Tiny forget-me-nots dotted the walls. Flowery wallpaper was unfashionable, but I had chosen it because the pattern had reminded me of the curtains I had in my bedroom when I was growing up, which my mother had let me choose. If the baby turned out to be a girl, maybe I would keep this wallpaper after all, I thought. I enjoyed thinking ahead, to the baby coming home, as though I could skip the bad bit in between.
‘She’s asleep finally,’ I sighed heavily.
‘You know, I catch her writing her diary when I go up to bed.’
‘I am so sick of telling her off about that. I keep telling her she has loads of time before lights out to write in it.’ I was too tired to be cross about another of Rosie’s infractions.
‘She settles down after I’ve been in.’
‘I wish I could read it.’
‘I’ve tried to.’
‘Mum! You haven’t!’
Mum looked shamefaced. ‘That bloody code. But look at this.’ She brought Rosie’s school literacy exercise book out of her side table.
‘Why have you got this?’
‘I wanted to have a read of her compositions.’ She leafed through to the last page. ‘Here, this is the one she wrote this afternoon.’
I took the exercise book and deciphered Rosie’s scrawling handwriting.
* * *
MY FABLE by Rosie Bradley
The Deer in the Snow-globe.
Once there was a little girl called Serena who had a wonderful collection of pretty snow-globes that she kept by her bed. She stared at them when she went to sleep. Her favourite snow-globe was really pretty. It had snowy mountains inside. The little girl with plaits was skidding down the mountains on her sled and there was a tiny, cute deer with white spots on his back. Serena would dream about turning into the little girl on the sled because in real life she really enjoyed whizzing down on sleds with the snow spitting in her face. It was the best in the world. One night, the snow-globe suddenly lit-up and shone brightly into Serena’s sparkly blue eyes. Amazingly, the tiny deer began to talk! He said, ‘Hello Serena. I’m called Brambles. If you tell your mummy a lie, I’ll let you ride on the sled down these mountains.’ He was a very naughty deer but Serena really wanted to go on the sled. The next day, Serena told her mummy that she had cleaned her teeth but she really had not cleaned her teeth. She even wet the toothbrush to pretend. Her mother believed her! At night, Serena stared at the pretty snow-globe. Then Brambles said, ‘Hello Serena. You can go on the sled now.’ Then Brambles tapped his hoof twice and Serena was suddenly inside the snow-globe. The snow was not cold. It was soft. She went on the sled hundreds of times until she was really tired. ‘Can I go home now?’ Serena said. ‘No, you can’t ever go home,’ Brambles said. ‘But why?’ Serena said. ‘You lied so now you have to live here for the rest of your life,’ Brambles said.
Serena banged on the inside of the globe. She was trapped forever. She could see her humungous, cosy bed from the tiny mountain. She cried a lot because she was really sad and missed her mummy. She wished she had never told her mummy a lie.
The End.
Goosebumps had run across my skin as I had read it. It had transported me into her sweet, innocent mind.
‘No wonder she didn’t want me to read it.’
‘But she wanted me to read it.’ My mother put her hand on her chest melodramatically.
‘Do you think it’s a cry for help?’
‘I think it’s an opening for me to talk to her.’
‘Yes,’ I said, rereading the end. ‘It’s a bit like a confession.’
‘A rather charming one, don’t you think?’
‘A little derivative...’ I replied, churlishly, unable to admit to the delight I had felt while reading it. The image of the cell walls shot up around me again, the doubt on the faces of DC Miles in the interview room came back to me in glorious, puppet-like horror. I was not quite ready to eulogise about Rosie’s talents with my mother yet.
‘You can’t say that. You’re supposed to be hopelessly biased,’ Mum chided, snatching the textbook. She placed her glasses on to read it. ‘Some of my students don’t have as much imagination.’
‘Anyway, let’s hope it provides a good segue.’
‘I’ll try tomorrow over homework. I’ll send Noah off somewhere.’
‘Peter went into the station to give his statement yesterday.’
‘Yes, he told me.’
‘They even called Vics the other day.’
She smoothed her hands across the velvet eiderdown. ‘I’m sure Vics had a glowing report for them.’
I imagined how easily the police created doubt, even in my own mind about my own actions.
‘They’ll be talking to the school at some point too.’
‘The whole thing is simply ghastly,’ she cried, ripping off her glasses and slamming the textbook closed, as if the school’s involvement was the final straw. ‘I’m at the gates with those women and I’m telling you, they get hysterical about a missing sock after PE, just imagine, imagine, what they’ll be like if they get wind of this, and if it does get out, if it hasn’t already, mind, you know who’ll be affected most?’
‘Rosie.’
‘She needs to understand how serious this could become.’
‘Don’t go in heavy-handed with her tomorrow, Mum.’
She shook her head and looked to the ceiling. ‘No, no, I won’t, don’t worry.’
‘It’ll be counterproductive,’ I insisted.
‘I’ll be the model of diplomacy.’
I bit my lip, knowing that diplomacy and my mother were not best friends.
She picked up her book and reached over and kissed my cheek. ‘You can sleep here if you like but I will be reading for a while so I’ll be keeping the light on.’
I dragged my weary body off her bed and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Night, Mum. Thanks.’
‘And tell that madam to put that diary away.’
‘I’m sure she’s asleep now. It’s almost eleven.’
Before brushing my teeth and washing my face for bed, I stopped to listen at Rosie’s bedroom door. I could tell from a rustle of her duvet and a self-conscious cough that she was awake.
I stormed into her room and ripped back the duvet, suddenly livid.
‘Right, enough is enough. It’s time to put that away. And if I catch you with it after lights out again, I’ll confiscate it.’
I was sick of her bad behaviour, I was sick of being messed around. Peter and I had been pussyfooting around her like a pair of timid mice. Mum was right. It was time she faced the reality of what she’d done.
‘No,’ Rosie cried, closing it and lying on top of it.
‘Give it to me, now.’
‘No. It’s mine.’
‘I’m telling you, give it to me, NOW.’
‘I’ll tell Granny Helen that you’re shouting at me again.’
‘Granny Helen thinks you should go to sleep!’ I bellowed, furious at the suggestion that she and my mother had complained about me behind my back.
‘La, la, la, la!’ she sang.
‘I won’t tell you again, Rosie. Give it to me.’
‘LA, LA, LA, LA!’ she sang, putting her hands over her ears.
‘I WON’T TELL YOU AGAIN.’ The rage was uncontrollable, it had taken over me. I was at its mercy, cowering in the background as it tunnelled through me. I lunged at her, and pushed her body away from her diary, trying to roll her over. I was going to get that diary if it was the last thing I did. Rosie pushed me away, slapping at the top of my head, screaming at me wildly. And then she bit my arm. I yelped and shoved her off the diary, and she threw her arms in the air and span dramatically over towards the wall, which the back of her skull thudded against.
Her scream was ear-splitting. My hands shook in shock, my blood coursed with terror.
My mother was at my side, ‘What the hell is going on in here?’ Her face was contorted as she bent down to Rosie. ‘Are you okay, darling?’ Rosie crawled into her grandmother’s arms.
‘Mummy pushed me! It hurts so much!’ she wailed, cradling the back of her head with one arm, clutching her locked-again diary in the other, crying in distress.
Peter appeared behind me. I wasn’t sure how long he had been there or what he had witnessed in that half-lit room.
He murmured, ‘What did you do?’