Page 62 of Don't Tell Teacher

‘Is it one of those Neilson boys?’ I demand, as we reach our front door. ‘Is Pauly putting you up to things? Or Lloyd?’

Silence.

I try a different tactic.

‘Lloyd had a bruise near his ear. Or some kind of mark. Did you notice?’

‘His stepdad did it, probably. It’s nothing.’

‘Nothing? He got a mark like that from his stepdad and you think that’s nothing?’

Tom seems about to say something, then thinks better of it, snapping his mouth closed.

‘What’s going on at that school, Tom?’ I demand.

Tom becomes sullen again. ‘Nothing.’

‘Tell me!’

‘Okay, okay.’ Tom doesn’t look at me. ‘Someone asked me to bring the medicine in.’

‘Who?’

‘Someone. They wanted to look at it, so I brought it in.’

‘It’syourmedicine. No one else should have it – that’s dangerous. You must never,evertake medicine from home again.Ever. Promise me.Promise me!’

Tom runs straight up to his bedroom.

I follow him, standing over his bed, shouting: ‘Why,whydid you take it? Don’t you understand it’s dangerous? This isyourmedication. Talk to me, Tom.Talkto me.’

But he just pulls his duvet over his head, not saying a word.

I spend the evening going up and down the stairs, pleading with Tom, then eventually bursting into angry tears.

Tom is such a sensitive little boy. Usually when I cry, he gives me a hug.

But today, nothing.

It’s like he’s been body-snatched, and I feel so, so afraid.

What’s happening to my son?

Kate

11.45 a.m.

I’m sitting alone in the Steelfield School music room among broken-stringed violins and tom-tom drums, feeling stress tugging at my ribcage.

The headmaster refused his office for my meeting with Tom’s class teacher, so I’m seated on an orange plastic chair in an outbuilding in the middle of the school field.

Tom’s teacherstillhasn’t turned up. I check my watch again.

Come on, Mrs Dudley. Hurry up.

I’m wasting time I don’t have and Tessa is going to lynch me. Then I hear movement outside.

This must be her.

---