Page 62 of The Dead Ex

‘Don’t you think you’re jumping to conclusions, love?’

‘NO.’ There was the sound of something heavy. A fist on the table? ‘You don’t understand.’

Dee was crying now. Scarlet almost felt likerunning down and putting her arms around her like she used to with Mum when she cried. But then she’d be discovered.

‘It’s all right. You’re safe now. I’ll never let anyone hurt you again.’

That was Robert’s voice. Something stirred inside Scarlet. Not just fear in case he couldn’t be trusted, like Mr Walters, but jealousy too. Dee had someone to look after her. She and Mum – they didn’t haveanyone.

Quietly, Scarlet tiptoed back and lay on the floor, putting the pillow with its little blue-and-yellow dots over her ears to block out the creaks around her. Just as she finally drifted off, Dee was knocking on the door and gently telling her that it was time to get up.

This was a school?

Scarlet looked with amazement at the pretty red house at the end of the lane. It had grass aroundit instead of concrete as well as swings like a proper park. Then a horrible thought hit her. Supposing they made her play the game and the police took her again?

‘It’s a very small church primary,’ said Dee, placing a hand on her shoulder. ‘So they’ll make you feel at home. I know it will seem strange to begin with, but you’ll be all right. I promise.’

She spoke in the same voice that Mum usedwhen she didn’t really mean something but was just trying to make her feel better.

‘Scarlet still isn’t talking,’ she heard Dee tell the teacher. ‘We don’t want to force her. She’ll do it in her own time.’

Would she? It was so much easier to stay silent. That way she wouldn’t have to tell anyone what happened when Mr Walters had opened the bedroom door.

Everyone looked at her when the teachershowed her where to sit. Instead of a shared table, she had a desk all of her own with a lift-up lid. The girl next to her had a picture of a pony on the inside of hers. It was black with a floppy fringe. Once, Mum had told her there was a horse in the field next to her house when she was growing up in Whales. How cool was that! Carefully, Scarlet took her own precious photograph out of her pocketand stuck it to the lid with bits of Blu-tack that were already there.

‘Who are they?’ asked the girl with the pony.

‘My mum and some other people,’ Scarlet wanted to say but the words stuck in her throat again.

‘Cat got your tongue, has it?’

‘We heard you’re living in the home for weirdos.’

This was a boy whose desk was on her left.

‘The ones that take in kids without parents.’

Not true!She still had a mother, even if she was in prison. Then a terrible thought struck her. What if Mum had died, and no one had told her?

The teacher was pointing to a map now, but Scarlet felt too sick to listen. As soon as the lesson finished and they were sent into the playground for ‘break time’, Scarlet knew what she had to do.

‘Was it school?’ asked Dee a few hours later when they collectedher from the railway station. ‘Was anyone horrid to you?’

Scarlet looked out of the car window. Fields, fields and more fields. Yellow and green and yellow again. She still felt sick but hungry too. It had been a long time since breakfast.

‘Then why did you run away? If the station master hadn’t called us, you might be on a train to goodness-knows-where by now, and anything could have happenedto you.’

‘Because I wanted to visit Mum, of course,’ said Scarlet in her head. ‘Make sure she’s all right.’

‘You’ve got to say something, love, or we can’t help you.’

This was Robert.

‘DON’T CALL ME “LOVE”!’ Scarlet wanted to shout. Mr W had done that. And other names too. She should have stopped him. But then she might have got into trouble again.

‘Can you write it down instead?’

No. Thatwould make it even more real.