When the bell went for lunchtime, Mr Hart appeared and asked his student whether she'd had time to reflect on her behaviour. Hollie shot him an undeniably fake smile and apologised in her most insincere manner. The man, clearly not in any way bothered by the whole situation, shrugged and said she could leave.
Squeezing Kacey's arm as she passed, Hollie shot her a sympathetic smile. The younger girl sighed deeply, folding her arms on the surface of the table and rested her chin on her forearm.
Meeting up with Kevin and the others in the Common Room, Hollie was informed that Kacey's presentation was back on and was unceremoniously dragged back down to help set up. She frowned, wondering what had happened and whether the money had been returned. The girl was pleased, however, deciding that if anyone needed a break at the moment it was Kacey.
"Here she is!" Lula announced a while later, after everyone had rushed around like headless chickens trying to re-decorate the room that had been returned to normal after the news of the missing money had been made known.
"OK, thank you, everyone!" Nikki called over the loud applause that rose as she and Kacey walked in. "Kacey going to America isn't just her dream come true. It's been everyone's and you guys have raised over £9,000, so thank you so much!" Another round of cheering and applause broke through and the woman had to shout to make herself heard. "So let's hear it for Kacey Barry!"
Kevin handed Hollie a drink, grinning as she downed it in one. "It's not alcoholic, you know." He teased.
She slapped his arm lightly. "I know that, idiot!"
"OK… I have to go and sort out the video Dynasty's been making for Kacey. I'll be right back."
Nodding, the girl moved to stand with Scout and Zoe while Kevin fiddled with the laptop that was attached to a television screen. He introduced the video and another round of cheering started up as Harley's face appeared.
As Barry's part of the video started and they listened to his uncharacteristically sentimental monologue, Kacey moved forward and motioned for Nikki to follow her out of the room. Hollie's eyes followed them suspiciously as they left, before flicking back to Barry who, if she wasn't very much mistaken, looked uneasy at their sudden departure.
Moments later, the girl returned and stopped the video. She laughed mirthlessly. "What a beautiful speech, Barry. I'm actually quite choked. What a lucky sister I am." There was a long pause. "But… but it's all lies, isn't it? All of it. Every word he said."
"Are you alright, Kace?" Barry asked, acting the picture of innocence.
"My money… the money that you all raised for me… it was stolen by him." A ripple of muttered consternation ran around the room at her words. "My brother, the brother that loves me so much, stole it. Can you believe that?"
"You didn't, did ya?" Dynasty asked looking wary.
"What are you on about?" He tried to defend himself. It sounded so far from genuine that Hollie almost laughed at the attempt. "You've got the money; you're going to America. What's your problem?"
"Yeah I am." His younger sister agreed angrily. "But only because someone cares for me more than you do… someone who put that money up out of their own pocket." She shot a quick look over her shoulder at Nikki and Hollie followed her gaze. She frowned as she read the expression on her mother's face accurately.
"I have no idea what you're on about."
Dynasty took a couple of steps towards him, looking down at her brother in disgust. "It was you, wasn't it?"
"No!"
Carol leapt to her feet then, scowling ferociously at Barry and speaking in a low voice. "Right. Out… now."
Hollie stood back and watched as the Barrys left the room, accompanied by her mother. As Nikki left the room, the teenager caught Tom's eye and knew instantly that he understood the implication of Kacey's words about someone replacing the money Barry had stolen. She also realised that he hadn't known about Nikki's actions any more than she had. The dark look that crossed his face told her that this was just another nail in the coffin that contained the couple's relationship.
As everyone piled out of the room, Hollie rushed to her stepfather's side, grabbed his arm and pulled him into an empty classroom. His face was stony and set grimly as he surveyed the teenager seriously.
"Did you know?"
She shook her head. "No… I'm guessing you didn't, either?"
"No."
"Don't be mad at her, Tom, please…"
He scoffed. "Nine grand, Hollie? Nine grand! That should have gone to you and Eve and AJ! Why are you not angry?"
"Because she was doing something nice!" The teenager reasoned. "Kacey deserves to go to America… it's not fair that she misses out because of Barry!"
"It wasn't like she gave her twenty quid!"
"It wasn't like she spent the money on clothes!"
Tom exhaled sharply, turning away. "It's not even about the money. Not really. She… she did this without bothering to even mention it to me. She gave Kacey Barry £9,000 without thinking that she should bother to tell me. That's not… that's…"
"Tom… it was probably just because it was a last minute decision or something… I doubt Mum meant to keep it from you…"
"This should be between me and Nikki." He said after a moment in a closed tone, signalling that she wouldn't be able to get anything else out of him.
With a sigh, Hollie nodded and left the room. She followed the crowd streaming towards the entrance, leaving through the main doors and descending the steps to stand beside her mother. Slipping an arm around her waist, they watched Kacey walk through the gates and Hollie rested her head on Nikki's shoulder. Pressing a kiss to her daughter's hair, the woman closed her eyes and breathed deeply for a couple of moments, dreading what was facing her when she spoke to her boyfriend.
Appearances were kept up until after Mr Lowsley and Miss Spark's wedding reception the next day. As soon as Tom and Nikki returned home, however, the sound of slamming doors woke Hollie from her uneasy, fitful sleep. After that, there were screaming arguments, with plates and glasses and mugs smashing against walls. There were also long periods of silence where everyone was so uncomfortable that it was physically painful to be in the house.
And then Tom left.
When Hollie got up on the Friday at the end of half term her stepfather had packed a bag and moved out. He returned on Saturday to pick up some more of his things, saying that he was staying with one of the other teachers while he looked for a flat to move into.
Leaning in the doorway as he carried his things out to the car, Hollie felt hot tears prickling in her eyes. She didn't want Tom to leave. She didn't want him and Nikki to split up. After everything they'd been through over the past year she had hoped that they'd be strong enough to work through their problems.
As the last bag went into the boot, Tom turned back to smile at his stepdaughter. She couldn't manage to raise a smile in return, allowing the tears building up behind her eyelids to spill over and run down her cheeks.
"This doesn't mean anything between us has to change, love." He told her softly, wiping her tears away with his thumbs. "You're still my daughter as far as I'm concerned."
"But… how is it going to be the same. How can it possibly not change things?"
"We have to make sure it doesn't."
Hollie nodded and smiled as Tom leant forward and pressed a kiss against her cheek. Standing in the doorway, she waved at the car as it drove away slowly.
"Has he gone?" Nikki asked, her pale face making the redness of her eyes stand out even more. Her hair was tousled from where she'd run her hands through it over and over again as she sat awake in the hours of darkness when she'd been unable to sleep. "Did he say anything?"
Unable to be angry with her obviously devastated mother, the teenager simply wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her back into the house. She sat her down on the sofa and pulled the blanket over her, refusing to listen to any protestations. By the time she had returned from AJ's room, relieved that her baby brother was still asleep, Nikki had also managed to drift off.
Careful not to wake the woman, Hollie curled up in the armchair opposite with AJ's baby monitor on the end table beside her and one of her set books for English on her lap. She managed to make a sizeable dent in the novel before Nikki stirred and the teenager moved to make them some lunch.
She couldn't blame Nikki, as much as she wanted to. Neither, though, could she blame Tom. Things just got too hard and too complicated and, in the end, maybe it really was for the best. That was what both Josh and Eve had told her in various phone calls with each of her siblings over the week.
So far only Kevin, Scout and Zoe were aware of the change in her family circumstances. Hollie felt bad that she hadn't told Imogen or Dynasty, but she couldn't face everyone knowing yet. She was dreading going back to school on Monday and she knew Nikki was too. They hadn't talked about it, however, and neither would admit to being worried about doing so.
On Sunday night, both Nikki and Hollie were quieter than normal, each of them blaming last minute work and preparations for their distantness. The thought of seeing Tom was also playing on both Bostons' minds, especially Nikki's.
When they turned up in Nikki's car and saw Tom's already parked in the teachers' car park, the woman took a deep breath, before smiling reassuringly at her daughter. "Have a good day, OK, sweetheart?"
"You too, Mum." Hollie said firmly. "It'll be fine."
Reaching out to touch her cheek gently, Nikki chuckled. "I love you, you know that, right?"
"Course I do." The teenager scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Love you, too."
Smiling, Hollie shrugged her bag more firmly up her shoulder and walked towards the building with her head held high. She met her friends and Kevin and, thankfully, they were all tactful enough not to mention the domestic issues that had gone on in the teenager's life over half term.
They filed into the assembly hall, slumping down into their seats as they waited for Mr Lowsley to start his presentation. Hollie glanced sideways and caught sight of Tom and Nikki sitting a few seats apart, both carefully avoiding looking at the other. Mr Windsor, Maggie and Miss McFall sat between them, all looking slightly confused and concerned at the two teacher's behaviour.
"Good morning everyone." The man on stage greeted the students enthusiastically.
"Good morning, Mr Lowsley." They droned back.
"On behalf of Mrs Mulgrew and the rest of the teaching staff I'm delighted to usher in the new term. Waterloo Road is going to blaze a new trail other schools will be desperate to follow."
"D'you think it's a new computer lab?" Kevin whispered excitedly, causing his girlfriend to roll her eyes.
"Resilience!" Mr Lowsley shouted, making them all jump. "Anyone heard of it?" There was unimpressed silence. "Well this little word is set to change your lives in more ways than you can imagine."
"Oh my god… I so don't need this." Hollie muttered, slumping down even further in her seat.
"And if you're not excited yet, you will be." The deputy head promised them. "Resilience education is a new technique for emotional literacy and problem solving; an activity approach to happier pupils. It's about empowerment. It's about action." He glanced to the rows of staff on either side of the hall. "Miss Boston, Mr Gonway, if you would…" Hollie watched her mother walk to the stage and accept a pile of papers from the man on it. "You are being handed out questionnaires about your hopes, dreams and ambitions. Please fill these in before the end of today. From these we'll be working out a personal resilience programme for each of you based on your goals for the term."
"What is the fucking point?" Hollie groused irritably. "Who gives a shit about this stuff?"
"Who's rattled your cage this morning?" Connor asked, arching an eyebrow and pulling out his phone.
"I urge you to listen… you'll be glad you did. So what is Waterloo Road's resilience education? It's a tool…"
"You're a tool…" Hollie muttered, causing Kevin to snort with amusement and receive a dirty look from the closest teacher.
"… for life."
Hollie was just smiling at Nikki, who was handing out the questionnaires to her daughter's row, when the doors at the side of the stage burst open and a man wearing a balaclava and wielding a baseball bat appeared.
He shouted something unintelligible and detonated a smoke bomb, causing the hall to fill abruptly with thick, choking smoke. Hollie panicked, flashbacks of her ordeal almost a year previously flitting through her mind. Although the situations were completely different and there wasn't a gun in sight, her first though was that she was going to be shot.
Leaping out of her seat, she started battling to try and escape, her breathing becoming erratic and frenzied. She couldn't breathe properly, blindly clawing her way through the panicking students in an attempt to get away.
Maggie caught hold of her, realising instantly what the problem was. She wrapped her tightly in her arms and murmured soothingly in her ear, running one hand through her hair calmingly. "You're alright, pet. You're OK." She promised softly. "No one's going to hurt you, I promise."
She guided the teenager firmly towards the doors, only showing her own fright when she realised she couldn't get out. Banging on the glass, she let go of Hollie who, feeling the bodies of the other students crashing in on her, tried to push her way through them to find some air. That, however, took her back towards the stage.
"Mum!" She screamed, seeing Nikki on the stage, sitting on the intruder's chest with his baseball bat held threateningly above his head.
"It's alright! He's not dangerous!" Mr Lowsley shouted, causing the shouting and banging at the assembly hall doors to die down almost immediately. "Look… I'm fine! I'm fine, look…" he licked some of the blood off his finger. "It's ketchup! What you've just experienced was a complete mock up."
Nikki pulled the man's balaclava off, fixing him with a look of complete disdain as he spoke to her, before slapping his hand away from her thigh and standing up. She jumped off the stage at once and gathered her shaking daughter into her arms, holding her close and running a hand through her hair.
"Pupils, staff, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our new PE teacher who implemented a full resilience programme at his last school and will be doing the same at Waterloo Road. Give it up for Mr Reid."
There was sporadic, half-hearted applause from the pupils. None of the teachers joined in and the beaming grin fell from Mr Lowsley's face almost immediately, especially when he realised that Mrs Mulgrew had appeared in their midst. Nikki kept the look of total hostility on her face as Hollie gradually calmed down in her arms.
"My office." The head teacher commanded angrily, looking between the two men coldly.
As Mr Reid passed, he paused to speak to Nikki. "No hard feelings?"
"No hard feelings?" She repeated in a low voice. "You terrified my daughter and you expect me to just forget about it?"
"With a mother willing to tackle armed intruders I'm surprised she was scared at all. I'd have thought she'd have been right up there alongside you." He chuckled tactlessly.
Nikki's eyes were almost reduced to slits in her fury. "She was shot." She hissed, her anger getting the better of her and causing her to spill the information. "She nearly died and you have just caused her to have a flashback, something she hasn't had in a very long time."
Mr Reid's face fell and he looked incredibly uncomfortable. "I… I'm sorry…"
Turning her back on him, the woman refused to acknowledge his apology, let alone accept it. She guided Hollie out of the hall and along the corridor to her office, where she settled her in a chair. When she attempted to leave, the teenager clung on like a limpet and Nikki was unable to bring herself to seriously extract herself from her daughter's grasp. Instead, she squashed herself into the armchair alongside the girl and snuggled close.