Dead petals, p.8
Dead Petals, page 8
Gary closed his eyes and nodded. Now he understood. “And that’s when you stepped in?”
“I don’t know how I did it,” Charley said. “There were loads of kids watching but no one was going to help her. I was scared, but I couldn’t just stand there and let Tammy get bullied. I grabbed Lauren’s wrist and told her to leave her alone.”
“Brave,” Gary said, and Charley half-shrugged.
“Lauren turned on me then. She asked if I was Tammy’s girlfriend or something. I said I was just her friend, and didn’t she have enough to deal with without this? Lauren said, ‘What do you care?’ and then she said...” Charley paused and glanced shyly up at her father.
“What?” Gary asked, thinking maybe she was going to have to repeat a swear word.
“Then she said, ‘I hear your dad’s nothing but a dirty paedo.’”
Gary’s back stiffened at such a vile term coming from his daughter’s lips. It felt like they’d just crossed a line. “What did you say to that?” he asked.
Charley’s gaze fell to her lap. “Nothing,” she mumbled.
Gary couldn’t help but feel a sweep of disappointment that she hadn’t defended him, until she followed it up with a seething, “I just smacked her right in the nose.”
Gary almost laughed at the way she said it, but Fiona gave him a sharp don’t-you-dare glare. He covered his mouth to hide his smile.
“Her nose started bleeding, but I didn’t care. I grabbed her and made her take back what she’d said about you. I made her say it was a lie. Then Mrs Williams came and broke it up and took us to see Mrs Brennan.”
Gary sighed, wondering if he should play the straight father role here. With Fiona watching, he guessed he should. “I can understand why you hit her, Charley...”
Fiona angled her head and widened her eyes at him.
“...but...you can’t go around punching people just because they say something you don’t like.”
“I don’t,” Charley sulked. “But I knew I had to do something this time.”
“Why?”
“‘cause with girls like Lauren, you have to show them. They need to see that they can’t push you around. If I hadn’t punched her, she would have thought I was an easy target. Every time she saw me after that she’d start on me.”
“That might be true of some people,” Gary accepted. “But you could also just as easily have been making it worse for yourself.”
Charley shook her head. “No, ‘cause when I grabbed her wrist, she looked at me, and I saw in her eyes she was scared. She’s bigger than me, and most kids are scared of her, but when I saw that look in her eyes, I knew her reputation was bigger than she was.”
Gary glanced at Fiona, both surprised and impressed at Charley’s insight. Fiona looked back at him with an expression that said, I know, right?
“So I showed her,” Charley said. “But not only that...” Her eyes turned up to her father again. “...I had to make her take back what she said about you, ‘cause Tammy’s right. Things like that can end up sticking even when they aren’t true, like it did for Celia in junior school.”
Gary took in a deep breath and let it out.
Charley looked earnestly up at him. “Are you disappointed in me?”
Gary looked back at her, seeing, for the first time, how her face had lost much of the puppy fat she’d been carrying. She seemed older somehow; wiser too. Lance was right. A tiny piece of her growing up had slipped by without him noticing.
“I’m not disappointed at all,” he told her.
“Really? You were mad when you came in.”
“I was, but I’ve had a bad day and I went off at the deep end. I should have known you’d have had reasons to do what you did. I’m not saying punching her was the right thing to do, but at least you were defending someone else when it happened. How could I be disappointed in that?”
“Yeah, but...”
“No buts,” Gary said. He sat on the bed and brushed the hair back off her face. “Tell me, is there anyone in your class who’s a bit scruffy? Someone who’s a bit of a loner and doesn’t have many friends?”
“Tammy’s quiet,” Charley said. “But I guess Danny Linford is a bit scruffy too. He’s always late for school and has holes in his shoes.”
“Well that kid, Danny Linford? That was me when I was your age.”
She gaped at him.
“Yep. My parents didn’t have much money and we moved around a lot, so I was always the new kid. I was bullied for it. And I’ll tell you something...”
He waited for her to ask, “What?”
“I wish I’d had someone like you to stick up for me then.”
She smiled, and he felt her relax.
“I think what you did was brave. It takes something to stand up to a bully. I didn’t have it.”
“I just did it,” she admitted. “I didn’t really think about it, or the trouble I might get into. Am I going to get expelled?”
“I don’t think so, honey,” Fiona said.
“Nah,” Gary said. “You’ve never been in trouble before, and you were sticking up for someone else. If anyone’s in trouble, it’ll be that Lauren-the horrible bitch-Chapman.”
Charley burst out a laugh.
That assessment felt right to Gary, but he had yet to meet Mrs two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right Brennan.
Gary dropped onto the sofa and scrubbed his face with his hands. It had been a long, long day.
“So?” Fiona asked.
“Huh?”
“What do you think?”
“She did her best. Punching the girl out might not have been the greatest idea, but I guess you had to be there.”
“I’m glad you didn’t tell her it was okay to punch someone - even though I saw that smug look on your face?”
“What do you take me for, Fee?” Gary said.
“A hothead.”
Gary smiled. “She’s so smart. Smarter than I was at her age.”
“She’s smarter than you are now,” Fiona teased.
Gary gave an amused little huff but didn’t come back at her as he usually would.
Fiona eyed him carefully. “Don’t worry. We’ll work this out with the school.”
“Yeah, I’m sure we will,” he sighed.
Fiona sat down, nudged him and leaned closer. “Horse walks into a bar... bartender asks, why the long face?”
Gary smiled and glanced her way. She could see right through him.
“I had a run-in with Ed at the office today.”
“With Ed? About what?”
“He wants to oust Michelle from the business.”
Fiona looked incredulous. “What? Why?”
“He says young women are bad business partners because of family and babies and all that.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Unfortunately, no. We had a bit of a bust-up.”
Fiona stood. “Why the arrogant, misogynistic...I was never that keen on him, you know.”
Gary rolled his eyes. Fiona had a habit of taking things like this on a personal level.
“I can’t believe anyone even thinks like that these days.”
“It’ll probably fizzle out when she comes back, but something he said made me a bit wary. I called Sam and he’s going to look over the partnership agreement for me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing, but I need to know where we stand legally. It turned a bit ugly with Ed and I just need to know where I stand if we can’t salvage it.”
“That serious? You think it could break up the partnership?”
“It got a bit heated, but I hope not. He shocked me though. Those kinds of prehistoric views just don’t fit in with my vision of the company and its future.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe he’s not shown this side of himself before.”
“You’ll work something out,” Fiona said encouragingly. “You always do.”
“Yeah,” Gary said, but he wasn’t sure he could.
He thought about his conversation with Trixie and wondered if she really did have a nose for these things. Everything had been going so well, then Michelle, Ed, now this thing with Charley. Their usually-calm waters were really churning.
Chapter Eight
Sam called Gary the next day, shortly before he left for the school meeting, and told him the partnership agreement was tight, but that he suspected Ed was talking more ‘shenanigans’ rather than ‘above board’ actions against Michelle.
Gary asked if they had any leverage against Ed if he was to start up with any of those shenanigans. Sam told him that under the ‘expulsion’ clause, it said a partner could be expelled by the other partners if they were guilty of any conduct that may negatively impact the business. It was thin, but if they could couple it with some other contractual breach, they might have something. Gary hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but at least he was a little better prepared.
He met Fiona in the school carpark and they went in together, waiting for five minutes outside the office until Mrs Brennan was ready to see them. Gary felt like one of the kids in the film ‘Kes’, waiting to receive the strap.
Mrs Brennan, a silver-haired woman in her early sixties, came out of her office and invited them in. Gary and Fiona took seats in front of an untidy desk full of papers and folders.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” Mrs Brennan said as she closed the door. “Always a school emergency happening somewhere.” She sat down on the other side of the desk and dragged over a folder. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
“Not a problem,” Gary said, eager to get on with it.
Mrs Brennan opened the folder but didn’t look at the contents. “Charlotte was involved in rather a serious incident with another girl yesterday,” she began.
“Yes,” Gary replied. “That’s why we’re here.”
Mrs Brennan offered a pencil-thin smile. “Then I’m sure Charlotte has already given you her version of events?”
“She told us what happened, yes,” Gary said.
“That she struck another student in the face?”
“Yes, and about the bullying that led up to that happening.”
Mrs Brennan blinked like an owl at him through her thick spectacles. “May I ask for your stance on what took place, based on Charlotte’s version of events?”
“My stance? We’re taking stances?” This woman’s steely, humourless demeanour was starting to irritate him. “And I’m not quite sure what you mean by Charley’s version of events?”
“Mrs Brennan,” Fiona quickly cut in. “We accept that Charley could perhaps have handled the incident in a more...mature way, but she was only acting in defence of another pupil who was being bullied.”
Unmoved, Mrs Brennan turned a sheet of paper in the folder. “You are aware of the school’s policy on violent behaviour.”
“Indeed, we are,” Fiona replied. “And we’ve always tried to firmly impress onto Charlotte that hitting people is not acceptable.”
Mrs Brennan looked up from the folder and offered them another thin smile. Gary wondered if that was as much as she could manage. “Not firmly enough, it would appear.”
Gary stiffened and leaned forward, but Fiona patted his knee and spoke quickly again. “But it’s so unlike Charlotte to do anything like this,” she said. “And we know she’s sorry.”
“Really? When I asked Charlotte to apologise for what she did, she refused.”
“She did?” Fiona said, and glanced at Gary. “We didn’t know that.”
Gary didn’t glance back, his eyes on the head teacher. “And I hope you asked the other girl to apologise?”
“The other girl was the victim, Mr Wright.”
“The victim? Just wait a minute...”
But Mrs Brennan didn’t wait. “Mr and Mrs Wright, the school does not tolerate violence among students under any circumstances. I’m afraid Charlotte’s behaviour was completely unacceptable. The school has no choice but to exclude her for two days.”
“What?” Gary said.
“Mrs Brennan,” Fiona said. “I’m assuming you have listened to the stories from both girls and any witnesses?”
“I have.”
“Then you must know that Charley, Charlotte, was only trying to help another student who was being bullied.”
“Yes,” Mrs Brennan replied. “That’s the only reason Charlotte’s exclusion has been limited to two days.”
“This is ridiculous…” Gary started.
“Gary, let me...” Fiona tried to cut in.
“No, hold on, Fee. Let me get this straight; it’s the policy of this school to punish a child who was trying to help another child who was being bullied?”
“No, Mr Wright, it’s the policy of this school to punish children who behave violently.”
Gary’s face tightened. “Our daughter is not violent,” he said through gritted teeth.
Mrs Brennan turned up the corners of her thin lips. “Mr Wright, the other girl’s nose was bleeding profusely. The bridge of her nose was bruised and swollen. She was lucky not to have received a more serious injury.”
“Well let’s not talk about what she’s lucky not to have had. Let’s just deal with what actually happened.”
“It’s my understanding, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, that Charlotte struck the other girl, not in defence of her friend, but in retaliation for a rather unsavoury remark that was made about you.”
It was Gary’s turn to blink a couple of times. He sat back in his seat. “Mrs Brennan, you are a piece of work.”
“Excuse me?”
“Is it so difficult to understand that if we just backtrack a little, we can see that the whole thing wouldn’t have happened in the first place if the other girl hadn’t been bullying?”
“I agree, Mr Wright, and it’s at that point that Charlotte should have reported what was happening to a member of staff, instead of escalating the situation.”
“Escalating the situation? Are you for real? So now you’re saying that it was Charley’s fault?”
“Not the initial encounter, certainly, but Charlotte went on to turn a simple argument into a physical assault. Whatever the circumstances, I’m afraid two wrongs don’t ever make a right.”
Gary stood up. “I’ve heard enough. If you’re only going to focus on what Charley did and twist all this around so that it was her fault, then you’re an idiot, and I don’t have time for idiots.”
“Excuse me-”
“No, I don’t think I will. Charley got herself involved in a situation. She could have stood by like all the other little shits and watch someone get bullied, but she didn’t. She put herself in harm’s way for someone else. You don’t punish that. I’m not saying you should pat her on the back and congratulate her, but I certainly don’t expect her to be punished for it either.”
Mrs Brennan closed the folder. “The decision has been made, Mr Wright. The school can’t be seen to be favouring pupils and ignoring bad behaviour.”
Gary nodded. “Except for Lauren Chapman, it seems. You said Charley hit the other girl in retaliation for what she said about me, but you’re wrong. Charley hit her so that everyone knows she isn’t a target. She hit her so that Lauren Chapman, and her like, knows that she can’t fuck with Charley Wright.”
Fiona stood up. “Gary! Mrs Brennan, I’m so sorry.”
Mrs Brennan gripped the arms of her chair, her face white with indignity. “Well, I can see now where-“
“Don’t even start with that,” Gary warned. “People get pushed into angry situations like this because of the frustrations of dealing with small-minded people like you. And then everything gets twisted around so that this conversation doesn’t get remembered for your officious injustice, no, it’ll be remembered because I said ‘fuck’ in front of the head teacher.”
“Gary, stop,” Fiona said.
“But it’s okay. You hand out your pathetic little two-day exclusion. I’m sure Charley will enjoy the time off and find something useful to do with it. And don’t worry; we’ll continue to tell Charley that we shouldn’t settle arguments with our fists, even though we all know—even you, Mrs Brennan—that sometimes we do.”
Mrs Brennan sat rigid, red spots of colour rising in her cheeks. “Have you quite finished, Mr Wright?”
Gary ran his thumbs under the lapels of his jacket. “You know what? I think I have. Except for one more thing. If Lauren Chapman bothers my daughter again, under any circumstances, there will be legal repercussions.”
“Is that a threat, Mr Wright?”
“No, Mrs Brennan, that’s a promise. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do. Good-day.”
Fiona chased Gary all the way back to the carpark. He waited by his car for her to catch up. When she arrived, she stood there, hands on her hips, and stared at him.
“What?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.
“What?” She tried to find words, then threw her arms up in despair and looked away from him, shaking her head.
Gary took a deep breath and waited. He hadn’t dealt with the head teacher in the way Fiona might have, but then again, he wasn’t exactly known for his diplomacy in the face of fools.
Then she looked at him from the corner of her eye, her mouth rising reluctantly into that crooked little smile.
Gary was relieved to see it. “One of us had to say it, Fee,” he said. “And I knew it wouldn’t be you.”
Fiona slapped his shoulder. “Stop trying to justify yourself.”
“Oh, come on, Fee. She deserved it.”
Fiona sighed. “I know she did. She was a bitch. But Gary, did you really have to say fuck?”
Gary grinned. “No, I didn’t, but I knew it would rattle her cage.”
Fiona sighed again and shook her head. She looked at her watch. “I need to get back.”
“Me too.”
