Third part of the four part story arc, set a few days after the last chapter.

They ended up curled up in Danny's bedroom on Monday night, partly because Rusty's bruises were still dark enough to get them stared at if they went out, but mostly because it was raining. Technically speaking Danny was still grounded and shouldn't have been having visitors but his mom had been screaming at his dad over breakfast – apparently Dad had stayed out all night again – and Danny had been happily forgotten. Again.

They listened to the radio for a while and made fun of the DJ but Danny couldn't stop thinking. He hadn't been able to persuade Rusty to come back home with him on Saturday and he'd been frantic with worry for the rest of the weekend. Because he honestly didn't know what Rusty was facing but that didn't stop him from feeling scared and helpless. And he hated that feeling.

The rest of Saturday they'd spent at Mabel's and Danny had seen how hurt Rusty was. The bruises. The blood. It was a lot more exciting when it was on the movies. When it was just some random actor who'd have washed it all off by the next scene, not a seven year old who struggled not to wince every time he moved, and never, ever made a sound no matter how much it hurt. And Danny had watched Rusty steel himself every time Mabel came near and do everything but cringe with every gentle touch as she treated his injuries. And it broke Danny's heart.

"Just say it," Rusty said seriously as the DJ launched into a full-throated chicken impersonation.

Danny looked round at him. "What?" he asked startled.

Rusty sighed. "You've been looking at me strange all day. There's something on your mind."

"Yeah. Something." Danny frowned and tried to figure out just what he wanted to say. He sighed. "My parents were really angry with me for sneaking out on Saturday," he began.

Rusty looked up sharply. "If you don't want – "

And Danny just knew what he was going to say. 'If you don't want to be friends anymore that's okay.' " – I do," he interrupted hastily. "That's not what I meant."

"I'd understand." Rusty assured him quietly.

"I wouldn't," Danny said and smiled. "Wasn't what I was going to say."

Rusty cocked his head. "Then – "

"My parents were angry. They yelled a lot. Said I was stupid and thoughtless and irresponsible. All that sort of stuff. And they grounded me for a couple of weeks; though I think they've forgotten about it now." He was watching Rusty's face very carefully and he saw the concern and worry replaced by relief and puzzlement.

"They didn't . . . " Rusty trailed off.

"What?" Danny asked gently.

"They didn't punish you?" Rusty asked quietly.

Danny did his best to keep his face neutral but Rusty still frowned at him, obviously aware that he'd said something wrong. Danny sighed. "The grounding was the punishment," he explained.

"But they didn't hit you?" Rusty's voice was anxious.

"No," Danny said wearily and more than anything he wished that he'd been wrong. "They don't do that."

"Good." Rusty said simply and there was a long silence while Danny willed himself to ask the next question.

"Rusty?" he said at last and the fact that his voice was steady was a matter of sheer willpower. "What happened after me and Mom left on Friday night?"

Rusty looked away uncomfortably. "He was angry. He doesn't like it when people come by like that."

Danny swallowed. "What did he do?"

"Taught me a lesson." Rusty shrugged. As though it was obvious.

"What did he do?" And he despised the harshness in his own voice but he couldn't help it.

Rusty opened his mouth and Danny just knew that he was going to lie, and he met Rusty's eyes and silently begged him, and they stared at each other for a long moment. In the end Rusty looked away first and took a deep breath. "He just hit me a couple of times. It's not a big deal." And his voice was calm and reassuring and he believed every word.

Only it was a big deal and this was surely beyond what Danny could reasonably be expected to cope with. And the part of him that was imagining Rusty's dad hitting him 'just a couple of times' felt sick and angry. "It's not right. We need to tell someone."

"Why?" Rusty frowned and there was a hint of fear in his eyes. "Telling just makes it worse. If you tell then everyone will know . . . "

"What?" Danny asked gently.

"Everyone will know I'm bad." Rusty said quietly.

Danny took a deep breath. "You're not bad," he said firmly, but Rusty looked unconvinced. "It isn't right."

"They're my parents. They can do what they like," Rusty argued persuasively. "It's normal; no-one's going to care. All that happens if you tell is that I get punished for whining." And there was complete conviction in Rusty's voice and Danny found himself hesitating.

"That's not what would happen," he said weakly and Rusty looked at him and shook his head sadly.

"It's normal. It's just life."

"No," Danny protested. He looked at the fading bruises on Rusty's face. This wasn't just life. Surely.

Rusty smiled at him. "Look, why don't we go watch TV and forget about it."

Danny sighed and capitulated and they went downstairs and watched Bugs Bunny. But he didn't forget about it.

He took a handful of potato chips and watched Danny carefully. It was obvious that Danny was still worrying about something, and Rusty was pretty sure it was because of their conversation last night. Honestly, there had to be some way that he could persuade Danny that it really wasn't that bad. Because it wasn't. Sometimes he was bad, and then he got hurt and then it was all forgotten. And maybe it wasn't quite normal; maybe it didn't happen to other people so much, but it was his life and he was doing fine. He shouldn't have told Danny at all. Except it seemed like Danny already knew. And lying to Danny . . . well, for one thing it didn't seem to work too well. And for another thing, it just felt wrong. But if Danny told anyone then it would be like when Brady had told Miss Harris about the lunch thing. People would look at him differently, and they'd tell his parents that he'd been complaining and it would just be more pain and humiliation and nothing would change. Anyway, whatever his dad said, he wasn't a whiner.

But the other thing - the thing that was really bothering him – was the way that Danny had looked at him on Saturday. As if it mattered. As if he didn't like seeing Rusty hurt. Because, okay, it was bad. It hadn't been that bad for a while, not since Mom and Dad had come home unexpectedly and caught him eating smashed cookie crumbs off the floor. And he'd been punished for being disgusting and like a wild animal, and he'd been ashamed, and he'd agreed, but they'd been gone so long that time, and he'd been so scared that they weren't going to come back that he'd actually taken to knocking at the door, hoping that one of the neighbours would hear and let him out. But all that'd happened was that he'd got blood smeared all over the woodwork. The cookies had been the last thing in the cupboard. He'd eaten the rest, even though he'd tried to make it last. And they were so high up and even standing on a chair he'd only just been able to grab the corner of the bag and he'd stretched and tugged at them, and somehow he'd overbalanced and fallen off the chair, and he'd landed on the cookies and the bag had burst and the cookies had got all smashed. He'd gathered up all the big bits first, and that had kept him going for another day, but in the end he'd been picking up the crumbs from the carpet. And that had been when they'd come home. And yeah, there'd been a lot of pain, and a lot of screaming, but afterwards his mom had picked him up off the floor and what had really hurt had been the look in her eyes when she scrubbed the blood off his face and asked why he had to be so bad. He just didn't know.

"Hey," Danny spoke quietly but there was urgency in his voice. Rusty blinked and the schoolyard came back into focus. "Are you okay?"

He took a long moment, and glanced down and with a grimace brushed the crushed potato chips off his hands. What a waste. "Yeah. Went away a little." He couldn't really explain it.

Danny didn't look in the slightest bit reassured. "What were you thinking about?"

He hesitated. "Just stuff."

"Bad stuff?" Danny asked and he didn't seem to want to let this go.

"Stuff," Rusty answered.

"Your parents," Danny said, and it wasn't a guess.

He nodded, because it was true.

"You need to tell someone." And Danny's voice was firm but there was a crack of desperation in it.

He sighed. "Danny – "

" – If you don't I will," Danny said firmly.

And that wasn't good. "Don't. Please." He heard his voice tremble slightly.

Danny bit his lip and said nothing and Freddy, Buzz and Doug came round the corner. Not good. Danny had already been getting a certain amount of hassle for hanging around with him. He'd suggested that maybe they should only meet up outside school, because it would be safer, and Danny had just looked at him and asked if that was what he really wanted. And in the end he'd grinned and told the truth. Of course it wasn't what he wanted. And it wasn't what Danny wanted either. But there were always going to be consequences.

Doug smiled. "Hey, Danny, wanna come shoot some hoops?"

Danny turned to look at him. "You want to?" he asked.

Rusty shrugged. "Sure, why not."

"No." Freddy glared. "Just you. Unless you want to hang around with the baby forever."

There was a pause, and Rusty could tell that Danny was angry, even though he was still smiling. "I'll hang around with who I like, Freddy. Rusty's my friend."

Unexpectedly Buzz frowned and stepped in. "Hey, I know Robert. He lives on the block behind me. He's all right."

Oh yeah. He could vaguely remember seeing Buzz hide round the back of his building and then being asked by Mr Frost and Mrs Santos, and a few others who might as well have been holding pitchforks and flaming torches, if he'd seen him. Of course he'd lied. He grinned. "It's Rusty now. Not Robert."

Buzz shrugged. "Cool."

"I don't care what his name is, he can't hang out with us," Freddy burst out angrily.

Danny abruptly made as if to stand up and Rusty glared at him. Not a good idea. Danny stared back and Rusty silently reminded him that they didn't have a hope of taking the three of them. Or the two of them, if Buzz stayed out of it.

"Go play basketball," he advised quietly and the look of hurt that Danny turned on him made him look away.

"Fine." Danny ground out. "I'll see you later."

He stared after them for a little while and then he went off to find his friends.

Danny waited until the other kids had run out of the class before he walked up to Mrs O'Donnell's desk and stood staring down at her as she marked papers.

"Mrs O'Donnell," he said, when she showed no signs of acknowledging him.

"What is it, Danny?" she asked distractedly.

Part of him wanted to say that it was nothing and just head outside. Meet up with Rusty. Maybe go and lift a couple of wallets and take in that movie. Because he'd practiced this conversation in so many different ways, and he still had no idea how it was supposed to go. "I need to talk to you. It's important."

She sighed and put down her pen. "Danny, if this is about your detention it's out of my hands. You left me no choice. You're a bright kid, if you'd just apply yourself . . . "

"No. It's important," he emphasised and she looked taken aback.

For the first time she actually looked at him. "Well what can I do for you?"

Danny took a deep breath and looked down at the ground for a long moment. He felt like a traitor. But what else could he do? "It's wrong for adults to hit children, isn't it?"

That got her attention. She looked at him carefully. "Well, that depends. Sometimes corporal punishment is appropriate. Parents and even teachers need to enforce discipline and sometimes suitable physical chastisement is the only effective course of action."

She sounded like she was reciting something and Danny tried to translate in his head. "You mean sometimes children need to be hurt to teach them a lesson?" Sounded just like what Rusty had said and he could hear the incredulous disbelief in his voice.

"Sometimes." She really didn't look comfortable with this conversation. "But sometimes it goes too far." She swallowed nervously. "Danny, is someone hurting you?"

He shook his head quickly. "A friend of mine." She looked sceptical. He sighed. "Really," he said sincerely.

She nodded and looked almost convinced. "Can you tell me your friend's name."

And this was the difficult part. Rusty had asked him not to tell, and just because he hadn't actually promised didn't mean that this wasn't a kind of betrayal. But everything in him told him that this couldn't continue. He couldn't watch Rusty get beat up for the rest of his life. He took a deep breath. "Robert Ryan. He's in Miss Harris' class. He's my partner for that paired reading programme."

He watched as she nodded and made a note of Rusty's name. "And what did he tell you?" he asked gently.

"He's got a lot of bruises. On his face and his arms and body. I asked how he got them and he said his dad got angry and hit him." Funny. This made him think of all the other times he'd stood in front of a teacher trying to convince them of something. It had always been a lie before. And it had never been this important.

She nodded again and he wondered how she could be so calm. He had no idea why everyone wasn't as horrified as he was. (Unless Rusty was right and this really was just life) "Thank you for telling me this, Danny. I know it can't have been easy."

She had no idea . . . "You're going to do something about it now, aren't you?" He stared at her, willing her to promise that things were going to get better.

And she wouldn't quite meet his eyes. "We're going to take the appropriate steps."

He was bored. He was really, really bored. Why they had to colour in pictures of elephants was beyond him. There were surely better things that they could be doing. Like almost anything, he'd have thought.

There was a knock at the door and an older girl skipped in and gave Miss Harris a note. Something new and different. Everyone looked up expectantly.

"Back to work, please," Miss Harris said sharply. "Robert, you're wanted in the Principal's office. Bring your worksheet up here please."

Well, that couldn't be good. He hadn't done anything wrong, he was almost certain of it. Or at least nothing that he'd be called to the Principal's office for. He put away the crayons very, very slowly, shuffled up to Miss Harrison's desk and handed over his colouring.

She looked at it and sighed. "Robert. Why is your elephant green?"

He blinked innocently at her. "It was kept in the fridge too long?" he suggested.

She stared at him for a long moment, slowly shaking her head. He didn't fidget or look away. He knew perfectly well that she didn't think he was too bright, and for the most part he liked it that way. Finally she sighed again. "Go."

He left and didn't start grinning till he was out the door. As he wandered round the Principal's office he tried to think about why. Could be about the whole pretending-not-to-be-able-to-read thing. If Danny could see through it then it was just possible that someone else had noticed. Or it could be the fact that he'd done Tommy's maths homework in exchange for half a Hershey bar. He still thought that maybe he'd been had on that deal, but at the time he'd really wanted the chocolate. Could even be that someone had seen him stealing. Just because he never did it anywhere near the school didn't mean that it couldn't get back to them. And it was just possible that it was about home, but he doubted it. He'd already had the 'Where did those bruises come from' conversation with Miss Harris, who didn't think that he was smart enough to lie.

He was still wondering when he knocked on the office door. "Come in." Principal Mallie's voice came immediately. Probably a good sign; if he was in trouble she'd have kept him waiting.

Head bowed he walked in slowly. "Hello," he said shyly.

"Robert." She smiled at him warmly. "Have a seat. Have a cookie."

Oh. It was going to be one of those conversations. He wondered what had happened. "Thank you." He chose one with chocolate chunks and nibbled on it.

"Now, Robert I wonder if you know why you're here?" she asked gently.

Yes. "No," he said quietly. She wasn't going to trick him into anything.

"We've had some concerning reports about you. Apparently you told another student that your father was responsible for those bruises, is that right?"

He froze. Danny had told on him. He'd asked Danny not to say anything, not to tell. He'd told him what would happen and Danny had still told. How could he? How could he?

Thinking fast he shuffled nervously.

"Robert?" she prompted softly.

"I didn't mean to," he blurted out, his voice far too loud in the small office. "He was being nice to me, and I wanted him to like me and I thought that he'd stay if he felt sorry for me and I'm really, really sorry and I promise I'll never do it again." By the end of his little speech his voice was trembling and the tears were showing.

The Principal frowned. "You lied."

He nodded fervently. "I saw on TV this boy whose parent's hit him, and he had lots of friends, and everyone liked him and, and . . . " He wiped at his eyes with his hand. He'd learned a long time ago that outside of his family people tended to be nice to children when they cried. Probably to make them stop. Other than that he didn't see the point of it.

She handed him the tissue and he peered up at her through his hair. Not completely convinced, but there were hints of exasperation and disgust in her eyes. That was good. Well, she'd probably tell his parents that he'd made a pathetic scene in her office, but it was better that than they thought he'd told. "So how did you get those bruises?"

This was the easy part. He'd told this story before and Mabel and Miss Harris had swallowed it easy. (Danny hadn't. But he wasn't going to think of that now.) "Some big boys were shoving me around and I tripped up and fell down the stairs. They said they were sorry and then they ran away. But I was a big boy and didn't cry." He looked up at that and beamed, like he'd seen Brady do the other week when he'd scraped his knee the other week. Like not crying was something to be proud of.

And she smiled in response. "That was very brave of you, Robert." Her eyes narrowed. "Did your parents take you to a doctor?"

Ah. That was unexpected. He wasn't sure what the right answer was. They hadn't of course, it wasn't worth it, but if he wasn't bad would they have been expected to? But if he lied and said they had there'd be more questions, and more questions was never good. He shook his head dumbly. "It wasn't that bad." He thought of Mabel. "Mom put on a whole lot of antiseptic." He let his expression slide into a scowl. "It hurt."

"It's good for you," she told him absently. He got the feeling that the meeting was coming to an end. With a start he realised that he'd have to run home and tell his parents what had happened. Because just in case she did decide to take it further they needed to know what story he was telling. "Well, thank you Robert. I think that's everything I needed to know. And you won't tell that sort of lie again, will you?"

He shook his head. "No, ma'am," he said sincerely.

"And I think you owe your friend an apology, don't you?" she watched him closely.

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am." He'd certainly be talking with Danny.

She frowned. "And I think that a detention is in order for all the fuss you've caused, don't you?"

He wondered if he could get away with saying 'no'. Somehow he doubted it, and he scowled slightly instead. She looked amused at the small show of defiance, just as he'd wanted.

"Tomorrow, after school. Okay?"

"Yes, ma'am." That was an easier one.

"I'll expect to see you then." He recognised a dismissal when he heard it, and he stood and silently left the office.

School was nearly over. And he had to find Danny before he went home.

Danny nearly jumped out of his skin when he walked out of the classroom and Rusty stepped out of nowhere and glared at him. And he knew what this was about immediately.

"I had to," he said, even before Rusty opened his mouth.

Rusty carried on glaring, and obviously he didn't see it that way.

"It isn't right," he explained.

Rusty shook his head, but said nothing.

He swallowed. "What's going to happen?"

"Nothing." Rusty said immediately. He smiled suddenly, in a way that Danny had never seen before. "I lied to you before."

"What?" Danny asked, taken aback.

"My dad doesn't hit me. I fell down the stairs." He was looking Danny right in the eye, and he spoke simply and sincerely.

Danny shook his head. "What are you saying?"

"I lied to you." Rusty repeated.

"You're lying now," he pointed out. He just knew it. Couldn't explain how, but it was obvious. He gazed pleadingly at Rusty. "Why?"

Rusty grinned humourlessly. "I need to get home."

And he turned and left and didn't look back, and with a moment of agonising clarity, Danny realised that he'd just lost something important.

Look, it's a prequel type of thing. You know what happens. So it's not a bad place to leave it.