who hits me.”
Debs bursts out laughing. “You
know something, Chessie? I would really, really like to see how you’re going to
get out of this one.”
Me too, to be honest.
CHAPTER 25
You know that scene in
Liar, Liar
where Jim Carrey beats himself up in the bathroom to get out of a court
appearance?
That’s me. Right now.
I tried to create a fake bruise
on my arm by mixing eyeshadow together and sealing it on with lipstick sealant,
but I only rubbed my hand over it once and it came right off, so I’ve decided
there is no faking it. It’s too risky. That’s why I’m currently locked in the
bathroom, banging my arm against the sink. It’s quite painful, to be honest,
but it’s worth it. Lloyd is going to feel so sorry for me.
In all honesty, I kind of wish
I’d never started this whole thing with the parental abuse. I’m in a little
over my head. This is serious stuff. I’ve been reading through the leaflets
Lloyd gave me, and I feel bad for exploiting it because it’s not a joke for
kids who actually are being beaten up by their parents. It’s really bad. The
statistics are just plain scary.
But I can’t just go to Lloyd and
admit I lied because he’ll never speak to me again. But I did figure out a
solution, and I only have to pretend to be an abused child for a little while
longer. I figure it’ll look too suspicious if I just have the one bruise on my
stomach and then never have one again, so I’m going to go into school with a
couple more, like one a week for a couple of weeks, then I’ll tell Lloyd that
my mother and stepfather broke up and he moved out. And that’ll be it. It will
all be over that easily, and no one will have gotten hurt.
Except for me if this arm
doesn’t start turning blue soon.
Lloyd and I will be firm friends
by then, and he’ll never know any different. He’ll never know that my
stepfather never existed. Where’s the harm in that?
Take today for instance. Lloyd
sat next to me in maths. He actually switched seats just to sit by me, and I
sat in maths with Lloyd on one side and Ewan on the other. Two geniuses. I’ll
never have problems understanding the lesson again. I wasn’t even nervous to
have him sitting that close to me. Well, maybe a little nervous, but it’s not
like I was so nervous that I stuffed a fluffy pen up my nose and had a sneezing
fit. In fact, I’m still barely over the shock that he would ever sit next to me
again after that particular incident, but he did.
I think he’s the protective
type.
I realised that I don’t even
have to try to be cool in his presence anymore. Thanks to this little domestic
violence pretence, now I can just look all pathetic and victimised and flash my
bruises at him, and he’s all like, “Hey, are you all right, Chessie? Do you
want to copy my work?”
It’s so good.
Except for the fact that he
really wants me to go and see Miss Gleave. That’s not so good.
But I think he might like me.
Not quite in the way I like him, but I’ll take what I can get.
I don’t want to get ahead of
myself or anything, but he actually asked me to go and eat lunch with him in
the archway today, and he blushed while he was doing it. Like I blush when I’m
talking to him, but not as much because Lloyd even looks cute when he’s
blushing, whereas I look like an oversized lobster. I can’t believe that Lloyd
Layton, most confident boy in school who could have any girl in the building
eat lunch with him, would get nervous asking me.
Me
.
By lunchtime I was so nervous that I couldn’t actually do anything other than
nibble the corner of my roll. If I had stuffed myself with cheese salad and
flapjacks like I normally do, he would have thought I was disgusting and
greedy.
But it was a nice lunch. We sat
and talked and it wasn’t even just about domestic violence, he even started
telling me about what car he’s going to get when he can drive and why he’d
chosen that particular car over all the others. It was a little bit boring, to
be honest, but he seemed to enjoy himself. I just nodded and tried to look like
I knew what he was talking about.
Now I just have to get him off
this whole idea that I am an abused child, because the sooner I don’t have to
lie to him anymore, the better.
And my arm is really hurting.
CHAPTER 26
A week has gone by when I decide to tell Lloyd that my
stepfather has moved out. I leave it until a Monday morning, thinking that I
can tell him my parents had a huge row over the weekend, and my stepfather
left, and now they’re getting a divorce so he’ll never beat me up again.
I just hope that it’s enough
time for Lloyd to realise that he likes me and that we can still be friends
even though I’m not a victim of domestic violence anymore. I’m actually
thinking about telling him that my parents’ argument was because of me telling
my mother what my stepfather had been doing to me, and that I only had the confidence
to stand up for myself because of Lloyd’s support. That should make him feel
good about himself, like he’s really done something to help.
Debs goes on ahead to the
cafeteria that morning while I stand in the archway and wait for him.
“Hey,” Lloyd says, coming in the
opposite direction than usual. He’s late as well. “I have some news for you.”
Hah. See how kismet we are? We
both have news for each other at exactly the same time.
“I have something great to tell you
as well.” I smile at him, trying to go for my best helpless-but-pleased look.
“You go first, Chessie. I
wouldn’t want to steal your moment.”
That’s weird. He’s got a funny
tone to his voice. Oh well. I shrug it off.
“You’ll never guess what… My
stepfather moved out. Can you believe it?”
“Really?” he asks, flashing what
looks like a fake smile at me. “That’s great. I can hardly believe it. In fact,
I can’t believe it at all. What happened?”
I think Lloyd must have gotten
out of bed on the wrong side this morning because he’s being really off with
me. I wonder if I should have left my news until after he’d had a cup of coffee
or something.
“I finally stood up for myself,
and it’s all down to you. I would never have been able to do it without your
support. I think I owe you, like, my life or something. I told my mum what he’d
been doing to me, and they had a huge fight and he left. He’s gone forever. My
mum said she’d never speak to him again in a million years, and she was so
apologetic to me afterwards. I told her it was only because I’d met this boy in
school who was encouraging me to speak up and tell the truth. So… Thank you, I
guess.”
“Now can I tell you my news?”
“Sure.” I smile.
“I’ve just been to see Miss
Gleave. About you.”
“Me?” I ask, getting a bit
worried.
“I figured you were never going
to do anything about it on your own, and I can’t just stand by and watch a
friend getting hurt, so I reported it to her. Told her in the strictest
confidence, and she promised me that she’d take care of it. She was horrified
that this kind of abuse could be happening right in front of her, right in
front of all the teachers, and that no one knew a thing about it. She was
really grateful to me for telling her.”
I laugh nervously. “Well,
there’s no need to now, because he’s gone, see? He won’t be back. Why don’t you
go back and tell her that it’s all sorted out and I don’t need any help now.
I’m fine, thanks to you.”
“Oh no,” Lloyd says. “We can’t
just let you – oh, sorry, I mean him – get away with it. Miss Gleave will tell
the police, and they’ll go and arrest him.” He smiles at me in a horrible sort
of way. That is not Lloyd Layton’s normal smile, and honestly, I’m getting
really worried here.
“Or maybe they’ll arrest you for
wasting police time.”
“Me?” I ask innocently. “Why
would they arrest me?”
“Oh, come on, Chessie, even you
are not that stupid. Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”
“Find out what?” Somehow, I
don’t think playing innocent is working.
“That you don’t and never have
had a stepfather, Chessie.”
I nod and swallow hard. Okay,
I’m busted. “How did you find out?”
“Ewan,” he says. “I happened to
mention something about your stepfather to him at the weekend, and he said,
‘oh, that’s funny, Chessie’s mum isn’t married,’ and I—”
“He was just a boyfriend. They
weren’t married.”
“Well, after that, Ewan went and
asked his mum, who happens to be good friends with your mum, right?”
I nod.
“Do you know what she said?”
I shake my head. I think these
are rhetorical questions anyway.
“She said that your mother was
single, and had been single since your dad died approximately seven years ago.
Strange, huh?”
Okay, so I’ve blown it big time.
Why didn’t I realise that Lloyd might think to ask Ewan?
“Funny, right? Because you told
me this guy had been living with you for two years.”
“I’m sorry.” I figure that maybe
truth is better than fiction this time. “Really sorry. I just wanted you to
talk to me. I think you’re a great guy and when you came up to me after gym
that day and you were so sweet, I thought that if I said I wasn’t being beaten
up, that you’d go and then you’d never talk to me again.”
“And what do you think you’ve
achieved now, huh?”
“I’m sorry.” I hang my head.
“I can’t believe you would lie
about something like that. It’s not a joke. People die, Chessie. Children die
because of their own parents. It’s not something you can exploit or lie about.
I bet you went home every night and had a really good laugh at their expense.”
“No, I didn’t,” I say. “I felt
really bad about it, but I was in over my head. How could I just suddenly say
to you that it was all a lie? You’d hate me.”
“Good guess,” he says. “So you
were going to lie some more to get out of it.”
“I didn’t intend for anyone to
get hurt.”
“Except for the children who get
hurt every single day. I’m sure you don’t give a damn about them.”
“I do,” I say, sudden
inspiration striking me. “I’ll do something to make it up to them. I’ll help
raise money for charity, like you do, right? I’ll do something, I swear.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Right.”
“Can I ask you something?”
He just stares at me. I take
that as a yes.
“If you found out at the
weekend, why did you go to Miss Gleave this morning? What did you tell her?”
“Revenge is sweet, Chessie,” he
says. “You can’t just go around saying shit like that and not get called up on
it. You can’t go around accusing imaginary people of something they never did.
As for what I told her, well, you’ll find out soon enough, I’m sure.”
“I’m really sorry,” I say again.
“I just wanted you to notice me.”
“Well, here’s a wacky thought,
you could have just come up to me and said, “
Hey Lloyd,
I really like you, wanna go out sometime
?” But no, you have to lie about
something serious like this.”
“What do you want me to say?” I
ask angrily. “I’m
sorry
. I knew I was wrong, and
I swear that I’m going to do something to make it better.”
“I don’t care, Chessie.”
He slings his bag over his
shoulder and goes to walk away.
“Oh, by the way, where
did
those bruises come from?”
“Have you seen the film
Liar, Liar
?”
“Oh yeah, where Jim Carrey
beats…” Comprehension dawns on his face. “I get it. I don’t want to hear any
more.”
He walks away just as the buzzer
rings.
Shit, shit, shit.
I’m sitting in French but I
can’t concentrate on a thing. Lloyd is sitting directly behind me, and I swear
I can feel his eyes burning into the back of my head. If I were flammable, I’d
be a pile of ashes by now.
I know I’ve blown it hugely, but
I can’t just let it go. I can’t just let Lloyd Layton walk away from me when I
was so close to having him like me. I know I’ve screwed up big time, but I’m
sure the answer is simple. I will do what I said. I will do something for
charity, something big, like a bungee jump or something but not a bungee jump
because I’m scared of heights. But something big that will get Lloyd’s
attention and make him realise that I really am sorry, and then he’ll like me
again. But it has to be huge. It has to be something that will be really hard
on me too, just so he knows that I’m making a sacrifice. I thought about donating
all my old clothes or something, but that’s just too small scale. Anyone can
donate a bunch of clothes they don’t wear anymore. I need something big, maybe
something that I can get Lloyd involved in because he said he raises money for
charity too, right? Maybe we could do something together, you know, if he ever
speaks to me again.
The other thing bothering me is
Miss Gleave. What did he tell her, and when the hell is she going to do
something about it? I’m expecting to be called to the principal’s office at any
moment, or worse. What if the police come in with a battering ram and break the
French class door down to arrest me for, I don’t know, false accusation, or
creating an imaginary person, or wasting police time like Lloyd said.
I wonder what prison is like.
Miss Gleave leaves it until
double technology that afternoon to talk to me. Just as Mr Vale is giving us a
run through of the lesson, she knocks on the door and announces to the whole
class that she would like to speak to me in private.
I look helplessly towards Lloyd
as I make my way to the front of the classroom, but he just winks at me as I
pass.
“Come with me, Chessie,” Miss
Gleave says, and we go out the door and into an empty classroom further down
the hall.
“Take a seat. Now then,” she
says gently. “It’s come to my attention that you might be having some problems
at home. Is there anything you want to talk about?”
Now, I’ve been playing this very
conversation over in my mind all day. I expected that it would go something
like this, and there are two options I can take here. I can play dumb, say no,
I don’t know what she’s talking about, or I can play the Lloyd is an idiot
card. I could say that he and I had a row and he was just looking for a way to
get back at me, or that he’s made a mistake, and then I could hope that someone
believed me because Lloyd is every teacher’s favourite student, and as far as I
know, has never done anything wrong in his life.
My body decides for me though,
because when I go to answer her, my throat clams up and I can’t get my words
out.
“I’m fine,” I struggle
eventually. “Everything’s fine.”
She nods slowly. “A fellow
student expressed some worry about you, some very serious worry. I just wanted
to talk to you, and let you know that you’re safe here and you can talk to me
about anything, and I will believe anything you tell me, no matter what. You
should know, Chessie, that if there is anything, anything at all that you need
to get off your chest, now is the time to do it.”
“I’m fine,” I say again.
“Okay.” She nods. “Well, I can’t
make you talk if you don’t want to talk, but I feel you should know that some
very severe accusations have been made and it is my job to take them seriously
and ensure that this situation is thoroughly investigated. Is that okay with
you?”
I shrug. I have no idea what
else to say.
“I won’t keep you from your
lesson any longer, but I just want you to know, and to keep in mind that my
door is always open to you, Chessie. If there is ever anything, anything at
all, that you want to talk about, please come to me anytime you need to.”
“Thank you,” I say. “But
everything is fine.”
“Okay then, well, enjoy your
technology class.”
That was humiliating. I slink
back into the tech class and try to hide at my desk. I know Lloyd is watching
me, and Mr Vale is beckoning to me, undoubtedly to go over what I just missed
him saying.
Actually, I think, maybe that
was a good thing. I mean, if an excruciatingly embarrassing interview with Miss
Gleave is the worst thing to happen thanks to Lloyd’s interfering, then maybe
it’s not so bad after all. Maybe that’s it. I mean, I’m fairly sure that they
can’t do anything unless I actually make an accusation myself, and seeing as
there’s nothing to accuse, maybe now I can just get on with trying to make
Lloyd forgive me.