Page 20 of Second Story

Lenny isn’t an infant, but like Joe did in that bathroom, this teacher hits the nail on the head about me being the one and only person left to rock his cradle.

“Honestly, I won’t take my eyes off him,” she says gently.

I want to believe that. Call me slow to trust, but walking away is hard.

I don’t get far.

“Isaac!”

Lenny rarely speaks this loudly around strangers. Hardly ever raises his voice unless he sees someone has scars. He shows off one of his own by crawling under the table, desperate to reach me.

I get down on his level and open my arms, because if there’s a single promise I’ll never break, it’s this one.

“I won’t leave you.”

I nod towards the library window. “I’ll just be on the other side of that glass.” I hold up his storybook. “And I’ll bring this back as soon as I finish reading it to the headmaster.”

“No!” Lenny grabs for one of his most treasured possessions, tugging at it so fiercely that I worry the pages will tear between us.

I’m torn too at Luke Lawson watching what must look like a fight between a full-grown adult and a barely seven-year-old shrimp, a tug-of-war between a towering Goliath and a puny Daniel.

What kind of storyteller tries to wrestle a book from a kid who sees it as a last link to someone he once looked up to?

And sure, I could have told Len that his real-life Silver Man walked away without looking back once. I never have, and I won’t now.

This is the worst place in the world to replay Joe helping me breathe through the kind of panic I’ve only felt a few times. It first rose the day Mum was taken from us. Did again just minutes ago. Needing this job so badly means it prickles again. “It’s cool, Len,” I rush to tell him. “It’s all good. I’ll get anotherbook from the van to read out. And I promise that I’ll only be on the other side of that glass, yeah?”

He hugs his book to his narrow chest, silent again, but at least he gives me a slow nod.

“Good, good.” I blow out a long breath. “You’ll be fine out here with Ruth and …”

“Tor,” that blond boy offers, patting the seat beside him. “Want to use my crayons?”

I springboard straight into a story. “Tor? Like a sleeping giant, Len! Wow. And he wants to share with you? You know what that means, yeah?”

Lenny mouths, “Best friends forever,” hero-worship mode engaged again, thank fuck.

“See. You’ll be fine with Tor. And if you need me, all you have to do is this, and I’ll hear you.” I rap hard on the window.

The headmaster turns.

So does someone else.

Luke Lawson is as stern now as when he told me to come back with a story showing I understood childhood trauma. Now he gets a good look at me recognising a real expert.

Joe sits inside the library I need to make mine.

The way I feel right now, failure is more likely, and it doesn’t matter that I’ve spent the last year telling myself he didn’t matter.

It still sucks that Joe will get to watch that failure happen.

5

JOE

Isaac’s on my mind until that volley of knocks on the window. They interrupt Luke Lawson, and until I see who is on the other side of that glass, I think it’s a shame they cut short our conversation. This head teacher is everything the padre promised. Interested in the court-based advocacy role I’ve spent the last few hours fulfilling in meetings with his team. Keen to know my thoughts on Noah’s progress.

He abandons that discussion the moment Isaac raps, loud and insistent, but he extends the same invite to me as the school padre did earlier. “Stay,” he says after getting to his feet to cross the library to that window. “I’d like to hear more about your project work. Your workshops. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you sat in on my next interview. I’d value an impartial opinion.”

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