Chapter 15
A couple of weeks had passed and although Amy had been very withdrawn and upset at first, she was starting to get back to her usual self.
It was a Friday afternoon and Gaby had just come into Rachel's office
"Mum is it still okay if I go to Samantha's sleepover tonight?"
"Yeah as long as her Mum's definitely okay with it"
Gaby was really excited, there was 4 of them going around, they'd got some movies and were planning on having a proper girly night, one of the girl's sisters had even agreed to get them some alcohol to drink
"Yeah she is"
"Well that's fine with me then" she said "It'll just be me and Hannah in tonight"
"Why?"
"Amy's staying at Jess's and Ivy's staying at Molly's"
"That'll be nice for you then, why don't you see if Hannah can go to Grandma's, then you'll have a night all to yourself"
"No, I'm looking forward to it actually, Hannah's no trouble" Rachel said "Are you having tea at home or at Samantha's"
"I think at Sam's"
"You think?" Rachel said raising her eyebrows, she still was very cautious about Gaby's eating and always preferred it if she ate in the house, so she could make sure she'd eaten all her food.
"Mum just chill I'll make sure I have something" Gaby said rolling her eyes
"Oi don't roll your eyes at me young lady" Rachel said swotting her
"You roll your eyes at me all the time"
"Well because I've got bloody good reason to most of the time" She said "Now I've got a load of work to do so do you want to get on with some homework"
"For gods sake Mum it's a Friday, can't you have a night off"
"No I can't, have you seen the amount of paperwork I've got to do. I was planning to do it this afternoon, but I had to go and deal with your class acting up didn't I?"
"How is it my fault if my class acts up? I'm not the teacher"
"Well when I came in you weren't exactly helping things, you were flinging paper across to Poppy"
"Hardly a criminal offence is it" Gaby said sarcastically "What do you expect when the supply teachers crap"
"Mind your tone"
Gaby just laughed
"No I'm being serious Gaby, you don't talk about teachers like that"
Gaby sighed, her Mum was still in teacher mode and it was doing her head in
"Can't we just go home"
"Nope, it's either homework or you walk home your choice"
"I haven't even got any homework to do, it's only 2 weeks till summer no teacher gives out homework now"
"Well I used to"
"Why does that not surprise me?" Gaby said, "What should I do?"
"Oh, for god's sake Gaby you're not a child, can you not just entertain yourself for half an hour?"
"I'll go and see if Mr Thompson needs help with putting the instruments away" Gaby said sulkily before sloping off
"Oh I think he's gone home but I'm sure Mr Budgen would love your help" Rachel said
Gaby didn't reply and walked off
Rachel smiled to herself, Mr Thompson was the new music teacher, he was young and really attractive, she'd noticed a few of the girls seemed to have a crush on him, Gaby definitely being one of them
She was glad Gaby had gone off as it meant she could focus on her work for the next half hour
She's got so caught up in all her work she hadn't noticed the time and got a shock when she looked at the clock, realising she'd be late for picking Hannah up from after school club if she didn't leave now
She really quickly gathered her stuff up wondering why Gaby hadn't been back yet.
Rachel got a shock when she walked passed the cooler and saw Gaby in there with Grantly
"Gaby" she said confused
"Ah miss Mason" Grantly said "Perhaps you can help me out here"
Rachel forced a smile "I will always try"
"I found your daughter here running wild through the school, she was with Josh Shepherd, the two of them were being extremely disruptive. Am I right in thinking it is not our responsibility to ensure your children are supervised after school, or are we to assume we're providing babysitting"
Rachel sighed heavily, she really didn't have time for this
"I'm really sorry she's been disrupting you, unfortunately me and Gaby really do have to go now but she can do break time detention with you on Monday to make up for it" Rachel said, much to the annoyance of Gaby "Apologise to Mr Budgen and get your stuff together"
Reluctantly Gaby did as she was told and followed her Mum out
"Mum that's so unfair making me do detention, we literally weren't doing anything"
"Well it was either that or be stuck there for another half an hour, next time can you not just find a different classroom to flirt with Josh outside than his, you really think I enjoy the lecture he gives me about it"
"I wasn't flirting with Josh" Gaby said indignantly
"Come off it Gaby, I see the way you two are together"
"We're just friends, am I not allowed to have boys as friends?"
"As long as that's all he us young lady, you're far too young to be having boyfriends"
"You're so bloody embarrassing" Gaby said before storming off ahead
Rachel just laughed and walked over to the car
The two of them then drove off to pick Hannah up from her after school club
Luckily it was running a bit late which meant Rachel just got there in time to pick Hannah up
"Hey love, how was school?" she asked, taking her book bag off her
"It was good, do you know I'm coming to your school on Monday?" Hannah asked
All the year 6s were due to have their induction into secondary school on Monday
"Yep, you'll be sorted into your form groups and you'll get to meet some of your teachers, so it should be a good day"
"It'll be so weird when I'm in school with you" Hannah said
"Give it a couple of months and you'll hate it" Gaby said
"Do you fancy getting Chinese tonight Hannah?" Rachel asked ignoring Gaby's comment
"Yeah that'd be really nice"
"That's so unfair, I've been asking for a Chinese tea for ages and the second I'm gone you're ordering it" Gaby moaned
"Well you can always stay in and eat with us" she said
They drove back home, and Gaby went up to her room to start getting ready, she wanted to look nice, so they could get some pictures all together
She was just doing her hair when she saw that she had a text
When she looked at it she realised it was one of her friends asking if there was any way she could steal some alcohol from home
Gaby didn't know what to do, she knew her Mum would be furious if she found out about any of this but at the same time she didn't want to seem daft in front of her friends, she knew Rachel kept her bottles of wine in the fridge in the garage, she had quite a few so she didn't think she'd notice if she just took one. It would be a while before she noticed anyway because she'd use the ones in the main fridge first.
She crept downstairs with the bag she was taking for her sleepover and went into the garage, nervously she opened the fridge and grabbed one of the bottles
As soon as she'd got it she shut the door and ran out
About an hour or so later she decided to head to the sleepover so she went and asked her Mum for a lift round
They all got in the car and Rachel drove her to the house
"Bye love have a really good time. I'll come and get you tomorrow, just call me when you want to go"
"Bye Mum" Gaby said before going off inside
Rachel waved goodbye to Gaby and then drove off
"Right, are you hungry?" She asked Hannah
"Yeah I'm starving"
"Same, we'll stop off at the Chinese on the way home, what do you fancy?"
"Chicken curry please and maybe some salt and pepper chips as well" she said hopefully
Rachel went in and ordered, it took quite a while for It to come so Hannah got a bit bored waiting in the car.
As soon as they got home they got home they decided to get into pyjamas and put a film on while they ate their Chinese
As they were watching it, Rachel realised it probably wasn't the best film to be watching with Hannah, it was about a little girl whose Mum had died. After about 10 minutes Rachel noticed that Hannah was crying, though she was doing her best to hide it
"Should we maybe put something else on"
Hannah just nodded her head
"I'm going to get some wine, you choose something else while I go"
Rachel went into the kitchen and poured herself a large glass of wine before going back into the living room
She sat down, and Hannah rested against her
"What happens when you die?" Hannah asked
Rachel was a bit taken aback by this and wasn't entirely sure how to answer
"I don't know love, I guess it's a bit like going to sleep"
"Rachel do you believe in heaven?"
"Erm, well yeah I guess so" Rachel said, guessing this was about Hannah's Mum
"So do you think Mum would have got into heaven?"
"Yeah I'm sure she would have done"
"I hope so" Hannah said "Do you miss Mum?"
"Of course, I miss your Mum" Rachel said "I know we used to fight all the time, but I loved her very much still"
Hannah didn't say anything else, but Rachel put her arm around her
Gaby had been with all her friends for about an hour now and they were all having a really good time. They were eating pizza and watching love island.
"Should we start drinking?" Molly said
They were all a bit nervous, as they knew how much trouble they'd get into if they were caught, and none of them had really drank before
"I stole some of Mum's wine, we could try that" Gaby said, getting it out of the bag
Samantha opened the bottle and poured it into 4 glasses
Gaby sipped some and pulled a face "It's disgusting"
After just a couple of glasses of wine the girls started to feel weird, they weren't used to alcohol at all, so it didn't take much to make them feel tipsy
Before long they'd finished off Rachel's bottle of wine and had moved onto some Malibu
Gaby was feeling pretty drunk by now, as were the rest of the girls, they continued to drink more and more though
After about half an hour Gaby started to feel really unwell and had to rush to the toilet to be sick
After she'd been sick she started to feel quite a bit better so continued to drink some more.
It didn't take much longer before the girls were in a complete state
They started jumping on the bed and being really loud, so Samantha's Mum had to come up, as they'd all woken up Samantha's little sister
She knocked on the door before coming in
"Girls can you keep it down, Lily's just woken up"
As soon as she came in she could tell something was wrong, she stared around the room and noticed all the empty bottle. She gasped, she couldn't believe the girls had been drinking and she hadn't even noticed
"You've been drinking" she said sounding really angry "You're 12 years old"
"Sorry Mum" Samantha slurred
"How much have you all had?"
"Bottle of wine and a bottle of Malibu"
"I don't feel well" Gaby said clutching her stomach and then running to the toilet again to be sick
Samantha's Mum sighed, realising now she was going to have to have an awkward conversation with all of the girl's parents, including the head of her daughter's school
She decided to ring Rachel first to get it out the way
Rachel was surprised when she saw Sam's Mum calling her, but answered the phone straight away
"Hi, is everything okay?"
"Not really, there's been a bit of an incident"
"What sort of incident? Is Gaby okay" she asked sounding worried
"The girls have been drinking, all entirely behind my back I can assure you, but they've had quite a bit and Gaby's in a bit of a state"
Rachel couldn't believe Gaby would do this "I'll come and get her straight away, I'm really sorry about all of this"
"Thank you so much"
Rachel then put down the phone, she felt absolutely livid
She'd put Hannah to bed and didn't really want to wake her but she didn't really feel comfortable leaving her home alone, especially when Hannah would often wake up in the night and would wonder where she'd gone.
She gently stirred Hannah awake and explained they had to go out
Hannah sleepily got out of bed and followed Rachel downstairs.
The two of them then got in the car
Gaby had ended up passing out on one of the sofas, so Samantha's Mum was really hoping that Rachel would arrive soon as she was quite worried about Gaby
It only took Rachel about 5 minutes to drive round there.
Hannah had gone back to sleep so Rachel left her in the car and rushed outside
She knocked on the door and almost instantly Claire answered
Rachel felt sorry for her, she looked in a state about it all
"Rachel, Gaby's really not feeling well, she's through here"
"She'll be feeling even worse when I get my hands on her" she sighed
"I'm so sorry, I had no idea the girls were drinking" Claire said looking as if she was about to cry
"Hey it's not your fault, kids will be kids, they'll find a way to do it behind out backs" she said
Rachel went through to see Gaby
"Mum what are you doing here?" Gaby slurred
"What do you think I'm doing here" Rachel said icily "Get up"
Rachel had to help Gaby up, she was falling about laughing
"We had such a fun time and now you've come to ruin everything"
"Have you got any idea how much trouble you're in" Rachel said "I'm so disappointed Gaby"
Rachel had to practically carry her into the car as she couldn't walk
Once she'd got her in, she slammed the door behind her and got in the driver's seat
"I think we drank a bit too much" Gaby laughed "But I was funny"
"How the hell did you get alcohol in the first place?"
"Stole it from home"
Rachel just shook her head
"I feel sick" Gaby slurred
"I swear to god Gaby if you're sick in my car you will spend all of the tomorrow morning cleaning it up" Rachel shouted "I'm just so angry with you Gaby, have you got absolutely no common flaming sense, you're 12 years old for Christ's sake"
"Everyone else was drinking"
"I don't give a damn about what everyone else was doing"
Gaby still felt pretty drunk, but hearing her Mum shout at her like this was making her sober up a bit, she started to cry
"And don't for one second think turning the waterworks on is going to fix it, I've never been angrier with you"
Gaby continued to sob the entire way back
When they got home, Rachel carried Hannah inside and put her to bed before going back to the car and helping Gaby out
As Rachel was helping Gaby up the stairs, she suddenly grabbed her stomach and threw up all over the carpet
"Oh bloody hell Gaby" Rachel shouted "Could you not have waited"
When they got upstairs, Gaby rushed to the bathroom to be sick again, Rachel sighed heavily and held her hair back
She then started running the shower
"Put your head under the shower"
Rachel quickly gave Gaby's hair a wash
After she'd been sick, Gaby had started to sober up a bit and was feeling pretty awful about what had happened
She quickly got changed into pyjamas and got into bed
"Right drink all of this water" Rachel instructed, handing her the glass "It'll make you feel better in the morning"
Gaby did as she was told and then turned to face her Mum
"I'm really sorry, we just got carried away"
"It's going to take more than an apology I'm afraid, I just can't believe you'd be stupid enough to drink at your age, I expect so much more from you Gaby"
Gaby continued to sob, and Rachel couldn't help but feel a bit bad for her
"Come on, go to sleep, we'll talk more in the morning"
"Do you hate me?"
"Of course, I don't hate you" Rachel sighed "I'm just really disappointed"
Rachel stayed with Gaby until she fell asleep and then got ready for bed.
Both Gaby and Rachel woke up early the next morning
Memories of last night came flooding back to Gaby and she instantly started to cry, she couldn't believe how bad they'd got and hated to think about how mad her Mum was going to be today
As soon as Rachel had been in the shower, she got dressed and went into Gaby's room
When she went in she could tell Gaby was awake, although she quickly closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep
"I know you're awake so you can stop pretending"
Reluctantly Gaby opened her eyes
"Get up and come downstairs, you've got 5 minutes"
Rachel then left and Gaby slowly got up, she was dreading what her Mum was going to say to her
She went downstairs and into the living room where Rachel was waiting
"How are you feeling?"
"Like crap, although you're probably happy about that"
"Well you deserve a headache after last night" Rachel said "Have you got any idea how stupid it was"
"Mum I'm sorry, I don't know what else to say" Gaby cried
"Why did you do it?"
"I don't know, Molly's sister was going to get something for all of us, but then we all brought something, we didn't know it was enough to get drunk"
Rachel sighed, at their age they had no idea what they were drinking and believed Gaby when she said she wasn't trying to get drunk
"It's just so stupid Gaby, you're far too young for all of this. It's so dangerous at your age" she said "You do realise why I'm so angry don't you?"
"Yes" Gaby cried "I'll neer do it again I promise, I honestly am sorry"
Rachel could tell Gaby did feel awful about it and didn't think it was fair to keep going on
"Right well, you're grounded for 2 weeks and I want your phone and ipad, you can use your laptop for school work and nothing else, are we clear?"
Gaby nodded
"Can I go now?"
"Do you not want some breakfast"
"Maybe some toast"
"Okay I'll do breakfast, you make us a coffee deal?"
"Yeah okay"
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