Page 75 of Don't Tell Teacher

Jess Parker in Year 1 has lost her school cardigan. The label is marked JP. If anyone finds it, would they please hand it in to the school office.

I continue to scan, rubbing tired eyes. Nothing important, nothing important … No – nothing about Tom’s class. No special days coming up.

And then … oh my God …

A man in a van has been seen around the school gates. If you use a van to drop off children, please let the school know.

And suddenly I’m shaking, a hysteric cry rising in my throat.

Olly.

For a moment, my mind races around the house, throwing our belongings into boxes, getting ready to run again.

I close my eyes.Don’t get paranoid. There are all sorts of vans in the world. Just calm down. We were always getting messages like this in London. They’re very common. It’s okay. Calm. Calm. He can’t have found us. You were too careful.

I pace around, waiting for my heart rate to slow down.

Then I make myself some raspberry tea, stirring a dark red swirling storm into boiling water.

You were too careful, I tell myself again.There’s no way he could have found us.

But I know I’ll find it hard to sleep tonight. So I will do what I usually do when insomnia strikes – obsessively Google.

I think of the ten packing boxes, still stacked on the landing upstairs.

I should make a start on those. Get the last of the house in order. Or have a quick nap before the washing finishes. All good solutions for anxiety.

But instead, rubbing bloodshot eyes, I begin yet another Google search – this time looking up drugs that cause behavioural changes in children.

Lizzie

‘Icall her my little shadow,’ Mum tells our neighbour. ‘She never leaves my side.’ We’re in the garden, my mother sipping a coffee. I sit on the grass, pretending to study a mathematics textbook. I don’t understand much of it, but I’ve learned to play the good student around my mother. The more publicly the better.

Dad has been even more absent since the grammar school argument. Working late. Hotel-stays in London. The odd unexplained restaurant bill, if my mother’s screaming fits are to be believed …

I sense he’s detaching from my mother. And me too, since by staying away from her he stays away from me.

The truth is, my father is a coward. He’s running away and he doesn’t know me well enough to take me with him. If he didn’t bury his head in the sand, he’d be able to see that I’m miserable too. Despite theGood Housekeepingimage, Ruth Riley is not a good mother.

Our neighbour, Rita, leans over our slatted wood fence.

Privately, my mother criticises Rita for the weeds growing on her driveway and unwashed net curtains.

I look up at my mother, so tall and beautiful – everything perfect on the outside. Black, curled hair, fitted wool skirt suit showing off her handsome figure and bright-red lipstick around straight white teeth.

Mum never leaves the house without a full face of makeup and styled hair. Even to go into our own back garden. After all, what would people say if she wasn’t presentable?

Sometimes I wish I could be like her, all lit up. Bright. The sort of woman people notice. But then again, I’m well aware there’s something not quite right about my mother. She’s not real, like other people. Everything is empty. An act. The perfect, happy life is just a shell.

When no one is looking, her mouth is tight with anger. She is furious that her husband has all but left her. Furious that I didn’t turn out to be the perfect, clever daughter. Furious that her life isn’t glamorous or special.

Does she know, deep down, that everything is a lie? Her marriage, her relationship with her daughter – just a picture she paints to cover a grey, sad reality?

My mother reaches down and pats my head, the same way someone might pet a dog.

Rita, a cuddly, grey-haired lady with pink-framed glasses, says: ‘So how are you doing at school, little one?’

My mother rearranges her feet just enough to block my body from sight. ‘She’s doing exceptionally well. Just last week, her teacher was telling me she was one of the few in the class who might go to university.’

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