Visions (3 page)

4

I found myself hovering outside the form room, greeting my year sevens as they arrived, but concentrating on Morgan’s classroom door. When the bell had rung and I still hadn’t gone into my room, Morgan came outside. “Is everything alright, Gill?” she asked.

              “Fine,” I answered, trying to sound casual. “Has Amelia turned up?”

              “Amelia Carr? No, not yet, but that’s normal, really. She usually strays in sometime after the bell. Do you want me to send her to you when she comes in?”

              “No, it’s fine. I’ll catch up with her later.” But that didn’t happen. Amelia Carr did not come into school at all. At break, I went to sit with Morgan and have a cup of tea.

              “She’s not in today. Amelia, I mean,” she elaborated, as if I wouldn’t know who she meant. “She’s not off very often. In fact, she pretty much needs to be on death’s door to be kept off school. They’d rather not have her at home and they don’t make any secret of it. Her stepfather is a real piece of work. In fact, he’s actually put a complaint in before when the school sent Amelia home after she was sent in with a migraine.”

              “That’s awful!”

              “You’ve really taken to her, haven’t you?” Morgan asked.

              “I’m just…worried about her, that’s all. She reminds me of a stray cat that we used to feed when I was a little girl. I used to worry about that cat all the time but my

mum said we couldn’t force it to stay in the house. It would be cruel.”

              “So, you want to adopt Amelia?” Morgan asked. I looked at her in shock, but her expression was teasing. “We have our in-house family support worker involved and social services have carried out several visits in the past. They were satisfied that, while the home environment is not ideal, it isn’t bad enough for her to be removed.”

              “Does she live alone with her stepfather?”

              “No. She lives with her mother. Her biological father died when Amelia was little.” Her words caused an involuntary flickered image of my own dad before he died. “Since then, her mother has had a variety of different men through the door but this one seems to be staying longer than the others. He moved in just over a year ago and since then, Amelia seems to be more withdrawn than usual. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t a new thing. She’s always been neglected to some extent. In year seven, her tummy used to rumble so loudly the other kids complained about it. Some mornings, she seems so tired that I’m surprised she’s able to function. She has free school meals, so we know that she at least gets one proper meal a day. Now though, we suspect that there may be abuse, but Amelia doesn’t talk to anyone anymore. Most days, she’s completely mute.” Morgan’s words seemed strange given that Amelia had been so open about her feelings in class just yesterday.

              Her words turned my stomach. “Abuse?”

              “I’m not really supposed to tell anyone who isn’t directly involved, but I won’t need to. You’ll see the signs.” As much as the conversation had heightened my fears for Amelia, my year ten class were able to take my mind off it. I had been warned that they were a particularly difficult class and that was an

understatement. The lesson started with not one of them having brought a pen, so I attempted cheerfulness as I handed out my own supply, which they then proceeded to break into pieces with their teeth and either throw or spit at each other. English clearly wasn’t their favourite subject. While I tried to explain what we were going to be working on and how it would relate to the literature exam, they continued to chatter under their breath, completely ignoring what I was saying. After persevering with polite requests for silence, in my first week of teaching, I found myself having to shout.

              “I don’t even get why we’re doing this!” one girl shouted back, rudely.

              “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” I responded. She gaped at me.              “She’s called Ally,” another girl informed me. I realised that I hadn’t noticed the speaker because she was one of the few who had come in quietly and was sitting patiently waiting for me to take control of the class.

              “Thank you. Well, Ally, the reason we are doing this is because your GCSE exam will check that you know how to do it and if you don’t, then you won’t get the best grade you can.” I was pleased when I saw that Ally didn’t have a come back to this. Instead of arguing, she shrugged, picked up her pen and started colouring in the corner of her page. It was a start; at least she was quiet.  Just as I was about to congratulate myself on having got them all working to some extent, three bulky boys appeared in the doorway. “Are you supposed to be in here?” I asked, confused.

              “Yeah, we were just in the bog,” one of them said. I went over to the computer to check the register, just to be on the safe side, purposefully ignoring the coarseness of the words used.

              “What are your names?”

              “I’m Scott, he’s Daz and this freak is Phil.” The tallest one said, earning

himself a punch on the arm from Phil. The list on my screen confirmed a Scott, Darren and Philip should be in attendance.

              “Ok, well take a seat and I’ll come over and explain what we’re doing.” They all sat together and though I knew I should move them, I didn’t. To be honest, I felt completely overwhelmed by the difficult nature of this class. “Can you take your jacket off please? Darren, was it?”

              “I’m cold.”

              “You’ll soon warm up sitting next to the radiator.” He continued to ignore me, but I decided to give him time to change his mind before I took it any further. As I was explaining, I couldn’t help but notice Ally in the corner of my eye, putting mascara on. I finished what I was saying and then turned round to ask her to put it away.

              “It’s lipstick, Miss, not mascara. Have you ever heard of it?” she retorted rudely, and I realised that she’d swapped to applying this now.

              “Of course she hasn’t. Look at her,” one of the boys said. I knew it was either Scott, Phil or Darren, who was still wearing his coat, but I couldn’t pinpoint who.

              “I’ll Google it later, Ally. Can you please put it away regardless of what it is?” Ally reluctantly smiled at my response and put her lipstick away. “Thank you.” I returned to the boys’ table. “Darren, would you mind taking your jacket off, thank you?”

              “It’s Daz, Miss, and I told you I’m cold.”

              “Then we’ll discuss it at dinner.” The rest of the lesson passed largely without event. The class were generally distracted, but I reassured myself that they would get easier with time. As a new teacher, it was inevitable that they were going to test the boundaries, so I just needed to tough it out. I wasn’t surprised at all when Darren refused to stay behind, walking out with Scott and Phil, completely ignoring my

attempts to speak to him.

              After they had all left, I went to speak to Corinne for advice on how to deal with the year ten class and specifically Darren. Morgan walked  into the English office while we were talking and sat down to listen
.

“I’ll be honest with you, Gillian,” Corinne began when I’d finished telling her, “for that class, you did really well! I expected that you would have to call for support during the lesson, which is why I warned you about them. Darren Pierce is particularly stubborn and unfortunately, there is no parental support from home. They let him run wild out of school hours and don’t care how well he’s doing in school as long as he isn’t bothering them. I’ll pick him up myself after school and keep him in detention. Would you like to come so you can speak to him as well?”

              “I will do, yes. Thanks, Corinne.”

              “Not a problem. That’s what I’m here for. Have a cup of tea and a relax. You’re free this afternoon, aren’t you?” After she’d gone, Morgan wanted filling in on the full story as well, which I did whilst sipping my tea.

              “I wonder whether I could have handled it any better if I’d slept at all last night,” I reflected.

              “Firstly, Gill, you did handle it well. So well, in fact, that I’m going to use the Google line myself! Secondly, why did you not get any sleep.”

              “I had this daydream…” I suddenly realised that I was about to tell her something that I’d never spoken to anyone about and stopped myself.

              “Go on,” she encouraged me.

              “It doesn’t matter. I’m just tired today, that’s all.”

              “Tell me about the daydream.” She waited while I tried to think of some plausible way to get out of having to tell her. “I know we don’t know each other very

well yet, but you can trust me. I won’t repeat anything you tell me. Here, I’ll even give you something you can hold over me; I’m recovering from a terribly ridiculous crush on Mike, even though he’s cocky and arrogant and far too young for me!”

I couldn’t help but laugh. The idea of Mike being attractive was humorous. He was just too…deliberately polished. I quickly decided that I really liked Morgan and yes, I did trust her.

              “I had a dream about Amelia Carr. She was running away.” Although that sounded far more plausible than a daydream, I still waited for her to tell me I was insane.

              “Why would that keep you awake? I mean, I care about Amelia and if she had run away, then I doubt I’d sleep either but, it was just a dream.”

              “Sometimes…” I took a deep breath. “Sometimes when I have a dream, I can’t stop thinking about it. I worry that it will come true.”

Morgan searched my face, as though waiting for me to laugh, which I did, nervously. “Do you mean like a coincidence?” she asked. “So, let me get this straight, you worry that you’re dreaming the future or maybe it’s like a warning that something is about to happen?”

              “It sounds really silly when you say it like that, but I suppose that’s the long and short of it.” It seemed to me that Morgan didn’t really know how to respond, so she changed the subject instead and we went back to talking about the issues with my year ten class and how to resolve them.

              After school, Corinne ensured that Darren Pierce attended a detention as promised. He was forthcoming with his apology but his refusal to make eye contact or even look anywhere in my direction caused me to question his sincerity.

5

The next morning, I felt more positive after having a decent night’s sleep. Having fallen asleep on the sofa at seven o’clock and only awakened at nine for long enough to swap my clothes for pyjamas, brush my teeth and climb into bed. When I walked into my classroom, I was shocked to see Morgan follow me in, looking distressed.

“Morning, Morgan. Everything ok?” I chirped, putting my handbag down.

              “I’m fine. It’s Amelia Carr who isn’t.” I stopped what I was doing and looked up. “She was sitting in the car park when I arrived, crying. She’s got a bruised cheekbone. It looks like someone’s really walloped her.”

              “Where is she now?”

              “She’s sitting in the form room with a cup of sweet tea. I’ve texted our family support worker, Carrie Laker. She wasn’t due in until this afternoon but she’s going to come in early to speak to her. Whatever happens, I’m going to withdraw Amelia from lessons today. She’s too shaken to deal with any comments and wouldn’t learn anything, anyway. We’ll sit her in Corinne’s office with a laptop and some books to occupy her for the day.”

              “Has she told you anything?” I hardly knew the girl but would quite happily lay into whoever had hurt her.

              “No. She’s playing mute and I’m not going to encourage anything otherwise. It’s better if anything she says is said in front of Carrie or even the police. I’m telling you though, Gillian, it does not look like an accident. There are darker parts of the

bruise. Someone has punched her full on with a clenched fist.”

              Teaching was hard work all morning. I was distracted by thoughts of Amelia, which, with my classes being new or only having met me once or twice, I couldn’t afford to be. My year tens seemed to pick up on the stress I was feeling straight away. For a bottom set, they were extremely perceptive. Darren, Scott and Phil arrived five minutes late to lesson smelling of cigarettes, but I didn’t have the inclination to start that debate with them. They seemed to accept that they would need to come back for five minutes at lunch and Darren kept his head down for most of the lesson. I was aware of the odd personal comment still being made and had to keep prompting them to stop discussing whatever Ally had put on Facebook the night before, but they were manageable.

              Towards the end of the lesson, Corinne came in frowning. She surveyed the classroom before speaking to me. “Has Amelia Carr come to lesson today?”

              “No, but Morgan said she was going to withdraw her from lessons. In fact, she should be in your office if you want her.”

              “She was, but now she’s not. I left her while I taught lesson three and when I got back, she’d gone. I assumed she’d gone to the toilet but they’ve been checked. There’s no sign of her on any of the cameras. I hoped she’d felt better and decided to come back to lesson. She should be with Morgan, but she isn’t. I thought maybe she had got confused with which teacher she had today; you know what she’s like. I’m going to have to ring her home and see if she’s turned up there. If not…” She continued speaking but had already started to walk out of the classroom door. I wrapped my lesson up and dismissed the class for dinner before rushing off to find Morgan. When I did, she was pacing up and down the staffroom.

              “There’s no answer from Amelia’s home so Corinne has left a message. Carrie is driving round there now to see if Amelia is in and just not answering the phone. I’m really worried, Gill, especially with what you said yesterday and the as of yet unexplained bruise. This all seems a bit suspicious and creepy, to be honest.” I didn’t know how to respond to that so I didn’t reply. I just listened while Morgan talked about all the warning signs she had ignored and what should have been done. “She wouldn’t even speak to Carrie. In fact, she’s not said a single word all day apart from thank you when I’ve brought her books and a drink. The thing is, I know it was that bastard stepdad of hers and that’s who we’re having to try and contact! She cringes whenever his name is mentioned.” Morgan went on to tell me about Amelia coming in with minor injuries regularly and by the end of dinner, I could completely understand Amelia’s response to this man.

              In the afternoon, I had a lovely year seven class that I’d already met twice that week and liked very much. I did my best to throw myself into teaching an interactive, enthusiastic lesson, knowing that if Amelia was found, someone would tell me, anyway. There was nothing I could do.

At half past three, I had all the year sevens lined up behind their chairs, waiting for the bell. To pass the last couple of minutes we were playing a game where each student made up a line for our story, which was currently about a giant who had got lost in the woods at night. I tried not to think about Amelia in my daydream. The happy atmosphere was ruined when we all heard shouting and swearing on the corridor. My class went silent, all staring at me to see how I would respond.

“Just stay here, class. Even if the bell goes, I want you to stay where you are.” They all nodded obediently. I opened my door and leaned my head out to see the back of a tall, portly man. He was shouting at Corinne and Mr Briggs, who were trying to lead him off the corridor into an empty classroom. I walked down, trying to appear

much more confident than I felt.

              “Is everything ok here?” I asked.

              “Who the fuck are you?” I winced at the man’s choice of language. He was a huge beast, with mean, little eyes that seemed to be far too close together and a mass of brown stubble surrounding his sneering mouth.

              “Mr Collins, I’m going to ask you one more time to come into this classroom so we can discuss this away from the ears of our students. If you’d prefer, Miss Gordon can go ahead and ring the police for us,” Mr Briggs said calmly. The man looked me up and down.

              “You should have already done that though, shouldn’t you? Amelia’s been gone for hours now. She could be anywhere,” he barked, stomping into the classroom. The bell went just as he entered. I asked one of the prefects walking past if they would go and dismiss my class and followed them into the classroom. “Someone could’ve snatched her and she’ll be long gone by now.”

              “We didn’t contact the police because Carrie, our family support worker, was confident that someone was in the house. She could see a shadow moving through the net curtains at the front. If it wasn’t you and it wasn’t Mrs Carr, who else could it have been other than Amelia?” Mr Briggs explained.

              “It could have been any fucker, couldn’t it? You wouldn’t know because all you could see was a shadow! We could have been burgled for all you know.”

              “Were you burgled, Mr Collins?” Corinne asked, receiving only a disgusted harrumph as a reply. “Logically, anyone else other than Amelia would have answered the door. Only Amelia would be trying to hide because she’s truanting school for whatever reason,” Corinne explained in defence of their decision.

              “Don’t patronise me, bloody woman.” I was amazed that Corinne didn’t seem the least bit fazed by his words.

              “The fact of the matter is, Mr Collins, we are all on the same side here. We all want Amelia back home, safe and sound. I agree that we should now phone the police. Miss Gordon, would you mind?”

              “That’s all good and well now she could be a million miles away, isn’t it? The fact of the matter is, Miss Whoever-you-are,” he mimicked Corinne’s tone, mockingly, “it’s the school’s responsibility to know where Amelia is during the school day and you are so crap, you couldn’t even manage to do that. The poor little sod has probably run away from here.”

              “Has she runaway before?” I asked, not able to hold back my curiosity.

              “What makes you say that?” he screamed at me. His whole stance was threatening and aggressive now. I’d made a mistake.

Corinne nodded at me and looked towards the door.

              “I’ll go and make the phone call,” I said, timidly.

              “I want to know what the fuck she knows about Amelia running away,” he yelled. “What’s the little liar been telling you, eh?”

I continued walking calmly, only rushing when I knew I was out of his line of sight. When I got to the office, the main receptionist made the call for me. I was shaking by that point.

              Although the police arrived quickly, Mr Collins had stormed out of the building by then. I wondered whether the police found this as strange as I did, but just weren’t commenting on it in front of us. It also struck me as unusual that it had been Amelia’s stepfather rather than her mother who had shown up at school.

              By the end of the week, Amelia still hadn’t turned up.

I was exhausted through not sleeping, and welcomed the weekend. All I did was worry about Amelia and wonder whether, if I still had a car, I would be able to find the street I’d seen her walking down in my daydream and locate her myself.

              It was Sunday when I got a phone call from Morgan. “I’ve just got off the phone with Corinne and she wanted me to ring and tell you that they’ve found Amelia,” she explained. “She was at a local young man’s flat where she’s been since she went missing. More should come to light about the circumstances, but the police have told us that she wasn’t taken by force. She definitely ran away and it seems like she must have done it in a panic. She only had her school uniform with her and had made her way there in slippers. When the police found her, she was wearing a pair of the young man’s pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt. Her slippers were drying on the radiator. We don’t know whether the young man is a relation yet, and I don’t know how much information they’ll release to us, anyway.”

In my mind, I pictured Amelia walking down the road in the cold and darkness, wearing only a battered pair of pink slippers. Something was very wrong with me; I wasn’t normal. Another thought to be pushed to one side.

              “Oh my goodness.” I nearly dropped the receiver; my hands were shaking uncontrollably. I took a deep breath. “That’s such a relief to know that she’s ok. Do you think she’ll be in school tomorrow?”

              “Think? I know so. Like I said, she’d have to be close to death for them to keep her off school. They’d have to actually take care of her then. Anyway, what a turbulent first week at Logford you’ve had! Talk about baptism of fire! Are you having second thoughts about taking the job?”

              “It honestly hadn’t crossed my mind. It has to get easier though, right?” I asked, hopefully.

              “Yes, it will. Listen, we’ll try and grab some of the girls and have a night out

next weekend. It would be good for you to meet them all. They’re a great bunch. What do you think?”

“Ok. See you tomorrow then!” Her idea sounded great. I just hoped I would be up to it. It would give me something to focus on rather than picturing myself alongside the freaky mutants in the X-Men films, hiding away from normal mankind.