And so we move into Episode Three! This story is giving me an entirely new sympathy for TV series writers; it involves juggling so many stories and perspectives that it's easy for something to get dropped along the way, so do forgive any continuity errors—and don't be afraid to point 'em out if you find any.
Review response time!
BowTiesAreCool001: I think I've got that right! Thanks… and I too think bow ties are cool. Wonder what Twelve will be like?
I-Wish-Upon-Falling-Stars: *groans* Thank you! Glad you're enjoying.
AllyKat8: Wow, speechlessness is quite a compliment. Thank you! BTW, if my writing is good—it should be. I've had a Chalet School fill-in book published, and that meant a good couple of years of intensive work with a professional editor, so it's just not talent, it's also from working with professionals. Plus, as you know, I'm a historian by training and in history you can get away with a good deal if you can turn a good phrase. So remember that, would-be historians!
dustdancingintheflickerlight: I'm absolutely serious. Pyromaniac was the first long WR story that really took my fancy—I'm a very fast reader, so I tend to prefer long stories where they're available and readable from a spelling/punctuation/grammar pov. I went from that to your other stories and those by Allykat and I-Wish-Upon-Falling-Stars and before I knew it, I was hooked and ideas began to percolate! If you want someone to bounce ideas off give me a shout. :)
CBurns1995: Eeep. Well, you can help keep me straight for teenage language—although I should be OK as I tend to borrow straight from the show, but my deafness means I'm relying very heavily on that as I can't just absorb how people talk as hearing writers often do. Thanks to the Chalet School book above, I can do 1950s dialogue with no trouble. 2010s, not so much.
Enjoy!
6.30am, Barry household
Kacey crept through the silent house to the bathroom, a bundle of clothes over her arm. It was necessary that she be dressed and out before everyone else; once Carol was up, the place would become a madhouse between Barry and Kevin's bickering, Dynasty's prinking, and Carol's yelling. Usually Kacey rejoiced the familiar chaos of a Barry morning, but now it was too much. She didn't want everyone looking at her and talking to her and about her and over her… no, far better to just evade the whole drama by getting dressed early and slipping out, leaving only a note behind. It wouldn't be the first time she'd had to leave early for football training. No-one would know it was a lie; what did they care about the training times for the girls' team?
She washed and dressed quickly. She no longer bothered with the binding straps she'd once used; she simply focused on covering her treacherous body as soon as possible. It was a shameful thing, something to be hidden away, and the more invisible she could become, the better. She didn't fit as a boy, she didn't fit as a girl, a peg that was neither round nor square. She'd been right that day when she told Mr Clarkson she'd be better off dead, but he'd disagreed. She wouldn't kill herself, that was for wimps, and Barrys weren't wimps, but she'd do the next best thing: make herself invisible. She was taking up too much space, too much awkward space.
7.15am, Mulgrew household
'Morning, Mum.'
Christine twisted in surprise when her son greeted her with an unusually demonstrative peck on the cheek. 'Morning, son.' She eyed him suspiciously over the rim of her coffee cup as he hummed through the putting together of his own breakfast. 'You're in a good mood.'
He grinned. 'I fancy eggs. You want?'
'Only if you're making 'em!' Imogen said with a cheeky grin that split her face as she leaned over the breakfast bar towards her mother-in-law. She took Christine's cup from her. 'More coffee?'
'All right, you two, what's up?' Christine demanded. 'Just tell me, whatever it is. I can't stand the suspense.'
'What suspense?' Imogen asked innocently as she returned Christine's coffee, made just as she liked it, she noted. 'Aren't we allowed to be nice?'
'You're teenagers,' Christine responded acerbically. 'There's a catch in there somewhere.'
'And you wonder where I get my nasty suspicious mind from,' Connor remarked to his wife. 'Mum, relax. We're not buttering you up, promise. We just…'
Christine looked at him, her expression questioning.
Imogen took over. She was always the more articulate of the two. 'We know it's been hard lately. Some of that's been our fault. We just—we just want to be supportive.'
Christine had been feeling unusually buoyant that morning, but with Imogen's words the warm contentment evaporated. Imogen wasn't joking about the difficulties—difficulties that she'd evaded over the past week but which must be faced head-on in the coming days. First there was Kacey Barry, who'd be returning to school that day. Christine quailed at the thought of seeing her, never to mention Carol Barry. She expected an unpleasant encounter at the very least; the tentative rapport established between them in the aftermath of the Julian Noble Show could not be expected to weather Kacey's assault on school grounds, during school hours, on Christine's watch. Then there was the question of how to deal with the rumours about her own past. She'd hoped that they would die down after a couple of days, but by the previous Friday silence still fell when she entered a room, and it wasn't the right kind of silence… and Simon Lowsley had become so greasily solicitous that it made her skin crawl.
Her throat closed and her eyes burned from shame and guilt alike.
'Forget the eggs,' she said roughly, shoving her mug into Imogen's hands. 'I'll grab something later.'
She could not get out of the kitchen fast enough, conscious of her young people's concerned gazes burning into her back as she left.
8.00am, Staff Room
'Well, well, well, this is a gathering of the clans,' George Windsor drawled as he sauntered into a crowded staffroom some ten minutes before briefing was due to begin. 'No-one's on duty manning the fort or frisking the natives? D'you actually mean to tell me that Our Glorious Leader is giving us a few minutes to ourselves?'
'Shut up, George,' Tom Clarkson told him shortly. 'I know the patrols are a pain, but Christine was right to start them. If we'd had them before, Kacey might not have—' He had to stop to clear his throat.
'I agree, Tom, but George has a point,' Audrey told him as she carefully rinsed her cup, checked her name-label was still secured on the base, and replaced it in a cupboard. 'We're entitled to down time too, and with all our breaks being taken up with hall or playground duty, well…' She lifted her hands in a characteristic gesture. 'We've never got all the frees back that we lost last term, and I can only speak for myself. I need that time.'
'Complaining again, Miss McFall?' Simon Lowsley asked as he strolled into the staffroom, Christine behind him. 'You know what they say, my dear. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Perhaps you should consider re—retiring?'
Audrey drew herself up to her full height and glared at the deputy, her eyes round and hard. 'Are you suggesting I should pack my bags?'
Simon gave an nonchalant shrug as he examined his fingernails. 'Telling it like it is. You've had your time. Don't you feel ashamed sitting here, take up space and salary that could be better served on a younger, fresher teacher?'
'I—I—' Audrey stammered in shocked disbelief before turning towards the Head with an anguished, 'Christine! Are you going to let him talk to me like that?'
For a moment, Audrey thought her friend would come to her defence, her head coming up in a gesture that she'd learned meant that Christine had come to a decision.
'Simon,' the Head began but Lowsley cut her off, his tone turning soft as he fleetingly rested a hand on her arm.
'It's all right, Christine. I'll handle this. Why don't you go back to the office? You're not looking well, and no wonder.'
Distracted from her grievances, Audrey focused on the younger woman. Simon was right, she realised. Christine wasn't looking well, although this week she'd done her best to patch the damage with an immaculate suit and careful makeup—but all the skin lighteners in the world could not hide the bruised weariness in her eyes. Audrey winced at the memory of last week's rumours and hurried to apologise, hating to think that she could be adding to her friend's burdens.
'It's all right, Christine,' she said, inadvertently echoing Simon's phrase. 'I'm fine. I'm sorry.'
Christine gave her a nod and turned as though to return to her office, her shoulders slumping, Audrey noted with concern. Then, as Simon began to talk about rumour management and the arrangements for Kacey Barry's return, Audrey realised that Christine had not moved through the connecting door, had in fact insinuated herself through the crowd of teachers so that she stood at Audrey's side.
'Don't be fooled,' she murmured into Audrey's ear as she passed. 'Please, Audrey.' She pushed a scrap of paper into Audrey's hand and continued on her way.
The History teacher glanced about her as she hurriedly shoved the paper into a pocket, curiosity thrumming in her veins. Her previous suspicion that there was something very wrong in the relationship between the Head and the new deputy rekindled, and her fist clenched about the paper in her pocket.
So Simon Lowsley thought he could mess with Christine, did he? Well, he thought wrong, she told herself fiercely. Christine had won her place at Waterloo Road and won it fairly, and of one thing Audrey McFall was certain: Waterloo Road took care of its own, from its youngest pupil all the way up to the Head herself—and so Simon bloody Lowsley would find out before they were all very much older!
9.00am, Mr Clarkson's room
'Get in and sit down, quietly,' Mr Clarkson ordered his form as he made his way past the long queue of them outside his door. 'Dynasty, hold on,' he added as the elder Barry girl went to enter.
'Sir,' she acceded tonelessly, Kevin Chalk remaining firmly by her side.
At any other time, with any other students, Tom would have insisted that the boyfriend leave them in peace, but he had not missed how Dynasty clung surreptitiously to Kevin's hand—especially when Jas Maguire went by.
'Sir, why haven't you done somethin' about her?' Kevin demanded heatedly. 'We told you last week. She's Steve-O's sister, she confessed, and she helped organise the assault on Kacey. We're sure of it!'
Tom folded his arms and looked judicially at the boy. 'That's a serious accusation, Kevin. Proof?'
'What more d'you want?' Kevin returned through his teeth. 'C'mon, sir. Half-sister, for God's sake! And she wouldn't give you her 'phone when you asked, remember?'
'That's not evidence,' Tom told him tiredly, having been over this many times during the past week. 'Do you remember the number of times I've had to argue with you to get your phone off of you?'
'But that's different!' Kevin argued. 'I was working on Chalk and Cheese—'
'During A' level English?' Tom asked with point, and a touch of colour appeared on the boy's cheeks.
'Even so. I wasn't doing anythin' wrong.'
'And neither has she, that we know of. Innocent until proven guilty, eh?'
'But—'
'That's enough, Kevin,' Tom interrupted, losing patience. He jerked his head towards the open classroom door. 'I want a word with your lady. Go on, in!'
Dynasty gave Kevin's arm a squeeze with her free hand as she disentangled her fingers. 'I'll be fine. Sir's 'ere, I'm safe.'
'As houses,' Tom confirmed.
'At least you didn't say flats or bike sheds,' Kevin muttered sourly as he brushed past them into the classroom.
Tom winced. 'Sorry, Dynasty. Bad choice of words.'
'It's OK, sir,' the girl told him with a smile that wavered at the edges. 'You didn't mean it, an' me mum says there's no point in bein' oversensitive.'
'No,' Tom agreed dubiously. 'Speaking of your family, how's Kacey? She's back at school this morning, isn't she?'
Dynasty's eyes widened, the luxurious false lashes turning her into a caricature of a cartoon character. 'Haven't you spoken to 'er?'
Tom's brow contracted. 'Should I have?'
''Course, sir. She was out at break of dawn to come 'ere, her note said. Football trainin' for the girls' team an' all, wasn't it?'
Tom's stomach, well filled that morning with bacon and eggs, turned cavernous with dread. 'It's nearly the end of October,' he pointed out patiently. 'It's barely light enough for staff briefing at eight. No point in having football training, so no, I haven't seen her.'
Dynasty whitened and clutched at him, the sharp edge of her long nails driving through his woollen jumper and cotton shirt to dent the skin below. 'Then where is she, sir? Where is she?!'
A bit shorter than usual, this time, but not much. Have to leave you on a little cliff, don't I? ;)
