Chapter 1

Faye Perkins is a quiet girl. She’s not one to get into trouble and she nearly always has her homework done on time, albeit it isn’t the highest quality. She tries her best though, so I was slightly surprised when I had to call her to my office to ask where her essay was, two days overdue.

“I’m sorry Sir,” she stood in front of my desk, head down.

“What went wrong?” I asked gently.

“My laptop ... broke,” she mumbled.

“Broke?”

“I dropped it.”

“Oh dear, where was that?” I smiled sympathetically.

“On the way home.”

“Out of your bag?” She carries a big shoulder bag that things can’t easily fall out of.

She stood, not meeting my gaze, not saying anything.

I sighed. Faye had been bullied. It’s one of those things. She’s a good five foot five, not lightly built, and there’s nothing wrong with her looks - she’s not pretty enough to make other girls jealous and there are no blemishes for kids to pick on. It’s just that she’s not very clever, and she is very meek.

She has no status. And her few friends haven’t got much either. It’s enough to make her a target. Someone had broken her laptop, and she didn’t dare tell on them.

“Have you still got it?”

“Yes,” she murmured, “at home.”

“Alright bring it to me and I’ll see what I can do. Have you got some of the essay done?”

She nodded.

“Is it on your Google Drive?”

She nodded again.

“Alright I know it’s hard to concentrate in the computer lab. Just login and send it to me and I’ll give you a provisional mark to be going on with. Don’t worry what it’s like now, you can finish it when you’ve got a laptop again.”

“Thank you,” she smiled gratefully at me and left.

The next day she brought in her laptop. It had a broken screen, from being stamped on by the look of it. Whoever had done that, it was especially mean: her parents don’t appear to care too much about her, and I don’t think they have much money. What little they have goes on her brother, I suspect, who’s at the school in Year 12 but doesn’t seem to spend any time with her. This cheap laptop probably wouldn’t get replaced.

I went and showed it to the IT tech. He’s a nice guy, and quiet himself. He helped me search for a replacement screen on eBay, and offered to fit it when it came.

Faye faded into her usual obscurity for the rest of the week, apart from one class of mine where a girl who I know can be a bit of a bully sat next to her, rather deliberately, and immediately took her pen. I retrieved the pen and moved the bully to another desk, and then moved the boy sitting behind when he flicked something into Faye’s hair.

At the end of the class I kept the two bullies behind and gave them a talking to. I told them that bullies don’t like themselves and have feelings of inadequacy, and research has shown they’re as unhappy as their victims. It’s lose/lose and they don’t realise how devastating it can be for their victims. I said being it was being nice to people that makes you feel better about yourself; they should try it. They seemed suitably abashed, though how long that would last I wasn’t too sure.

I had a word with the Head, and reluctantly she gave me permission to address the school in Assembly, on the subject of bullying. She’s inclined to rely on the fact that there is an anti-bullying policy, rather than face the problem itself with its risk of denial and confrontation.

So on the Thursday I held court to the school about how it’s a weakness on the part of the bullies, how badly it affects the victims, and how wrong it is for other kids to do nothing or even watch and start to join in. It was hard to tell if I was having any effect, but at least they listened.

I’d done something, anyway, and that’s always better than doing nothing. At thirty, and being a Lead Practitioner, I suppose I was beginning to feel more confident about such performances.

On the Friday morning the new laptop screen came and I took it to the IT tech to fit it. I told Faye to wait and come to my office for it after classes.

“Thank you,” she stood in front of my desk, gazing at me for a moment or two. She looked down at her feet. “You’re so kind to me,” she mumbled. “How much was it?”

“Only a few pounds, don’t worry about that,” I said. “It’s no more than you deserve.” It wasn’t quite an appropriate thing to say, but then I registered that the reason I’d said it was that she really seemed to feel she did not deserve it.

She lifted her head part-way and was gazing at me again.

Faye isn’t especially pretty, as I said. She’s not plain either though. It’s a face you could call ‘okay’. Brown eyes, brown hair, and no standout features one way or the other. It looks dull because generally there’s not much expression in it, as though she doesn’t interact with people that much and her life is just something she has to get through.

Her clothes tend not to coordinate or fit very well, being cheap or even second-hand, and she’s broad-shouldered for her height. Broadish in the hip these days as well. She’s not a standard fit, and it shows. Clearly nobody’s given her any help with it.

What did she look like underneath?

She was still gazing at me as the words “take off your jacket” slipped out of my mouth. Christ! I was about to add “if you’re a bit too warm”, in horror, when she just put her bag down and began to ease her jacket off. It looked like a small man’s, with no space for her tits.

I watched as the fifteen-year-old held it in her hands, waiting to be told what to do with it. She wasn’t worried about being told to take it off, just about what I wanted next.

“On the chair,” I smiled towards the visitor’s wooden chair.

She draped the jacket over the back, and turned round waiting for her next instruction. As I’d slightly suspected the jacket had been hiding her waist, which wasn’t especially small but was a contrast to her shoulders and hips. She had shape. I’d bet at some point kids had said something about it, so she’d hidden it.

The blouse was tight across her shoulders, so it didn’t hang properly. Her brown skirt looked badly cut and made for a taller, older woman, and fell past her knees. Below it were those thick black tights that I can’t stand. I have fantasies about one day being Head Teacher and banning them. With the flat black shoes they finished off the frumpy look.