“No, this is about Billie’s attendance, Mrs Jackson. However, if there are cyberbullying concerns, it may go some way towards explaining Billie’s absenteeism.”
“She rarely has a day off!” exclaimed Starla. “I should know because I’m at home every day! Billie’s dad works shifts so he’s often at home in the day too.”
“Well, she’s got less than ninety percent attendance so far this year, Mrs Jackson. So, if she’s not here and she’s not at home, then where is she?”
“I’ve no idea. None at all. Isn’t ninety percent good though? It sounds OK to me.”
“No,” explained Mrs Lambert gently, “ninety percent is the equivalent of missing one day of school every fortnight. That is approximately four weeks each school year. If that went on for the full five years of secondary school, then Billie would have missed out on half a year of her education. That’s a lot to lose out on. Research shows that her grades could drop as a result and even, eventually, her potential earnings.”
Starla held her mouth open to speak but couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t make her sound foolish. Thankfully, Mrs Lambert gave her some time to digest the facts.
“How long has this been going on?” Starla eventually managed to ask.
“Well, our system has flagged it up this year but she has had time off in the past. Towards the end of last year she went through a spell where she was taking Fridays off. We spoke to Mr Jackson about it and he had a word with her, I believe.”
“Funny, I don’t remember it being mentioned to me!” Starla realised that her tone was indignant but Mrs Lambert smiled sympathetically.
“Billie told me you had a lot of health issues, Mrs Jackson. Since the issue was resolved almost immediately, I imagine their plan was to avoid stressing you out at that time.”
“Hmmm… I guess…” She had told someone recently to pick a letter of the alphabet because Clara would have at least one illness or affliction beginning with that letter. With a gloomy shudder, she realised that it was during the interview with Mr Kelly.
Nevertheless, Starla felt sad to have been left out of the loop. Billie was her daughter as well as Jakey’s. Her eyes began to glisten with tears of regret. None of this would have happened if she hadn’t sold her dinner tickets; if she’d refused all that takeaway food and pop in her twenties; if she’d not totally let herself go in her thirties; and dined on Jakey-bakes thereafter. If she’d been fit, healthy and interested, she would have turned up to parents’ evenings, seen Mrs Lambert in her posh suit and been able to discuss Billie’s attendance or lack of. Chances are, if she’d been fit, healthy and interested, Billie wouldn’t have been taking days off school in the first place!
Mrs Lambert sensed she’d touched a nerve by referring to Starla’s health issues and reached a hand over to her.
“Mrs Jackson, we have ourselves a problem here but that’s a good starting point because once we’ve identified a problem, we can start searching for solutions. Now, you mentioned cyberbullying. Can you be more specific?”
“I am a… we have a… large relative. My, erm, sister… she lives with us. She’s morbidly obese. She has to sleep downstairs and have special equipment. Some of Billie’s acquaintances seem to have cottoned on to this. They appear to be under the misapprehension that my sister is me… that my sister is Billie’s mother.”
Starla briefly described the messages she’d seen on Billie’s social networking site. She didn’t mention the damaging magazine article or the fact that Clara was really the one sat at home in the bariatric chair fast asleep!
“So Billie is being taunted because she’s a little bigger than some of the other girls,” clarified Mrs Lambert.
“Yes… but she’s very tall for her age, wouldn’t you say?” Starla added defensively. “And she’s matured very quickly.”
“Well, I’d say she was a little taller than average perhaps. She’d make a great athlete actually, if only she were a bit more interested in sport. I’ve asked her several times to join the netball team… or maybe long jump could be her thing… hmmm…” Mrs Lambert chewed the end of her pen thoughtfully, the PE teacher in her bursting forth, like Star from Clara.
“We’re none of us athletes in our family,” retorted Starla curtly, recalling her own pitiful athletic record.
“Anyway,” continued Mrs Lambert, returning to her Head of Year role, “the crux of the matter is that these taunts are being sent to hurt Billie and make her feel bad about herself.”
“And do you think that this is the reason why she’s skipping school?”
“Well, I think it’s highly likely.” Mrs Lambert wrote something down, then looked up and adopted a serious expression.
“Our network manager, Mr Waterfall, can help us to look at the comments, take some screen shots and perhaps even help us to identify the perpetrators. We deal with matters of this nature very harshly at St Jude’s. It is very damaging for young people to feel persecuted.”
She added quickly: “I’m sure Billie will bounce back though. She’s always been such a sensible girl.”
Starla hoped so too and nodded.
“Mrs Jackson, would you like me to send for Billie now so that we can talk to her here or would you prefer to speak to her at home with your husband first? You can always arrange another meeting with me later in the week.”
“No,” cried Starla quickly, “she doesn’t need to come now. I’d hate for her to miss any more of her education. We’ll talk to her tonight and I’ll ring you tomorrow, if that’s OK?”
“That’s fine. I’ll get Mr Waterfall to check through Billie’s social networking sites with her after school. I’m sure we’ll nip this all in the bud and hopefully, once you’ve spoken to her, Billie will see that truanting is not an option. Obviously, we need to keep communicating so that she feels protected from all sides.”
Starla nodded and stood up.
“Parenting isn’t very easy, is it?” Mrs Lambert sighed. “It’s not exactly comfortable, carrying twins, but at least I know where they are. I doubt I’ll be able to say that when they’re teenagers.”
Starla gave a weak smile. “You’ve got it all to come!”
12
Tuesday
TINA
Whilst Starla was sitting outside on the raised flower bed deliberating about how best to help Billie, Tina was on the floor above the reception area enjoying her second free period of the day in an empty English classroom. Her Year 9 class had finished Macbeth a little earlier than expected so she was sifting through the walk-in cupboard at the back of the room looking for some poems.
Suddenly, a hand either side of her waist made her gasp!
“I’ve told you – not here’!” she cried, spinning around to face her assailant.
He put his finger to her lips to shush her, then bent down and buried his face in her hair.
“No!” she whispered firmly.
“You didn’t say ‘no’ last night,” he breathed beside her ear.
“Last night was… I don’t know… you caught me off-guard. I was scared that I was being followed by a mad axeman or something.”
He pushed her hair back and dropped some feathery kisses onto her neck.
Struggling to regain composure, she pushed him away.
“Look. What I said last week? It’s got to stop. You know what my situation is now.”
“How do I know it’s not mine?”
“I just know the baby belongs to my husband, that’s all.” Tina emphasised the word husband, in case he’d forgotten her marital status.
He looked at her suspiciously.
“But do you really know for sure? Can you say one-hundred-percent that it’s his?” he quizzed.
“Yes, I can. You and I weren’t together when I conceived. You were away during the Christmas break and we’d not been together for about six months before that.”
Tina thrust her chin up at him defiantly.
“I know my dates,” she whispered confidently.<
br />
“But, Tina, we got together on New Year’s Eve. Remember?”
Surprising both herself and her young lover, Tina began to sob quietly. She and Mikey had been to the New Year’s Eve party at the Harriers’ and Mikey had overdone it with his mates. She was too small to carry him herself so some of his rugby pals had taken him home. It took three of them to carry him in his drunken state – partly because he’d pretty much passed out and partly because they weren’t in too clever a state themselves. Since the taxi could only legally carry four, Tina (also quite inebriated) was forced to wait for the next one. On New Year’s Eve, this was no short wait and she had found herself texting a familiar number – a number she’d vowed not to contact again, a number which guaranteed her immediate warmth and shelter just a short walk away. She could say she’d stopped at her mam’s if Mikey woke up and questioned her whereabouts. Maybe she should have stopped at her mam’s.
He cradled her to him and let her tears continue.
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” she snivelled.
He shushed her again and kissed her lips. This time his kiss was returned, at first with hesitation, then in full.
He loosened her blouse from her skirt and felt the soft skin across her back. She was cool to the touch and her flesh felt like satin petals. Her scent was that of a spring meadow blooming with a hundred wild flowers and he could think of nothing better than sinking to his knees among the midday blooms swaying gently in the breezes of desire.
“Not here,” she whispered. “I can’t afford to lose my job. You’re too…”
He pushed the door shut, then turned her around and pushed her against it, so that her cheek was softly crushing against the wooden panel.
This was what drove her with him. It was his passion, his spontaneity, his flagrant abuse of the school rules and her marriage vows; it was his total disregard for decency.
“Tina!”
A voice in the classroom!
“It’s Miss Smythe,” whispered Tina. “I told her I’d meet with her this period. You stay here.”
Tina straightened her attire and peered around the door. Miss Smythe seemed to have gone. Gingerly, Tina crept out and went over to her desk. Retrieving a compact mirror and hairbrush from her bottom drawer, she began to repair her appearance. With a quick flash of lipstick, she smacked her lips together and went in search of Faye Smythe.
She was next door in the English office.
“Hey, Tina! Did you forget that we’d got a meeting today?”
“No, no, I was just looking for some poems.”
“Not in the book cupboard because it looks as though someone’s locked it! Unless… hmmm…” Faye winked, “unless you were making out with one of the sixth formers in there!”
Tina blushed and turned towards the kettle.
“Fancy a quick brew, Faye?” she asked, hiding her face.
“No, I’ve not really got time and I’ve got a bottle of water anyway. Let’s run through the Year 8 reading programme. We’ll get as much done today as possible, then perhaps we could get together later in the week if it needs some more time spent on it? I guess Thursday since you’re a part-timer!”
Tina laughed nervously. She was used to the ‘part-timer’ label but she’d had the opportunity to work part-time a couple of years ago and had seized it, knowing that they’d saved enough for a decent deposit on a house already and hoping that the babies would start coming soon.
“Sure,” Tina answered, “do you want to spread the papers out in here?”
“Tina? Are you ok? You seem really flustered!”
“I’m fine… I… well, I’m pregnant Faye. I keep getting temperature flushes. I guess it must be my hormones. What do you think?”
“Ha! Don’t ask me? I know nothing about pregnancy! Ask Tanya – she’s expecting twins!”
Faye suddenly thumped her water bottle down on the table, making Tina jump.
“That’s it!” she exclaimed. “I’m not touching another drop from that water cooler in the staff room. It clearly has some sort of fertility drug dissolving in it!”
Tina laughed.
“Come on,” said Faye, “let’s make a start on these papers. And congratulations by the way! When’s it due?”
13
Tuesday
STARLA
Starla decided that she needed to go to the loo, just as Mrs Lambert had been about to show her out of the school. Pointing her in the direction of the staff toilets and showing her where they were in relation to the reception area, Mrs Lambert left Starla to it.
Starla was extremely worried about Billie’s truanting. She knew, also, that it was ultimately all her fault. If she hadn’t given the interview to Femme Fanfare, Billie would probably have carried on being well-liked and happy at school. No wonder Bills had snapped at her this morning. She must absolutely loathe her mother now, just as Marnie did for letting them have Skye’s name and picture.
Marnie’s reasons for flying to Africa were also causing Starla a great deal of concern. Who was this Max guy and why wasn’t Marnie going with her husband? Who were they going to shoot? Was this somehow drug-related? After all, she’d seen Marnie smoking a cigarette. Had it contained tobacco or some other substance? Starla had seen a lot of this type of thing on television but her own daughter mixed up in something so unsavoury? Well, it was quite beyond belief!
Despite her slender form, Starla had acquired a new, heavy feeling – a feeling which threatened to weigh her down almost as much as being Clara did.
Entering the female staff toilets lifted Starla’s spirits temporarily.
She recalled an episode about ten years ago when Jakey had taken her out for a meal on her birthday. Marnie had babysat Billie and they had left the house in good cheer. After the starter, she had gone to the toilets, having already quaffed two large glasses of red wine. She wasn’t sure how she’d got in but she certainly could not get out of the cubicle. She’d left her phone on the restaurant table and was forced to shout for assistance. By the time they finally pulled her out, she was sore, grazed and redder than the Merlot she’d consumed.
But here – wow – she could fit right inside the cubicles! She stepped in and out of each one several times to double check. Finally, she picked the cubicle at the far end to use. She bolted the door and marvelled at the amount of room she had to take down her leggings. When they were halfway down her thighs, she stroked her flat stomach. Tears sprang to her eyes. She had never had a flat stomach. Never, in her whole life. This was all too much!
Starla sat on the loo and found herself sobbing soundlessly. She cried hot, silent tears for Billie, for Marnie and for little Skye. Then she began weeping for her runaway mother and her poor, dead father. She wept for the loneliness she had felt when she was the only adult in a house full of babies. She cried for all the years she had lost under a tyre mountain of fat.
Starla’s shoulders shook as if with silent mirth but it was not laughter that emerged – just more tears.
The door into the ladies’ toilets was suddenly pushed open noisily as a couple of individuals entered from the corridor. One person dropped a bag on the floor and another person’s heels clacked towards the end cubicle to turn a tap on by the sink.
“Well, I said it upstairs and I’ll say it again,” announcd a female voice just outside Starla’s cubicle door. “I’m keeping well away from that water cooler.”
“Faye, I honestly don’t think it’s the water cooler you have to watch out for!” A different voice, this one familiar to Starla.
“You drink from it every day. Tanya Lambert drinks from it every day. And I know that Mel from humanities used it regularly before she went off on maternity leave.”
“How come none of the men are affected then? Or their wives and girlfriends, more to the point? Science and PE are always filling their water bottles up there. Not to mention the old dears in the offices.”
“Look closely at the office staff,” suggested the voice belonging to
the woman who Starla now knew to be ‘Faye’, “and you will see that most of them are rather swollen around the midriff!”
“It’s called middle-age spread. Oh Faye, you do make me laugh!”
“And, don’t even get me started on the PE staff. They’re all so fertile; they only need to look at a woman to impregnate her!” Faye’s voice was quivering with laughter.
“True enough! Remember young Mr Cooper, those married teaching assistants and the Christmas party drama?”
“Oh my god! Who could forget it? That man has his own filing cabinet down the Child Support Agency offices!”
The two women hooted with laughter and one went in the middle cubicle. The one who stayed out dried her hands and then knocked on Starla’s closed door.
“Hello?”
“Hello…” responded the familiar voice from the middle cubicle.
“Not you Tina. This door’s jammed shut at the end. I didn’t know if anyone was in there.”
“Oh, sorry!” Tina apologised.
“Hello! Anyone in there?” called Faye, knocking again.
Starla stood up as quietly as she could, sorted her cleaning and clothing, and then quietly slipped the Celtic ring back on her finger. She realised now that it was her daughter-in-law and a colleague who were outside the door and she was certainly not about to reveal her alter-ego to anyone she knew. Starla felt sure that Tina would recognise her instantly.
“I’m sure I can hear the rustle of loo paper in there, Tina.”
“Oh, just leave it Faye. Someone might be trying to… you know…”
“Then why don’t they answer me? Hello in there. Are you alright?”
Faye heard the loo flush and the bolt slide back. She watched the door swing wide open but the cubicle was empty!
“Tina… that’s dead weird, that is!”
“What is?” Tina flushed her own loo and emerged to wash her hands.
“The loo flushed itself – and the door unbolted all by itself too!”
“Oh for goodness’ sake, Faye! You watch too much rubbish on late night telly. There’s nobody there, look! I think you need to go and get yourself a good old slurp of water from the cooler in the staffroom. Perhaps Trev from science will give you a hand! Maybe you could run your theory of cooler conception past him. I’m sure he’d be willing to help you test your theory!”
Dying to Be Slim Page 9