"Urggggghhhhh!" Tyler groaned, blowing his nose into the last tissue from the tissue box he'd nicked from Jody's room. He looked a ridiculous sight, curled up in the centre of his bed, surrounded by mountains of used tissues.
"Tyler!" Jody exclaimed, wrinkling her nose in distaste. She'd been listening to him bitch and moan about how ill he was for the last half hour. The household epidemic had really done a number on him. "Lie under the covers!"
"It's too warm!" he whined petulantly, sounding like a child. She frowned at him from the doorway, feeling sorry for him. She wondered how Mike could've caught this flu-like lurgy in March, managing to pass it on to half the DG in a matter of minutes. "Jodyyyyyy..."
She snapped out of her musings. "Yeah?"
"I'm cold now." She sighed, leaving her strict post against the door—she'd been keeping her distance so as not to catch what he had—and rushing to the side of his bed.
"Get under the covers," she ordered sternly, narrowing her eyes at him when he gave her an uncooperative look. She didn't want to look like a frightening witch but if it made him comply with her so that he could get better, she was going to milk it for as long as she could. Seemingly taking her seriously, he shimmied up the bed, resting his head on the pillow and throwing the covers out from underneath his body. Leaning over, she grabbed the covers and brought them up to rest just under his chin. "Rest for now." She straightened her back. "Okay?"
"But our plans?" he piped up, blindly and weakly reaching out for her.
"Cancelled," she responded firmly, giving him a pointed look. He didn't seriously expect them to go out when he was practically a zombie, did he? Although, knowing him, he probably did. He pouted in response and she offered him a sympathetic smile in turn. "Get some sleep," she said softly, gently pushing down his outstretched arm. He mumbled something, turning over onto his side, facing away from her. Taking that as her cue to leave, she quietly left the bedroom, carefully closing the door behind her.
"Jody!" Floss called, bounding around the corner.
Jody glared at the younger girl who was wearing a surgical mask and rubber gloves. "Shh!" She grimaced, hoping Floss hadn't woken Tyler up. "He's ill!" she hissed, guiding Floss around the corner and into the corridor leading to the attic stairs. "What is it?"
"Mike told me to give this to you," Floss answered, holding up the office landline phone wrapped in a tissue. Jody raised an eyebrow at the bizarre, over-the-top measures the girl had taken to protect herself from the 'zombie contagion' before taking the phone from her, sans tissue.
Holding the phone up to her ear, she motioned for the younger girl to scram. For once in her life, Floss did what she was told without argument. "Hi?" Jody greeted unsurely, having forgotten to check the number.
"Jody?" the all too familiar voice spoke. "Hi, it's Simon."
She frowned. Why was her social worker calling her now? Her next scheduled appointment with him wasn't for another few weeks. She walked fast towards her room, wondering if he'd somehow found out about her visit to Boland House the other day. While visiting other children's homes wasn't against the rules, it was against the region's care homes' rules to allow unauthorised visitors to freely roam around the house and grounds.
"Is something wrong?" she asked, hurrying into her room and closing the door behind her with her back.
"No, no," he assured, sounding... jolly. "Actually, Luke got in contact with me. He'd like to see you."
"I don't want to see him," she replied automatically, without having to think about it for even a second. She would've been lying if she said her heart hadn't skipped a beat at Simon's words but she had too much to deal with at the moment. She still hadn't asked Ella what her dad paid her to keep quiet about—she told herself she was too busy to do it but, in all honesty, she didn't have the bottle—and now her housemates were all coming down with a sickness. "I already told you that after the last time he visited."
"He calls every week," he stated, his voice serious. "I felt sorry for him so I thought I'd call you and find out if you'd changed your mind."
She rolled her eyes. Was he her social worker or Luke's? Next, he'd be feeling sorry for Kingsley. "I bet his girlfriend dumped him and that's why he's desperate to talk to me now. He never could go long without a woman in his life whether it was me or Mum or someone else..."
Simon sighed audibly. "Are you sure you don't want to see him?"
"Yeah," she answered flatly. "One hundred per cent," she added, using Dexter's catchphrase and injecting some attitude into her tone of voice.
"Alright. I'll see you at our next meeting."
"Hmm, bye," she muttered before hanging up.
Her jaw tightened in irritation. Luke had some nerve, harassing her social worker to arrange a meeting with her after she had expressly told him, to his face, that she never wanted to see him again. She'd managed to more or less completely forget him over the last few weeks but he didn't seem to want to let her go. She needed to get May-Li to take her to the gym, ASAP.
.:. QK .:.
In the end, May-Li never got round to taking Jody to the gym despite agreeing to when first asked due to more pressing matters (apparently painting Jay and Bird's room was suddenly important now, even though they'd moved into Candi-Rose's former room a whole month ago), forcing her to remain indoors with the sick lot. Walking through the lounge, she dodged a suspiciously directed sneeze from Taz, briefly wondering if she ought to go up to Ella's room and ask her about her dealings with her father's lawyer but ultimately deciding against it. For all she knew, Ella was sequestered in her room with whatever Tyler had and that was why she was still here instead of at Burnywood (the residents' food poisoning had since cleared up). She didn't want to risk catching that.
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her mobile phone and sat down at the dining table on the free side—the other side of the table was occupied by a line of bowls of soup. Chloe and Joseph were rattling about the kitchen, pouring over a newspaper cutting and arguing, but Jody blocked them out, going to her contacts list and pressing on Thomas' name. He was still listed as a recently added contact.
She quickly composed a message and hit send: It's been days now and I haven't been able 2 ask her bout the lawyer. Can't u tell me?
He replied impressively speedily as if he'd been waiting by his phone. How about u ask the lawyer urself?
What do u mean? Spy on him in the park and go 2 him after he meets her? She didn't feel up to spying after the disaster that occurred the previous time. The trouble-makers in the household still made thinly veiled comments about Ella's profession to this day and didn't seem like they were going to cease anytime soon.
Meet him at work.
She regarded his message with amusement. How did he expect her to do that? I don't know where he works.
I do. I can take u there.
That revelation shouldn't have been too surprising—he was Ella's best friend, after all, and was likely to know as much about said girl as Tyler did about Jody—but, for some reason, it was. She chewed on her lip, contemplating whether to accept his offer or not. On the one hand, she was really curious about Ella's family and connections; Ella was possibly under witness protection or something exciting like that, her background to being in care being different to that of the rest of them. It would be refreshing to hear something new for a change. On the other hand, Jody was wary; the reason she'd sought Thomas out in the first place was for him to give his place at Boland House up for Ella but he'd been silent on the subject ever since she initially brought it up, and she hadn't mentioned it again. How was discovering Ella's past going to help her in the present? Jody was supposed to be making it up to Ella for the 'exposal', not engaging in further snooping.
I don't think it's a good idea, she wrote. She'll just b mad when she finds out. The only way we can help her is if u give ur place at Boland House up 4 her.
I can do 1 better. W/ ur help, I might b able 2 get her home back 4 her.
How?
W8 and c.
That settled it. If Jody could help Ella get back with her family, she'd do it. Maybe, after this, she'd be able to get to sleep without tossing and turning out of guilt.
.:. QK .:.
Getting out of the house had been pretty easy; with Mike being utterly useless (due to illness) and May-Li being stressed to the nines (again, due to illness), they'd believed her when she said she was getting the bus to the gym. Had they been fit and healthy, they would've remembered that she was skint after paying Tyler back—for Ross' information—but because they so obviously weren't, she'd got away with it. Shortly after leaving the house, she'd met Thomas outside Pottiswood Station and they both hitched a ride to Newcastle. To her embarrassment, he'd paid for her train ticket entirely out of his own pocket and she hadn't been able to refuse because, as always, she was totally broke. In the end, she'd stubbornly maintained that she would pay him back. Being paid for made her feel like a dependent little child, not someone who was a few months shy of fifteen years of age.
After a mere fifteen minutes, the pair reached their destination. On the way out of the station, Jody pushed through the ever-increasing sea of people, keeping her eyes firmly on Thomas who was ahead of her.
"So where exactly does this guy work?" she asked, wondering if the lawyer used public transport to see Ella in the park every day.
"Not in the city," he responded over his shoulder. "We'll have to take a bus to get to his workplace." She sighed, practically feeling her face drain of colour. There was yet another ticket she'd have to pay him back for out of next week's allowance.
The bus ride took much longer than she'd expected. Time seemed to pass even more slowly than on the train ride, maybe because the two of them had already engaged in small talk during those fifteen minutes and now had nothing left to talk about. During the train ride, she'd learnt that Thomas was in care because the only mother and father he'd known had illegally bought him as a baby from a foreign child trafficking ring and had gone to prison for it when he was nine, and no one knew who his biological parents were. It was one of the worst backgrounds to being in care she'd heard of.
"This is our stop," he spoke up from her left, sat in the aisle seat. She looked out of the window to see there was nothing but empty fields outside; they were in the middle of nowhere. Despite her reservations, she followed him off the bus and up a long path. Soon enough, a huge house came into view. Huge. Like Downton Abbey.
"This is where he works?" she questioned sceptically. "It looks like a home, not an office."
"He's here nearly twenty-four-seven," he informed as they approached the majestic house. "Now, you go in there"—he tipped his head in the direction of the front door—"and ask to see Mr Hoyle." She nodded determinedly, marching up to the door and ringing the doorbell. The presence of a doorbell on a historical door looked funny.
An old man opened the door. "Yes, how may I help you?"
"Can I please see Mr Hoyle?" she requested, turning to Thomas to confirm she'd said the correct name but finding that he wasn't there. She spun around, absolutely flabbergasted to see that her companion was nowhere in sight.
"Miss?" the old man spoke, regaining her attention. She turned back to him, forcing herself to look normal. "You require an appointment to see Mr Hoyle. This is a private family home; I suggest you call his PA and arrange a meeting elsewhere."
Jody bit her lip. Great. It seemed that this was a wasted journey. Just then, her phone pinged. She looked at her lock-screen to see a message from Thomas. Tell him you want to talk to the lawyer about Lady Ella. Lady? She shook her head, looking back up at the old man. "I want to talk to him about Lady Ella."
The old man instantly stiffened. "Who are you?"
She smirked. "I'm a friend."
.:. QK .:.
Mr Hoyle sat behind his desk, squinting at Jody, who was sitting on a chair on the other side, through his tented fingers. When the old man had shown her in and mentioned Ella, the lawyer's eyes had widened in something resembling fear for a split second. Since asking her to sit down, Mr Hoyle hadn't spoken another word. If he wasn't going to speak, she was. Having lived in a house full of noise and commotion for six years straight, all day, every day, any sort of excessive silence unnerved her.
"Why do you give Ella money?" she asked, leaning back in her chair.
"I'm sorry, I think you're mistaken," Mr Hoyle replied calmly. "I don't know anyone called Ella."
"Well, then, why do I see you giving her a lump of cash in Pottiswood Central Park every single day?"
He maintained his poker face, seemingly unfazed. "I'm here every single day, managing my client's legal matters. You must be mixing me up with someone else."
"Isn't Ella Mansfield your client's biggest legal matter?" she countered, crossing her arms. "His daughter, even."
"My client's daughter is one Lady Amelia Cavendish, young lady," Mr Hoyle responded. "She is his only daughter."
Lady Amelia? So, Ella's father was a posh, titled man? Well, Ella was posh too so it made sense but Jody had expected the father to be a rich businessman who had no time for fatherhood, not some deadbeat like her own father who ignored one child but acknowledged another. It made no sense. If he was fit to take care of one daughter, why was the other in care? And it wasn't even as if Ella was a small child who needed constant care; she was nearly an adult now and had been dumped in care at nine. Were the first nine years easier than the rest? Surely not.
"Nah, Ella Mansfield is his daughter," she stated emphatically. "But she's in care. Why?"
"I suggest you ask her because you already know more about her than I do," the lawyer 'suggested' nonchalantly. "I don't know her at all."
"What if I told you I had photos of you meeting her?"
To her dismay, the lawyer did not react the way she wanted him to. "You could have photos of anyone meeting your friend but you won't be able to prove that I am the man in the photographs."
"So you admit it?" she asked, latching onto those last few words. "You're admitting that it is you?"
"I admit nothing," he answered. "Nothing at all."
Jody's eyes darted wildly around the room as she desperately searched for something to say. This lawyer was obviously determined to keep his mouth shut until the end of his days. She didn't even know how this was helping Ella, to be honest, and only God knew where Thomas was and what exactly his master plan to get Ella her home back was. Judging from Mr Hoyle's behaviour, Ella was not going to be welcome here anytime soon, if ever.
Just then, a commotion broke out in the hallway outside and all that could be heard from inside the study was a multitude of muffled albeit loud voices. Mr Hoyle instantly rose to his feet, bolting towards the door of the study and leaving it ajar as he left the room. The most audible voice she instantly recognised as Thomas' who was yelling at the top of his lungs. She abandoned her seat, walking out into the hallway to see Thomas holding a camera and filming an older man who was drenched in some sort of orange liquid.
"Go on, tell the whole world what you just told me!" he goaded, "Tell them how you dumped your own daughter in care because she was born out of wedlock!"
Jody watched on in shock. That was why Ella was in care? Not because she was perhaps a witness to some sort of crime or because she knew something potentially damning about the family but because she was born outside marriage? What century were these people living in?! Almost everyone she knew was born to unmarried parents or knew someone else who was. She, herself, was born to an unmarried mother and so was Tyler! How was this a just cause for putting a child in care? It wasn't as if the posh man had no money or room to spare! She hadn't thought it possible but this man was actually worse than her own father.
"What are you waiting for?!" Ella's father yelled, appearing to be apoplectic. "Destroy that camera and throw him out!"
"Run!" Thomas shouted and Jody didn't have to look at him to know that he was talking to her. Without having to be told twice, she ran for it, with Thomas hot on her heels.
A/N: Jody lands herself in trouble again. Will she ever learn?
CharlieSMarts12—as always, thanks for the review. I appreciate the time you take to review; most readers don't bother (I'm one of them, LOL). Poor May-Li simply didn't have the time to address the 'relationship' sometime earlier. Of course, there's also the fact that the pair are behaving more 'coupley' as of late (in this fic, anyway). Glad you enjoyed it!