Bad Little Girl(11)

‘I’m going to be sick again.’ Lorna got up and wandered towards the toilets.

‘When Mummy comes to pick you up, I’ll tell her that you’re feeling poorly,’ Claire called to her back.

The girl turned dull eyes on her. ‘No.’

‘Sweetheart, if you have a poorly tummy then Mum can make you feel better.’

Lorna closed her eyes and looked, suddenly, so weary: a much older child. She came back and sat down. And then Feras, over by the door started up his chatter, ‘Hometimehometimehometime!’ and Claire peered at her watch – four thirty.

‘I’ll go and get you some water, Lorna. You sit tight here, sweetheart.’ Fergus Coyle was bellowing something about a poison dart frog and Claire gently steered him away from the Calm Down Corner, and drew the jigsaw-printed curtains around it. ‘Lorna is feeling a little bit poorly, Fergus, can we keep it down? Miss Montgomery is opening the door now, look.’ When she came back with water, Lorna gazed up at her from the depths of a beanbag, tired eyes in worn sockets.

‘Mum will be here soon, Lorna. In the meantime have a sip of water and a few deep breaths.’ She felt the girl’s forehead. No fever. ‘Do you still feel sick?’ The girl shook her head. ‘Dizzy? Cold? Here, look, take my cardy while you’re waiting. It’s nice and warm.’ She put it around Lorna’s shoulders, wrapping the sleeves around her neck like a scarf. ‘There we go. Nice and cosy. Have another little sip? You have a bit more colour in your cheeks now. What was that?’ The girl had whispered something.

‘Can I go home with you?’ She said it all in a rush. She looked so desperate, panicked.

Claire tried to smile. ‘And what would your mum have to say about that? Taking her lovely daughter away? She’d have something to say about that, wouldn’t she?’

But Lorna just looked confused. ‘I want to come home with you.’

‘Lorna . . .’ Claire’s forehead wrinkled. ‘Why?’

The girl hesitated, and then turned her head away. ‘I don’t really. I don’t know.’

‘Is everything all right at home? Lorna? Please tell me if you’re worried . . . or, or scared?’

‘I’m OK.’ Her face was blank now. Her voice a monotone.

Outside, Miss Montgomery was failing to hold the fort at the door. Fergus Coyle wasn’t letting the subject of poison dart frogs lie, and Feras was punching him rhythmically on the back. It was beginning to unravel out there.

‘I’ll dash out now, but I’ll be back in a minute. Do you want a book to look at?’

‘No.’

‘OK then.’ Claire hesitated, feeling that she’d missed some opportunity, and disappointed the child. Failed her. Lorna had already turned her pale, tear-stained face to the wall.

Inevitably Lorna’s mum was late to pick her up, and Lorna was the last child left in the cloakroom. The first time Claire had seen her, the time she’d seen her slap Lorna, she’d thought, That woman looks like a scared rabbit, and she was always Rabbit Girl in her mind now, with her too-short upper lip that didn’t quite cover her gums, and the tiny, almost imperceptible quiver that ran through her like a small electrical charge whenever she was in the presence of authority. She kept her distance from Lorna, who sat pale and still on the bench by the coat rack, clutching her school bag.

‘She looks all right,’ muttered Rabbit Girl.

Lorna looked at her mother, then suddenly pitched forward and let out a weak stream of grey vomit onto the floor.

‘Not to worry Lorna, not to worry. Is there any more in there? Do you need to go to the loo? No? OK, let’s wipe that face.’ Claire took her time fussing over her, prolonging the clean-up operation. Somehow she didn’t want the girl to go home. Things can’t be good there. They mustn’t be. She tried to make eye contact, but Lorna slid away from her attention, got to her feet and moved wordlessly towards the door, her mum trailing her.

‘Feel better soon, Lorna!’ Claire called, but the door closed before she finished the sentence.





6





Over the weeks and months that followed, Claire worried at the memory like a terrier. Odd, because it wasn’t so different from a thousand other incidents she’d witnessed: a child is sick; a child doesn’t fit in; they become attached to you with sudden, touching vehemence – how many times had she accidentally been called mum? And some of the parents were simply bad parents: uninterested, dull, closed. After all, she had spent years trying to accept that these parents will inevitably choke their child’s proud little flame of curiosity, empathy and pride. Lorna would be no different. Why then did Claire think she was? She had no answer for that.

And so she kept a discreet eye on the girl, as the months stretched into a year. She saw Lorna grow thinner, but not too much thinner; lonelier, but not completely ostracised. Lorna seemed to fall into that oh-so-familiar gap between normality and cause-for-concern, and Claire knew she couldn’t talk to Norma about her again, let alone James, without seeming, well, strange.

And so a whole year swung by. It was nearly Christmas before she encountered Lorna again.



* * *



Eight o’clock on a Monday morning, and Claire sat in the staffroom, feeling old and dim next to her hard, bright, recently graduated colleagues. They were all high flyers with their spreadsheets and strenuous sports. Why were they at this school anyway? Earning their inner-city stripes? Cynical, Claire. These girls didn’t hug or smile, and the DFE vernacular fell easily from their neat lips. They were efficiency itself, the new guard, ploughing over the fallen soldiers: old Mrs Hurst with her severe short back and sides and orthopaedic shoes, Miss Pickin with her liver spots and crucifix, and, she supposed, Claire herself. What did the younger teachers think of her? Bony Miss Penny with her greying bob and sensible shoes.