As soon as Lorna had received her windfalls though, and the initial excitement had worn off, she seemed dissatisfied and withdrawn. An older girl, out of the kindness of her heart, had given Lorna a clear sandwich bag to keep the cast-off treasures in, and Claire saw her picking through it.
‘Don’t you think you should put these in your school bag, Lorna?’ Claire had asked her. ‘Just so you don’t lose them?’ And the girl had turned, smiling, and silently offered her an eraser – a high-kicking girl detective, smelling of lavender. ‘Oh, I couldn’t take one of your lovely rubbers. No, you keep them nice and safe. But thank you!’ Claire hustled her towards her classroom, and, at the door, felt a small, sticky hand worming into her own. There was the eraser, planted firmly in her palm. Lorna ran, laughing, into her class, collided with the teacher and was firmly told off.
Poor little mite, thought Claire. Poor little love.
Then, that day, the day of the slap, Lorna had come in with her own erasers, brand new in their packaging and still with the barcode on the back. Halloween themed. She was the first in her class to own any that week, one of the first in the whole school, and girls from all years made a special pilgrimage to the infants’ side of the school yard to seek her out and take a look: four limited-edition, double-sized character erasers! The crowd was so impressed that they were even willing to overlook the fact that Lorna drew them out of her coat pockets, and not from the sandwich bag she’d been given. They were passed from hand to hand, gingerly sniffed and reverently stroked.
‘Only came out yesterday,’ whispered a Year Two girl.
‘I’m getting some tomorrow,’ claimed her companion.
‘She’s got them now though.’
And there wasn’t much to say to that. Claire, dealing with a fracas and a cut knee by the sandbox, caught sight of Lorna, the centre of such jealousy and admiration, so pinkly excited. She sat cross-legged and bounced her bruised knees, fizzing with happiness. The erasers were passed slowly back.
A girl sighed, ‘I’d do anything for them. But my dad says to save up.’ There was a murmur of sad understanding.
‘My mum says it’s stupid,’ said another girl. ‘Where’d you get them, Lorna?’
‘Town.’
‘Yeah, but where? ’Cause Tesco doesn’t have them in till the first Monday of the month.’
Lorna smiled evasively. ‘Do you like them?’
‘Course.’
And the crowd gasped as one as Lorna’s chewed fingers dug into the biggest eraser, a kung-fu kitten, dressed as a witch and smelling of spice. She gouged it into smaller, crumbling pieces. ‘Here, you can all have a bit.’
‘LOOORRRRNNNNAA!’ wailed the Year Two girl. ‘MISS! Lorna’s BREAKING THEM!’ Her voice quivered with hysteria. The girls rose up as a group, backing away, as if from some horrible accident. Claire, still with her group of surly boys, hesitated. Someone needed to go over there, soon, and find out what exactly was going on. Where were the playground assistants?
‘No, look, now you can all have a bit, look.’ Lorna held out one grubby hand filled with fragranced rubble. ‘Now we can all share.’
‘MISS!’ bellowed the girl again.
And Lorna’s expression hovered between happiness and pain. She tried to shove some of the broken pieces at a classmate who moved aside, quickly, as if something nasty had touched her. Lorna stood up. A passing boy laughed at her and shoved her back down onto the cold tarmac. Now she began to cry.
Finally, Miss Parry, on playground duty, muscled her way over, managed to glean some sense from the excited shouts of the girls, and plucked Lorna up from the ground with one meaty hand, leaving a little pile of fragranced rubber in her place. A couple of girls furtively pocketed some pieces once her back was turned.
Lorna had stolen the erasers. Of course she had. She’d taken them from an older girl’s bag, a girl known for her bad temper and irritable, indulgent parents. Word spread through the school that Carl’s sister – you remember Carl? He kicked the caretaker in the balls that time and had to leave – had stolen from a big girl. And who knew what else she’d been stealing?
Claire, on her way to class, passed the little girl sitting on the bench outside James’ office, miserable and shell-shocked. Children crowded round the nearby window for a glimpse of her. She kept her head down, furiously wiping away tears with a grubby fist. Claire hesitated, and then went towards the window, and, wearing a grim face, waved the children away. They scattered like birds.
‘Are you waiting for Mr Clarke, Lorna?’ Claire stayed in the corner by the window, to shield the girl from view should anyone try to peer at her again.
‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’ She knew what had happened. She just wanted to see if Lorna understood what she’d done wrong.
‘Took Cara Parker’s erasers.’
‘Why?’ The girl shrugged helplessly and said nothing. ‘Why, Lorna?’
‘Wanted to.’
‘Yes, but why? Surely you must know that that’s wrong? That you’d get caught?’
‘I . . .’ Lorna’s face collapsed. She began to sob. ‘I wanted to hold them, that’s all. And then people saw, and it felt like they were mine, and then I wanted to share them so everyone would be happy.’
‘Oh, Lorna—’
‘Sharing’s good.’
‘Sharing is good. But you have to share your own things, not other people’s.’
Lorna shrank into the seat. She still had dirt and dints on her knees from sitting, so proudly, on the tarmac of the playground only a few minutes before. Claire cast a look at the window, but there was no-one there now to witness the girl’s humiliation: the bell for the end of lunchtime had rung. Small mercies, she thought; but it’ll take a long time for people to forget this one. ‘Lorna, now, come on.’ Claire knelt down and raised the child’s head with her gentle fingers. ‘Now, you did something a bit silly, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Explain to Mr Clarke that you got a little bit muddled in your head and you didn’t mean to take them.’
‘They’ll all hate me now.’
‘Oh, no!’