A Stolen Childhood

by Casey Watson

  On this occasion, with Tommy already with me for half the week anyway, it made sense for me to go instead of Jim, though. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’ll grab my bag and head up there right away. Let’s hope he hasn’t actually blown anything up yet, eh?’

  ‘Or anyone,’ Gary added. ‘Or he’ll find himself at the sharp end of an explosion of the Mr Hunt variety.’

  We exchanged a look rather than needing to say anything. Not nice.

  I didn’t often find myself in the science block, so it took a while to track down the classroom in question – which was actually one of the labs and, as I’d been told, currently full of a year eight group of pupils engaged in complicated operations with Bunsen burners.

  Chemistry not being my thing, I couldn’t have said what they were all doing exactly, but there were goggles involved, as well as an odd metallic smell, and an array of what might conceivably be noxious chemicals, over which various groups of children were bent, like covens of industrious witches over cauldrons, only in lab coats.

  Mr Hunt was at the back of the class and it took a moment or two for him to spot me, upon which he strode purposefully back to the front. I smiled as he approached, in response to his eye-rolling, having already decided on the walk over to dispense with observing Tommy’s behaviour and just take him back to the Unit with me.

  Well, provided Mr Hunt was happy, which I didn’t need to be a scientist myself to judge that he probably would be.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Hunt,’ I said as he drew level and lowered further the slim wire-framed glasses he had perched on his nose. ‘I’ve come to collect Tommy. Thomas Robinson?’

  ‘Ah, Mrs … ah … Watson. Good, good,’ he replied. He took the glasses off completely then and waved them vaguely behind him. ‘Good.’

  I lowered my voice. ‘What’s he been up to? Has there been a problem with him today?’ I asked, speaking quietly so as not to disturb the mostly industrious class.

  Mr Hunt had no such qualms about the volume switch, however. ‘Ah, our young master Robinson,’ he said in a voice loud enough to get everyone’s attention. A voice designed to do so, if I wasn’t much mistaken. ‘Yes, indeed, Mrs Watson,’ he continued, wafting his glasses behind him once again. ‘There has been a problem, so I’d be very grateful if you did just that. Let me see …’ he went on, making a show of scanning the classroom and, if I wasn’t mistaken, sniffing the air. ‘If you follow the smell, I think you’ll find him sitting under some dirty little cloud, just about – ah, there he is – there.’

  To say I was aghast would be a massive understatement, and as the class, fully attentive now, began whispering and giggling, I wasn’t just stunned by Mr Hunt’s words, I was appalled. I glared at him as I walked around him and across the room to the end of Tommy’s bench. His face and neck were as red as the rubber Bunsen burner gas tubes, and I felt my anger rise. How easy it was to casually humiliate a child.

  ‘You’re not in any trouble, Tommy,’ I said as I beckoned him to come with me, conscious that a boy just behind him was holding his nose and fanning the air theatrically. I glared at him as well, grateful that at least Tommy hadn’t seen him do it. ‘I just need your help with something in the Unit, love, that’s all. Could you come with me, do you think?’

  No such luck, however, as another boy, this time in Tommy’s eye-line, was already responding to the theatricals with a snort of suppressed laughter, causing Tommy to wheel around and catch the other boy in the act. ‘You fucking arsehole!’ he spat, kicking out at one of the nearby lab stools and toppling it. ‘You’re all dickheads!’ he added, as it landed with a clatter. He turned to the front of the class. ‘Especially you, “sir”!’

  Mr Hunt, who I expected quite enjoyed upping the ante from time to time, didn’t seem fazed in the least. In fact, though he spread his palms in a gesture of apparent exasperation, I thought he looked rather pleased with himself. ‘See what I have to put up with?’ he said to me, as I followed Tommy towards the front, hoping he wouldn’t do anything really silly. ‘Just get the obnoxious little sod out of here.’

  I quashed the urge to pass a comment about the obnoxious sod standing right in front of me, and instead walked right past him, just as Tommy thankfully had, saying nothing. ‘Come on, love,’ I said, once we were almost at the door. ‘Let’s get you over to my room before you get any angrier, eh?’

  I shut the classroom door behind me with unnecessary force, and though I knew I was being childish, I didn’t regret it. I was furious. How could a teacher be a fully paid-up member of the school’s anti-bullying campaign and at the same time speak to a child in such a fashion? What Mr Hunt had said and done had beggared belief. It would have been bad form enough in the staff-room (well, to my mind, at any rate) but to say such things and to address them to the whole class, to boot, was a disgrace, and I had half a mind to report him.

  And to then have the temerity to bemoan what he ‘had to put up with’ when he’d so blatantly provoked it himself! I took a few deep breaths before addressing Tommy, whose expression had changed from one of anger and defiance to one of helplessness, hopelessness and shame.

  I put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder but arranged my face so it didn’t look too maternal or sympathetic. I had a feeling he was close to tears and desperate not to break down. My heart surged for him. ‘Come on, sweetie,’ I said, briskly guiding him down the corridor. ‘I think you can give science a miss for a couple of weeks, okay?’

  Tommy didn’t speak. Merely nodded as he marched along beside me. I didn’t press it. I could tell how much he didn’t want to cry in front of me.

  Shame on you, Mr Hunt, I thought. Shame on you. He hadn’t heard the last of this yet.

  Chapter 8

  For all that I wanted to have a few words with Mr Hunt, it was Tommy who I naturally felt obliged to have a stern word with as we made our way back to my classroom. Which did the trick. Almost as soon as I gently upbraided him about his language, his face properly crumpled and this time he did cry.

  Which made me feel even worse. And since he was already in tears, I had no compunction about putting an arm around him now.

  ‘I’m sorry, miss,’ he sniffed, pulling a bit of sweatshirt cuff down over his hand and using it to wipe his face. ‘I don’t mean to shout an’ that, but I can’t help it. Me mum would go mental if she knew I was putting up with stuff like that and not sticking up for myself.’

  ‘And you should stick up for yourself,’ I agreed. ‘Your mum’s right about that. But there’s ways and ways,’ I went on, making a mental note about the ways I might choose to make my own point to Mr Hunt.

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like, miss,’ Tommy said, recovering his composure a little. ‘She really means it. That’s what she tells us all the time – that we mustn’t let anyone treat us bad, ever. That she didn’t take years of beatings just for us to end up the same. Honest to God, miss, she’d swipe me one. She would!’

  I thought it best not to point out the contradiction in what he’d said, not only because I felt a rush of warmth for Mrs Robinson, but also because I completely got where she was coming from; even though I’d not yet met her, from what I’d seen of Tommy so far, I could tell she was a woman who, having lived with fear and violence, was keen to raise her kids to look out for themselves so they didn’t end up in the same boat.

  It wasn’t always that way. From what I’d seen in school, and from the vulnerable adults I’d worked with in my last job, for every woman like Tommy’s mum (who I’d visualised in my head as a no-nonsense, Boudicca-like character) there was another that was too broken, too cowed, to be that robust. The children of these mums reacted to the violence they’d witnessed as their mums did, by being nervous, highly anxious and afraid.

  I didn’t blame them or judge them. They were all victims of domestic violence – a pernicious canker in society whose effects spread far and wide. Tommy, I decided, was probably one of the lucky ones, in that his mother had found the wherewithal to get physically right a
way. Yes, he’d missed some schooling, but I thought he’d be okay. To have got away from such a situation, and to have started a new life, would most likely have empowered his mum to be determined that her kids would live differently, and Tommy would surely be better off for it. He simply needed to learn how to handle himself more appropriately.

  ‘I can understand that,’ I conceded, ‘but, Tommy, you just can’t lash out, with your fists or your tongue. Certainly not in school, or you’ll end up getting excluded permanently and we don’t want that, do we? I think you just need to learn how to cope better in stressful situations.’

  But Tommy wasn’t to be mollified. ‘What?’ he huffed. ‘Even though the teacher is acting like a dick?’

  I couldn’t help but sympathise. In fact, I wished I could find some clever riposte to slip him; something that would have had the class laughing with him rather than at him. Of course, I didn’t, because to involve myself in such subversive behaviour would be to set off down a very slippery slope – the staff were supposed to present a united front, after all. So instead I sighed sympathetically and said nothing to Tommy. Just made a mental note that I had unfinished business with a certain Mr Hunt.

  We returned to the classroom to find it was proving to be a productive morning. I’d not been gone long, but a great deal had been achieved in my absence – unsurprising, since I’ve yet to meet a child in a classroom who wasn’t happy to be creating some sort of art. I’d have liked us to be contributing something else to the Easter assembly, too – a group poem recital, perhaps, or a song – but with my little group so new there wasn’t the time to choose and rehearse anything, plus I wasn’t sure any of them had the confidence to stand up in front of their peers. Perhaps next term, with whoever was still with me.

  In the meantime, Tommy was only too happy to don his art apron and get stuck in and, having been greeted by Chloe as warmly as if he had just returned from an Arctic expedition, he was soon looking cheerful again.

  My focus now returned to Kiara. ‘You okay, love?’ I asked her as I took a look at her various creations; like the child herself, the array of eggs were all pretty and neatly executed.

  She nodded. ‘I like painting,’ she said. ‘You can lose yourself when you’re painting, can’t you?’

  It was a bit of pocket philosophy, and I wondered whether she’d heard it said, or had realised it herself as a part of the process. I agreed that you could. ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘I’ll be walking home with you later, if that’s alright by you. Your mum’s said I can visit so we can have a proper chat about things. See how we can best help you to get back to your usual self.’

  Again she nodded, and agreed that it would be fine for me to do that, but there was something – a flash of something like fear in her eyes. It was gone – or covered up? – in the blink of an eye, too. But not so fast that I didn’t see it. What was it with this girl?

  Rather than the lesson I had originally been planning for that afternoon, I decided that we’d do some work on conflict resolution instead, mostly for Tommy’s but for all of their benefit. It was no big deal to do so; being flexible and reactive to issues and situations was, I’d begun to realise, integral to my job. And not just so I could use a situation one of the children had experienced in order to illustrate some aspect of personal growth. It was also because things could be fine in the Unit one minute and the next all hell could break loose. When that happened, any carefully laid plans went to pot, and alternative tasks and lessons needed to be found. I had therefore learned to be savvy, and to have lesson plans for all eventualities; like the best military generals, I always had a back-up plan.

  The worksheets I had made up for this afternoon’s chosen lesson consisted of a well-known scenario in any school, and consisted, in essence, of just four questions. They were simple questions, too, the first of them being: ‘Someone who doesn’t really like you is teasing you in front of all your friends. They call you a name that they know will upset you. What do you say and what do you do?’

  The idea was that the child would write down their responses, then answer the next question: ‘What happens then?’ That done, they’d be asked to reflect on the consequences of their response, answering a third question: ‘What happens next?’

  This step was designed to help them think about ramifications; how the original act and response to it affected people around them – their parents, the teachers, their friends.

  Finally, the worksheet asked: ‘Are you happy with this outcome? If not, what do you wish would have happened and if you had the chance to do it again, how could you have handled it differently?’

  Whenever I had used this same worksheet in the past it had had the desired outcome. Each child was forced to reflect on something that they would have surely experienced, and really think about the consequences of their actions and those of others. It seemed to be a simple yet enlightening exercise and their answers never failed to impress me. Today was no different, each had obviously thought carefully about it and I had to smile when I saw Tommy’s reflective paragraph.

  ‘So the geezer called me stinky but instead of getting shirty about it when everyone laughed, I should have just laughed and said, “Not guilty, sir, Harry Evans has just farted and I think he followed through”.’

  Not exactly what I had in mind, but at least he saw that by turning the tables he could have avoided some of the humiliation. Putting this into practice, however – well, that remained to be seen.

  As the final bell of the afternoon went, the students, as usual, couldn’t wait to get out of the classroom and into the warm, spring sunshine. Within a minute there was only Kiara left behind.

  ‘Will you be having tea with us, miss?’ she asked shyly, and I noticed she was once again tugging, seemingly unconsciously, at a long strand of hair. Did she hope I’d say I was or that I wasn’t?

  ‘No, love,’ I said. ‘Just a quick “hello” visit, that’s all. I like to try and meet with as many of my Unit parents as I can,’ I explained. ‘Just to help us all get to know each other a little better. Nothing for you to worry about,’ I finished, sensing her anxiety was building, and wondering if I should touch her arm to stop her winding her hair round her finger.

  She removed it herself then, to haul on her backpack while I shouldered my satchel. ‘Off we go, then,’ I said brightly. ‘You lead the way, we don’t want to keep your mum waiting, do we?’ Given how terrifically busy she is, I thought but didn’t say.

  Kiara and her mum lived only ten minutes away from school in a very sought-after area with broad tree-lined streets and manicured gardens. It was very easy to imagine that it was all peace and tranquillity and that all the children played out in their Sunday best.

  As we walked there I tried to get her chatting. ‘So, your mum has changed her hours then? I guess you see a lot more of her now, don’t you?’

  Kiara glanced up at me and then immediately looked away. ‘Um, yes, I suppose so,’ she muttered, head down. ‘Did she tell you that?’ she added, after a pause.

  I sensed a growing unease in her. Was this a normal response to getting home, or just because I was going with her? I wished I could get some sense of what was ailing this mysterious child. ‘No, I think it was Mr Clark who told me that,’ I clarified. ‘But she must have changed some of her hours otherwise she wouldn’t be at home now, would she?’

  ‘I s’pose,’ she said, as if her mum’s working hours were something of a mystery. Which was odd. Surely she had a rota of some sort? Surely she kept her daughter abreast of her movements, in the time-honoured ‘I’ll be working till X o’clock this evening. Pop the shepherd’s pie in the oven, see you in a bit’ kind of way?

  Or perhaps not. ‘When do we break up for the Easter holidays, miss?’ Kiara asked me. She really didn’t seem to want to talk about home. And that was fine.

  ‘About a week and a half, love,’ I told her. ‘And then you have two whole weeks off. Won’t that be nice?’

  Kiara smiled properly then,
and as she did so her pretty little face lit up. I was struck once again by how beautiful she was when she was animated like this. ‘I can’t wait, miss,’ she said.

  ‘Me neither,’ I agreed. ‘What have you got planned? Anything nice?’

  As I spoke I reflected on her apparent lack of friends, which was something that really concerned me. How did this perfectly personable child get to be such a loner? It wasn’t as if she lacked social skills, or had difficulty relating to people. Chloe adored her, and she responded so patiently to her, so it wasn’t as if she lacked empathy. Yes, some kids were natural loners, and happy to be so, but this girl just didn’t seem to fit that mould. She seemed a girl who’d have a best friend that she took through school with her. A BFF to share secrets with, paint her nails with, go to town shopping with. Or did her mum fill that role for her? From what I’d seen and heard so far, I didn’t think so.

  She answered immediately. ‘Yes, I’ll get to see my dad loads,’ she said, and the tone in her voice – one of excitement – was unmistakable. She clearly thought a lot about her father, despite (or perhaps even related to) the problems her parents had with each other. ‘Here we are,’ she added, coming to a stop outside a house midway down the road we’d been walking along, and pushing open a small iron gate.