Ninja School Mum

by Lizzie Chantree

  ‘I used to be a gymnast at school,’ answered Skye when she realised that Thea wasn’t going to let it go. ‘It’s great for co-ordination. I could have been a champion if I hadn’t been so lanky… all arms and legs.’ She shook out her arms, stretched her legs out and wiggled her toes to make her point. ‘I got to a stage where, instead of being graceful, I began to fall over my own limbs,’ she joked. ‘I was so clumsy and hormonal that my parents despaired. The flips and twists did give me good balance though. I do like to do the odd cartwheel as well, but Leo gets so embarrassed that I’ve had to stop doing them in public,’ she said solemnly.

  Thea giggled at the mental picture she now had of Skye cartwheeling down the high street. ‘It’s nothing really,’ she said finally. ‘Just too many sleepless nights.’

  ‘Allie told Leo that Flo had started sleeping through the night?’

  ‘Ah...’ mumbled Thea. ‘Well, she has really, but sometimes she does wake up and last night was one of those times.’ Skye arched her eyebrow at such an obvious lie and Thea’s shoulders sagged in defeat. She felt like she was under the spotlight with Skye’s piercing eyes scanning her face every few seconds. This felt like a job interview.

  At that moment, the school bell rang and children seemed to flow from every direction, like the evening tide reaching for the shore. Thea jumped up as Allie ran towards her and grasped hold of her legs, sobbing into Thea’s jeans. Leo came rushing closely behind, carrying her broken backpack. Skye shot him a questioning glance as Thea bent down to comfort her niece.

  ‘Miles?’ asked Skye. Leo nodded and carefully placed the backpack under the pram, out of sight of Allie where it might upset her further.

  ‘He grabbed Allie’s bag and tried to run off with it while it was strapped to her back,’ he explained angrily. ‘It snapped the strap and pulled her over. She’s scraped her knee.’

  ‘Right!’ said Thea, jumping up, having checked over Allie’s rather red and slightly bloody leg. ‘I’ve had just about enough of that boy. I’m going to have a word with his mother.’

  ‘No!’ wailed Allie, grabbing at her aunt’s leg as if the world was ending. ‘You can’t. He’ll make my life hell if you say anything.’

  ‘What else am I supposed to do?’ asked Thea, trying to shake Allie from the death grip she had on her leg. She was remarkably strong for such a small child.

  Skye gently disengaged Allie’s arms to release Thea. ‘He can’t keep getting away with such bad behaviour.’

  ‘Mum,’ said Leo with an edge to his voice.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she soothed, crouching down to whisper in his ear. ‘It doesn’t mean I’m going to hang him upside down by his ankles. I might just shake him up a little…’ she winked, making him wince and roll his eyes at her. Thea was waiting expectantly, as if Skye had all the answers. Skye seemed to be making a quick evaluation of the motley group in front of her. ‘Come to our house for dinner after school,’ she said to Thea and Allie.

  Thea frowned at the sudden invitation and wondered what the hell that could have to do with dealing with Miles, but Allie had brightened up considerably at the thought of visiting her friend’s house for the first time.

  ‘I’ll have to check with her mum,’ said Thea, ‘but as she doesn’t get home from work until six-thirty, it shouldn’t be a problem. Where do you live?’ Skye reeled off her address, then looked slightly shocked, as though she was surprised she had actually invited people into her home. Thea wondered if she had always tried to keep them at a distance before. That way they couldn’t get hurt – or end up hurting her!

  ‘We live in one of the estate cottages, just around the corner,’ said Thea. ‘There are four in a terrace by the main entrance from the road. You must be in one of the other two nestling into the wilderness. Don’t they back onto fields or something?’

  ‘Yes, that’s us,’ said Skye, as the children happily chatted. ‘We can walk home together then, if we’re almost neighbours. Let’s go!’

  Thea quickly pulled her phone from the depths of her messy handbag, the latest model. Thea knew she didn’t look much like a tech geek and hoped Skye didn’t realise that this particular phone had only just been released in the States. Otherwise she might wonder how on earth Thea had got hold of one or if she had exotic friends abroad with good connections.

  Looking away, and obviously trying not to pry as Thea shoved some baby wipes back into her bag, Skye grabbed the pram and walked ahead, giving her friend privacy to make the call. Thea felt uneasy about someone else pushing Flo in her pram and tried to wipe her hand down her top, as the thought of calling her sister had made her hands start to sweat. She was annoyed at herself for letting her personal life get so muddled. She used to be so organised but, since Flo, everything was sliding into oblivion.

  Thea dialled her sister’s office number and held her breath, waiting for the inevitable disapproving tone when she answered. She haltingly explained that Allie had been invited to tea, when her sister finally stopped telling her off for phoning during office hours, then had to listen to several sharp questions about where they were going, before she managed to ring off with a sigh of relief. She couldn’t win! She was moaned at for calling the office, but would get even worse condemnation if she had taken Allie anywhere without telling her sister first. The woman was a menace.

  ‘Problem?’ enquired Skye, who seemed to be hoping that she wasn’t going to have to disappoint the children.

  ‘Ongoing,’ sighed Thea, smiling tiredly at Allie, who took that as a signal for assent and whooped with joy. She grabbed Leo’s hand, who blushed profusely, and pulled him towards their homes.

  ‘How that little angel has such a sweet temperament when she lives with my sister, is beyond me.’

  ‘Is she hard work?’

  ‘She’s a royal pain in my backside,’ laughed Thea, letting go of some of the tension that had been building in her chest. She took a calming breath and, after taking the pram back from Skye, released the brake and followed the children home. ‘She works for a legal office and all she ever does is bark orders at me. I had a responsible job of my own before I came here, but to hear her talk, I’m a complete imbecile. I know Allie is seven and I’ve just had my first baby, but that doesn’t mean I require two lists a day on how to look after her daughter and twenty phone calls to check up on me.’

  Skye grinned. ‘Maybe she’s just really uptight and hates being away from her child?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Thea simply, grinning too now. Skye’s smile was infectious and it had been a long time since she had had a real girlfriend to confide in. The last one had been a complete bitch and stolen her man. ‘She’s married to her work. Before I came along she had three nannies and a live-in childcare assistant, whatever that is. She managed to annoy the hell out of all of them. She’s a control freak. Allie is so lovely and easy-going, but that’s probably due to her dad, who’s amazing. He’s in advertising or something, so he can be home for weeks on end or away travelling. When he’s around, my sister is actually nice, too. Well, sometimes anyway.’

  ‘Good job Allie has you then,’ Skye said simply, her dark hair flowing behind her in the breeze. She was dressed in dark colours and had angular shoulders and a graceful walk. Her look was effortless, like she had just grabbed the first thing out of the wardrobe, which would be easy as Thea hadn’t seen her dress in anything but various shades of black. She wasn’t what you would call stunning, but there was something about the way she moved that made you stop and stare. Thea couldn’t quite work out what it was about Skye that made her interesting, but it was probably the fact that she didn’t seem to care what anyone else thought and dressed for comfort not style. The understated look worked for her, though, and the slim fitting jeans and plain T-shirt under her open bomber jacket showed off a pretty spectacular figure, whether that was her intention or not.

  Thea’s chin wobbled slightly and she thought she might cry when she remembered that Allie had hurt herself. Her sister would throw a ba
rrage of abuse her way for the small scab that was forming on her niece’s knee. Skye dropped her arm around Thea’s shoulder and squeezed surprisingly hard for such a slight woman. Thea gulped in some air and smiled gratefully, brushing a few stray tears across her nose with the back of her hand.

  ‘Come on. Let’s crack open a bottle of wine while I warm up the spaghetti Bolognese I spent ages pouring from a jar earlier. Can you drink while you’re feeding Flo?’

  Thea sighed heavily again. ‘My sister says I’m a terrible mother if I so much as sniff a pressed grape. I will have a sip of yours, though.’

  ‘You seem like a great mum to me,’ countered Skye, walking towards home, ‘although an emotional one,’ she joked, seeing Thea’s eyes fill with tears. She squeezed her shoulder even harder, making Thea cringe in pain. ‘Let’s forget the wine. I’ll make some amazing non-alcoholic cocktails. You won’t believe they don’t pack a punch as they’re so sour, but they’re delicious nonetheless.’

  Thea was a bit in awe of how Skye seemed to be able to make her feel happy and calm with a few words. That was a skill she wished she had.

  ‘I was so worried about being a lousy mum myself, that I banned alcohol for two years,’ said Skye conversationally. ‘Luckily, I didn’t have friends to see me sink to such depths of despair.’ Thea tried to hide her shocked expression at the thought of Skye having no friends. ‘With my old job, I couldn’t drink more than the odd glass of wine for years, so it wasn’t that much of an adjustment. The pressures we put on ourselves are ridiculous,’ Skye continued, then quickly tried to change the subject, looking upset that she had mentioned her old job and staring at Thea as if she was some sort of voodoo princess who got people to tell them their innermost secrets. She seemed wary, suddenly, and the light in her eyes dimmed as they reached the cottage and went into the tiny lounge.

  Thea noted the mention of a job, but her years of training told her to drop the subject for now, from the way Skye had started to twitch slightly. She was just glad Skye had opened up to her, although she didn’t believe the bit about her having no friends at all. Who wouldn’t want to know this slightly eccentric woman who kept to herself, always dressed in dark colours and scowled at everyone? Thea giggled, making Skye look up from where she had started to make the cocktails in the kitchen. From the way she stood back and observed the friendship groups in the school playground, rather than trying to muscle in and ingratiate herself, Thea got the impression that Skye chose her friends carefully.

  Skye began whistling out of tune as she turned the hob on to warm up the meal and Thea bent down to scoop Flo up into her arms for a cuddle as she watched the children playing in the vast garden behind the cottage, her bruised heart melting at the sight. Thea could see why Skye had chosen this place; it was heavenly. The row of cottages where she lived was much smaller overall. The actual houses were pretty similar with compact, but functional, kitchens and two bedrooms upstairs, but the garden here was glorious. It was edged with deep green, leafy shrubs and an abundance of flowering plants, which also smelt wonderful from inside the house. There was a big expanse of lawn in the centre which, for some reason, was laid out with four long tree trunks lying parallel to each other. Thea’s cottage had a tiny garden, as you would expect from a building of its period. It was perfect for her, though. She was too exhausted from looking after Flo and Allie, and listening to her sister’s endless lists of complaints each day, to have the energy to prune a hedge or drag a mower out of a decrepit shed. Not that her shed was old or falling apart, but the thought of even opening the door made her feel rather faint.

  Thea realised now why her old job had suited her so well. She had freedom from her family’s endless demands on her, she had discovered that she wasn’t useless and she’d mastered some marketable skills along the way. She thought back to when she had been recruited, joining a small firm and organising them efficiently within a year. Then, on one particular day, a client had arrived, which was most unusual. They never had clients come into the office. For the very shy Thea, this was perfect. When her boss had summoned her, she had been told she was requested for the meeting and she had almost fainted on the spot. No one had really asked her opinion before, even at work. They just handed her the task with a nod and she got on with it. Thea had no idea what to say to a client, although she knew her own role inside out. She had discovered she had an affinity with computers and ran all their systems and calendars. She had even taken a college course at night and became qualified. It was at this point Thea wished that she hadn’t lied on her application and said she had more skills than she did, but she was resourceful and wanted so desperately to prove to her family that they were wrong about her stupidity. As it turned out, they weren’t, as the certificate she so proudly collected for her course had a made-up name and address on it and could never be presented to her family. She was such an idiot!

  Thea had walked shakily into the meeting, assuming that her number was up and she was going to be shamed and fired. She felt even worse when her boss nodded for her to sit across from the client and then left the room, quietly closing the door of the sterile room behind him, leaving her scared out of her wits and completely tongue-tied. She valiantly tried to raise a smile for the serious-looking woman who faced her and gulped a mouthful of water from the glass on the table in front of her, to try and get some liquid into her parched throat. Thea took a deep breath and waited to see what the client wanted. It seemed she was destined to be one of those people whom others walked all over and took advantage of.

  Everything changed for her that day. The woman had noted her unease, rested her arms on the table, removed her glasses to rub between her tired eyes and smiled at Thea reassuringly. Thea had been so shocked by that smile that she had almost fallen off her chair. She was gripping the water glass so hard that she thought it might burst into a thousand shards and put her out of this endless misery. Her fingers eased their grip a little, but she wasn’t willing to put the glass down just yet. As the woman spoke, she explained where she had come from and what would be required of Thea. A smile had suddenly spread on Thea’s face and she rested the glass back on the table. They wanted to poach her. Her! She didn’t really care who ‘they’ were at that time, she just understood that, for the first time in her life, she was being told she had done an amazing job and they were offering her a chance to turn a corner and start again. No more of the endless chores and infighting at home, or the invisibility she seemed to have at work, even though she practically ran the place. They had picked the perfect time to recruit her, although she now knew it had all been carefully orchestrated. She had been an easy mark. She was a sponge who soaked up information and was willing to learn more. Her skill set was quite valuable to them and she had proved them right time and time again over the years… until recently, she supposed.

  There had been no banners or leaving party when she left that job, not that Thea really cared. They hadn’t even known her real name. She was escaping her life and inventing a new Thea, well, for a second time anyway. She hadn’t confided in her new bosses about her real identity and they hadn’t queried it; she had a sneaking suspicion that they wouldn’t have cared a jot anyway. It was probably an added bonus that the person they were recruiting was used to lying as it was an asset in her new career. There had been no going back.

  What scared Thea, looking at the sleeping baby in her arms and the excitable children playing outside, was that things had now come full circle and she was back where she had started. Getting shouted at by her family and doing a job for her sister that was neither appreciated nor that welcome. Her sister had asked her to come home and offered her a job because no one else would work for the narcissistic control freak. Thea had needed to get away from work when she found out she was pregnant and this was the only place she could think of to hide where Flo’s dad wouldn’t come looking for her. Not that he knew Flo existed. He didn’t deserve to know about this precious baby girl after the way he treated her mother, the cheating
scumbag!

  Skye’s whistling was coming to a crescendo and it was hurting Thea’s ears, but she smiled when she turned round and saw that Skye was doing it to snap her out of her reverie. She gently placed Flo onto the soft rug by the fireplace so that she could kick her legs out for a while and took the tall, brightly coloured glass of bubbly drink that Skye held out towards her. She sniffed the drink cautiously, took a tentative sip and cringed in disgust as her toes curled up in protest at the flavour. After the first sour punch, she tasted a sweet hit of sugar syrup and a mouthful of strawberries that was blissful. Her eyes went wide in shock and, rather than spitting the drink out, which had admittedly been her instant reaction, she took another sip.

  Skye giggled at Thea’s reaction. ‘Good after the first hit, isn’t it?’

  ‘Where the hell did you learn to make that?’ asked Thea, not sure what to do with the glass as another mouthful might knock her sideways. ‘That must be alcoholic?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Skye, tapping the side of her nose. ‘It is a trade secret though.’

  Thea gave up looking for somewhere to place the drink and took a big mouthful of the heavenly concoction instead. ‘Right,’ she said, giving up on finding out what she was drinking and savouring the burst of tartness instead. ‘So what’s your plan for keeping the kids away from Miles the Manipulator?’

  Chapter Six

  Zack kicked the doorframe in frustration, and then wished he hadn’t as a lump of wood flew off. Blasted woodworm! He would have to get Mike to treat it before the whole thing crumbled to dust. He had been neglecting the upkeep of the house while finding his feet with his tree climbing business, CloudClimb. Zack was quite surprised at how much he was enjoying being in the land of the living again, instead of shutting himself away from the world and staring at his computer screen all day. He knew the apps he designed paid for all this, but Zack was discovering that he liked working outdoors with a team of friendly and easy-going people. He’d chosen his staff carefully and made sure they were competent enough to get the job done without him, but under his guidance. He had also poached a couple of people from a similar site in the next county, but the rest were all locals. He had an onsite office, and one in the main house where he could hide away from everyone when the noise of all their chatter and gossip got too much.