Page 47 of Second Story

13

ISAAC

I spend all week learning how this school works and doing whatever its headmaster tells me. Not that Luke gives orders like some kind of drill sergeant. He starts conversations, then starts walking.

First he tours the library bookshelves with me, then he takes me through school hallways until I know each classroom. Next, we walk and talk through library design ideas while in the woods, discussing book selections all the way along the stream trickling through its middle. He walks me uphill to a pool bordered with boulders and downhill to a woodland clearing where he sits on a log throne while I sit on a tree stump listening to the story of his son and daughter’s refugee journey. Then he joins me in the back of my van where I find titles that he tells me they loved the next time we walk and talk together.

He only ever seems to ask questions I can answer.

I wish I could do the same for Len.

I can’t give him a straight answer about whether Joe will be back soon. “I don’t know” is more honest, so that’s what I tell him over the din of a whole school eating breakfast together.

Seven days into my trial role, I’m still not used to this communal living and eating, to sharing food family-style on mixed age-group tables that Ruth says will help Lenny settle.

He doesn’t need help, which he proves after I ask, “You want to decorate your new bedroom with me tonight?”

“I already got a bedroom.” It’s cool that he’s relaxed enough not to whisper and cute that he’s this indignant. “With Tor.”

I’d be offended that he isn’t in a hurry to share the new rooms Luke has allocated to us if it weren’t so good to see Len invested in starting and ending each day with one of his new besties. Even if he’s still silent around most of the other students, this shared table has become one of his safe places, so I take my time eating before the rest of the school can overwhelm him.

It’s like…

Old times.

If I squint, Ruth could be Mum at the head of the table joking with Teo, who helps her wrangle her houseful of boarding students and who must be around the same age I was when Mum had Lenny. It’s a noisy but friendly start to the morning. Familiar, which is helped by tablemates who I can’t help thinking have been hand-picked to help my brother feel at home here. Several speak the same south London language, each morning starting withwagwansof greeting and fist bumps that include my little brother, which means he comes close to speaking up more often, like now.

“When is Silver—” Len corrects himself. “When is Joe coming back?”

Teo can’t have crossed paths with Joe. He has no idea who Lenny mentions. “Silver who, bruv?”

Noah fills him in, using a term for the police that doesn’t belong in Cornwall. “That fed I told you about.”

I shake my head just as Lenny spots someone across the dining hall and asks to leave the table.

That’s new.

“Go ahead,” I tell him, keeping one eye on him as I address Noah. “I know you heard me explain how come I knew Joe.” Noah flushes, but if Joe stands a chance of helping him, he needs to believe this. Both Ruth and Luke have mentioned that being factual helps, no beating around the bush with Noah, so that’s what I aim for. “I wasn’t lying. Joe isn’t on the police force. He was Lenny’s support worker at school.”

“Supporting him with what?” Teo asks around a mouthful of toast.

I’d usually censor myself. I know I’m not alone in that since meeting other kids and carers with loved ones behind bars. Shame shuts mouths. Even ones belonging to the littlest of children.

They’re quick to soak up that prison is a dirty word. Learn fast how it stains everyone it touches. Time around this breakfast table means I guess these kids will know that. I still check Lenny is far away enough not to overhear me hanging out our family’s dirty laundry.

“Joe supported Lenny at school after our mum was arrested. It was rough when she didn’t get bailed. Even rougher with her still on remand. Not sure how Lenny would have got through those early days without Joe to talk to. He helped him from the day our front door got kicked in by the actual police.” I can’t help growling, “She didn’t have anything to do with what they found hidden under the cabinets in our kitchen.”

Noah mouths a single word as if Lenny isn’t the only one who can be voiceless.

Drugs?

I nod, and he gets verbal. “But she knew who brought them into your place?”

I nod again, and he fires back another question.

“She tell the feds who?”

I shake my head about the silence she won’t break. And yeah, Noah understands how things work where we’re from. I hear it in him quietly stating, “Whoever it was threatened her into keeping her mouth shut.” That isn’t a question. Neither is this. “No. She’s scared something will happen to you two if she talks.”

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