Chapter 17: Atrium

It’s surely a general rule of thumb that, with a long enough fence around a big enough site, there’s bound to be a secret way through the fence at some point. Foxes dig under, badgers dig deeper. Dog-walkers who hate to be excluded fish a heavy pair of pliers, remembered following a previous frustration, from a hidden back pocket. Or a young kid, egged on by some sneering elder sibling or a nearly-friend who makes out that they’ve done it all before, will work their way in through some part-repaired old rust trap that’s far too small for a grown-up intruder. And once the kid forces that hole wider, later kids will pull it and push it with the energy of youth until it gives. Then chicken wire gets twisted and stretched out of shape, mashed down by pressing feet, wangled wider still by the over-sized lump at the back of the group. If it’s somewhere important to a few feisty kids, and the place plays host to some overgrown bushes, you can bet there’ll be a kids’ way in. And the more important that place is to those kids, the more likely it is that they’ll have made it.

This one is right around the back of the school, where there’s both an old wire fence and some spreading, leggy bushes. Though you’ve got to be prepared to use your legs a bit to get there, to risk a few scratches and dare to get your feet wet. For Lendersby, Keet, and Pelling, Farthing, the way includes a tunnel right under the main road. Its floor is a brook with a quiet stream of water. Loose bricks and shallow sand banks line the way, but they don’t preclude the risk of shoes slipping under water.

The entrance is not far from the bus stop, on opposite side of Coalbrook Road, on which the school’s entrance and serving bus stops are. Jump over a sandstone wall opposite the seldom-spotted Headmaster Leezing’s grace-and-favour residence, then there’s a drop. They have to just trust their feet and jump down. Then on through rampant undergrowth - spreading bramble and healthy stinging nettles don’t make compromises for the bare legs of girls in skirts or younger boys in shorts. Though today, Keet and Farthing are both wearing dark leggings - some protection from the furtive stares of random strangers - their skin-hugging cloth provides little protection from bramble thorns and the glassy, needle-thin stingers of nettles. Trying hard to keep them away from her legs, Keet presses a few of them down with her feet.

“Have you done it before, Keet?”

“Not this way. This boy said. From the lads’ school, on the bus once. You can get in by the brook. But there’s no way in from the school side.”

“That big thick hedge, I know.”

They’re now crouching at the entrance to the under-road tunnel. The light at the far end looks just too small it’s scarily distant.

“How deep d’you think it gets?” asks Farthing.

Keet shrugs. “Dunno. Can’t think of another way through though, can you?”

Farthing says, “Climb the big iron fence at the front of the school?”

“Spikes on top,” says Keet. “Come on. Let’s just go in a bit.”

“Can’t see anything,” says Farthing.

“Yeah. But there’s bricks. There.”

Keet gets up from her crouch and, pressing one hand to the outside of the tunnel, she balances down till one foot is on a brick. It’s just there, loose in the silt below the trickling water, left over from the building of the schools - the boys and girls schools - decades before. The most of the girls school has been replaced by concrete prefab. Keet squeezes her shape down.

The tunnel is a long, curved arch, which runs the full width of the road and pavements above. As Keet steps further in, the soundscape changes round her. She steps again, then again, till she’s deeper in the dark.

Farthing feels nervous, but she follows Keet inside. In a few feet, her friends makes a stretch to a sand bank, shifts her weight.

“Is it sucking?” Farthing asks. She’s heard Keet’s feet make wet-plopping sounds.

“Bit. Not bad,” says Keet.

“It’s really, really dark.”

“I know.”

Farthing takes the same steps as her friend. One brick wobbles over - her foot splashes in, then she’s jumping in a rush to the low sand-bank.

“Was it deep?” Keet asks.

“Came above my ankle. Got water in my sock.”

Keet goes on, then when the sand bank seems to stop, she pauses, crouching. Farthing works her way just behind her.

“Can you see any stepping stones?” Farthing asks.

“No. So dark. We should have brought a torch.”

“Didn’t know we’d be going caving, did we?”

In a minute, the older girl says, “Fancy taking your shoes and socks off?”

“Glass,” says Farthing. “Didn’t you see that broken bottle? Like, a bottom bit. It had points sticking up!”

They stay there. Farthing shivers. But two minutes later, she can start to see details. And another minute more, they can both see how to do it. More bricks, here and there. The shallow brook winds from right to left. In spate, the stream would fill the floor, but it hasn’t rained for days. There’s another low sand bank on the other side too. Keet points it out. “If we crouch Farth, it might be wide enough.”

With their eyes adjusted, they step on and in. Keet is still in front, but Farthing takes her own route here and there. She says, “Helloo!” Her voice echoes in the tunnel. Keet Helloos as well. Then they’re laughing and singing as the sounds bounce all around them.

“Think anyone’ll hear?” Farthing asks.

“Don’t know. Don’t think so. Can’t hear anything else but water, can you?”

As the light brightens up at the school end, both sand banks and bricks run out.

“See where it’s shallow there?” Keet says. “Gravelly?”

“Could splash it. My foot’s already soaking. Comes out on the right bank though. That’s the boys’ side.”

“Yeah, but see that path? In the grass? Colim Spunce was right. You can get along the bank there!”

They splash across the just-submerged gravel, then jump up to the boys’ side.

It’s a simple scramble for two hundred yards. There’s the big block of the boys’ school up off to their right, but it’s mostly just a pebble-dash-rendered concrete wall. Kept blank like that so the boys can’t see into the girls’ school grounds. Once the building is behind them, the brook turns to the left. The foot-trodden path meanders upwards, avoiding a concreted outflow drain, then drops to track the brook again. There’s a tall fence above them around the boys school playing fields. They can hear the sound of some sport going on now - a Saturday practice game maybe. Grunts and shouts are coming from up there, but they can’t see any boys from down here.

Above, dark low clouds push past in a growing gloom. It was sunny when they started out this morning, nice and warm, but the sky is starting to get gloomier now. Keet points to where the bank rises high on the other side of the brook, at the back top of the girls school playground.

“Think up there is where those bastards must have got you,” Keet says. “Those janitor wankers.”

“The ones we sent to the hospital?” says Farthing.

Keet giggles. In her mind’s eye, she still sees Farthing’s knickers stuffed in the squealing one’s mouth.

Further on below the boys school playing fields, the path gets to a place where the bank is low and wide. The trampled grass is obvious there, wider, more flattened. Behind that, there’s a tangle of bramble, undisturbed but for a few old sweet wrappers caught up in it.

“They must jump the brook,” says Keet. She means the boys. On the far side of the narrow waterway is more flattened grass.

“Yeah,” agrees Farthing. “Do you think you could make that?”

For an answer, Keet walks to the back of the flat bank away from the brook. She half runs to the edge. Goes back again. Then sprints quickly forward and pounds one foot on the edge of the bank. She reaches the far bank with inches to spare. Then it’s Farthing’s turn. The younger girl is slightly smaller. She takes one, two, three half-runs up.

“You’ve just got to do it,” Keet tells her from the other bank.

Farthing hammers forward, but her jump-off step is too far back and she barely clips the far bank. Keet catches one arm. One of Farthing’s feet has slipped back in the water, which is deeper at that point - she’s gone in up to her knee. Then she’s hauled up and out by a laughing Keet. Farthing shakes her wet leg out. Her jet black leggings are sopping wet now. She laughs as well. Then she’d down on her haunches, shoes off, socks off, mud-stinking brook water dribbling out, socks wrung to dry them as well as she can. She bangs them on a stone for good measure, leaving dripping welts of wet. Then she drags the clammy things back on and squishes on her wet shoes around them.

The boys’ grounds are more distant now, as a second brooklet winds in to join the main one. They track along the Kennigwort Girls School side of the brook. Above is the tall, rusty fence that wraps around their sports field. Just inside it is hedge, planted to stop stray eyes peeping in, though it still has gaps where some plants have dies or others have become straggly. High on top of the fence is razor wire - there’s no way in over that thing. Or out.

Past the end of the sports field, the tributary brook kinks to the left a second time. The brook is winds naturally, unlike the bigger brook they’ve passed, which sometimes looks like it’s been straightened. Here, narrower, it meanders. There are brambles, thick up the bank, and behind that there’s a wedge of a wood. Keet has seen it from inside the school grounds, but when you’re playing sports, with people like Burris Eccar screaming orders at you, there’s no time to explore. And the girls get told that when they’re not playing sports, the field is meant to be out of bounds. But some girls must sneak there. Because up goes the track, in through mounded brambles, between straggly broom bushes and small-leaved others with lethal-looking thorns.

At the top, in the back of the small wood, there’s the fence. Branches of small trees are even growing through it. This segment of fence is older, even rustier. The rough-trodden path bends in to track beside it. On the other side, bushes press in close. There’s no way to see into the wood or beyond.

The path shears away from the fence, back into brambles, some with recently broken growing tips. Then it kinks back towards it. And there, at last, is the kids’ way in and out: a peeled-back line of rusty steel-rod fencing has been twisted back, maybe years ago. Behind it appears to be nothing but bushes, but as the girls get close, they can see a small open space on the other side.

Straggly, dense bushes surround the thing. Keet squeezes through the risty gap, followed by Farthing. There are a few empty bottles, mostly fizzy drinks but a few alcoholic. Used condoms, too: a dozen ancient rubbers, tied to twigs and branches like boasts to the future.

Farthing asks, “Did Colim Spunce tell you about this bit?”

They find the way out after poking around. It’s a crawl-way, leaf-deep. Farthing drops down onto hands and knees to scramble through. She pushes a dead, gnarled branch out of the way after crawling. She guesses it must have been put there to hide the path she’s just crawled down. She shuffles further forward. Then she’s out into the wood proper, and Keet comes out behind her. The space is still tight - bushes crowd in around them here still, but with one narrow way out.

“Think I should put it back?” Keet asks, pointing down to the branch.

Farthing nods. “Keeps it secret I bet. So the groundsmen won’t find it.”

“Yeah, you can’t really see that path along the brook at all. I bet the staff in our school have got no idea it’s there.”

It starts raining. Patters of raindrops ping the leaves all around them.

“We’re both getting wet then,” Keet tells her friend.

They push on through the wedge of woodland, which is thicker at this end. Then they’re out, at the edge of the playing fields. Away to their left is the razor-topped fence running at the top of the brook - they’ve just come that way - with its mostly solid line of hedging inside. Away to the right are the groundsmen’s sheds, at the corner of the playing field closest to Coalbrook Road, which the bus route comes down. The school’s two low movable bleacher seat units have been pushed up to that end. Keet gets where she is now. The bleachers would be normally in front of where they are, for watching senior girls’ field hockey games. She can even see yellowed grass where they stood. There are even fresh wheel marks too, heading to their right to the groundsmen’s huts.

Between the huts and the road is another narrow wood, and oblong which runs between the road end of the field and the road itself. Keet has been inside that - just, when she was hunting for a hockey ball last school year.

“That wood must be how the girls must sneak around to get to this one. To that break in the fence. I think that wood and this one join up.”

They track back in through the narrowing wedge of the wood they’re in. To the right beyond bushes is the rusty fence, and behind that is the tributary brook. They try to hug the brook. To their left, the movable stands are close though, them the groundsmen’s sheds back into the narrowing wood. That’s where Keet and Farthing have to be most careful, since one of the groundsmen - the lumpy-looking younger one, Farthing doesn’t know his name - is working, looking sweaty and red, pulling some sort of wire with lumps on it tighter, to wrap it around a stake in the ground.

“What’s that?” asks Farthing.

“Yeah I see him. What’s he doing?”

Keet knows his name. It’s the slouching groundsman, Moper. The girls freeze. But soon enough, Moper disappears inside a hut. Keet and Farthing make a dash behind it, skirting the hut backs till they teach the oblong of wood that runs parallel to the main road. It’s dense enough with undergrowth to stop eyes seeing through from the road to the games field. Moper, who is back out with some other gear, can’t now spot them if they keep themselves low.

By the time they get to the main school block, and cautiously look around them, no teachers, staff or students can be seen. Keet says, “Remember those men in that mini-bus, Farth? Those important-looking ones? Is their bus gone?”

“Can’t see it,” says Farthing.

Those men had gone in just before gone the teacher and the boy - Yarra’s brother? He’d sort of looked like her. He’d been standing with her while she’d waited outside the black wrought iron fence, and she’d seemed to know exactly who he was. Keet and Farthing had kept sneaking looks around the bus shelter on the far side of the road, hoodies up, trying not to draw attention. And this mini-bus had pulled up to the kerb in front of the Headmaster’s house, which was a separate bit between the school and the brook, with its own entrance in that cars and sometimes dustbin men used, to get to the big bins at the back of the playground. Girls weren’t allowed into the Headmaster’s grounds.

These posh-looking blokes had got out. Some in suits, some smart-casual. The mini bus had stayed there for a bit, a way off to the right of where Dickle had lined the waiting girls up. Then it had pulled off. And by the time it was gone all these men had mostly all gone in too, and that last girl whose mother had dropped her off late, and the teacher had been locking the little gate in the big gate from inside. The boy had been still with him, then him and the teacher had gone in as well. Keet, all wary but brave, had run over the road and tried the small gate out, but it was definitely locked. She’d crossed back over, and it’s then that they’d jumped over the sandstone wall down to the tunnel which let the brook under the road.

Hearts in their mouths, they scurry along low, crouching each time they pass under windows at the front of the school block, closest to the road, with just the wrought iron fence topped by spikes, and a few smaller bushes to their right. They have already decided where they’re going to hide. Keet isn’t the only one to have cast her eyes up this drainpipe and wondered how hard it would be to climb it. But it’s ever so exposed: any eyes in the glass school atrium will be able to see them. Yet the atrium is empty, and the small gate in the big wrought iron front gates is locked.

“We’ve been right around the school grounds now!” hisses Farthing.

The solid metal drainpipe is pinned firmly to the stub of newish brick wall which extends out from the end of the prefab school block and into the atrium.

“Now or never, right?” Keet asks.

Farthing nods: they can only be caught, which would put them in the same boat as Yarra, Mercy Karp, Minty Ploom, Carrel and Misty. Once she commits - once Keet starts climbing - she goes up fast. Farthing climbs too, not far behind, and they’re like a pair of chimpanzees on the hunt for monkeys in an African forest: hands gripping behind the drainpipe, feet flat to the wall. At the top, Keet clambers through the gap in a low retaining wall where the drainpipe empties the space around the pyramidal atrium roof. As Farthing gets there too, Keet makes sure Farthing’s grip for the turn onto the roof is secure. Then they’re safely up there, hoodies up, clothes getting slowly damper in the drizzling rain, but safe for now - for the moment - under the leaves of tall pot plants which dot both the school and gym sides of an area of flat roof, with the pyramid of glass rising in between.

From here, through rain-streaked double glazing, they can see a short way in through the still-open gym hall doors. That group of posh men are back there, who neither Farthing nor Keet recognise - though the mens’ backs are turned. There are teachers and assistants back there as well, though. They can see Vido Cuckles, the hated assistant teacher from Farthing’s class, and next to him is his black-haired counterpart Mr Fairlaw, Snorty Beelar’s assistant from Keet’s class. Between them, just behind, is that boy who’s stood with Yarra. The one who’d tallked to Dickle. It had looked for all the world like Dickle had been showing off to the boy. But this boy looks pretty out of place. Cuckles and Fairlaw are ignoring him, and there are so many other men in front that Keet doubts if Yarra - wherever she’s standing - probably in one of those painted circles with the cameras right under - can see the boy at all.

A short way in front of the group of strange men - their angle high up on the atrium roof lets them see over their heads - is the huffy year twelve girl Erma Woller, who attached herself to The Pack at the start of the week. She’s standing about as far away as she can get from a second girl in the same painted circle.

“That one’s Rossa Wilmutt,” says Farthing. “I’ve seen her on BaseGirls when dad makes me and Penny watch it.”

“I know,” says Keet. “At least she hasn’t got her arse in her hands right now.”

They’d both seen that, before, sneaking a look around the edge of their bus stop. Disgusting twitcher Dickle showing off.

The girls in their circle aren’t doing much yet - just standing, probably listening. Keet edges forward. There’s one triangular atrium window before them which is part way open.

“What can you hear?” asks Farthing.

“Not much. It sounds like Dickle, droning on.”

“He’s probably in charge then,” Farthing says.

“Yeah, sounds like it.” Keet scoots back next to Farthing, then imitates Dickle’s nasal voice by pinching her nostrils. “You will all do absolutely everything I tell you, no matter how stupid I make it sound.”

Farthing laughs, a bit too loud. Then both girls fall into a serious silence. It’s their friends down there, and doing every stupid things they get told to do is the point of the thing.

It’s Dickle, up on stage inside the gym hall. He looks over thirteen girls lined up in their circles on the gym hall floor, and over their potential punishers who, with the exception of the prowling forms of Burris Eccar and Dunnel Tund, are lined up at the back. There is also a cohort of well-dressed men - big-wigs, Yarra suspects, who have been invited to witness the start, at least, of the first new Saturday Humbler Punishment.

Dickle scratches his nose in an ill-controlled, chaotic, three second fiddle. Then he sniffs, looks up and announces, “Welcome to the first ever Kennigwort Independent Girls School H- punishment Saturday. Girls, eyes front! Whoever is at the back of the hall is no concern of yours. At least for now.”

The four rows of well-separated girls are all in tiny orange skirts and skimpy uniforms, except for any coats or jackets, which are on the floor in front of them. They look to the front, for the most part, as instructed - Yarra, for now at least, included.

Dickle says in a near-monotone, “Before we start, I will recap the Saturday H- Punishment Rules for the unfortunate girls here today, and their Punishers. Since today’s intransigents are all, circumstantially, all orange-skirt girls, today’s rules have been compacted to apply to an exclusively orange-skirted cohort.”

As Dickle speaks, Yarra casts her eyes around the hall to confirm which girls are here. She knows most of the ones in front of her. Just as in the Orange-skirt gym classes, girls are lined up with the youngest further forward and the oldest further back. From Yarra’s viewpoint, front left is Mercy Karp - Farthing’s friend, from her class - the only year eight here, so the youngest girl present. Yarra shakes her head to herself. Mercy is a nice kid who really doesn’t deserve to be here. Though she’s definitely prepared to bend a few rules. She’d palmed Erma Woller’s phone from behind her back and hid it in her knickers, when Cuckles was trying to find out what was on it. Though she wonders if Cuckles might have suspected. According to Farthing, Cuckles had pulled Mercy out just last Thursday and really gone at her at the back of the class. It was Cuckles who’d given her this H, there and then - confirmed by Fimber, their class’s full teacher.

Dickle reads, “‘Clause one. Today’s H- punishments have be initially awarded for egregious sexual misconduct or suspected egregious sexual misconduct. Such judgments may be subjective and are not expected to be infallible.’”

Yarra thinks, Not infallible. You can say that again. Her eyes move on. Front centre is the too-vocal-for-her-own-good year nine, Minty Ploom. In at the deep end with the rest of them.

“‘Clause two. H- punishments may be conducted in consecutive one hour blocks on any term-time Saturday for,’ - pay very close attention, girls - ‘up to six full one-hour blocks. If you try your best, you may simply serve your awarded time. If not, your parents have been informed already that you may be here for anything up to six actual punishment hours - depending on performance!’”

Is this one of those hours? Yarra doesn’t know. Maybe it’s just a preamble. But Yarra already knows the rules that Dickle’s reading out, more or less. Mr Ullerade had read out the original rules, applying to all girls, not just the Orange skirts and not just for H- punishments - that these have been pared down from. Read out in full to them, to her class’s horror and Donder’s palpable disgust. Her eyes flick on. Front right is a girl she’s less familiar with. Though she was in the orange gym class yesterday, Yarra knows nothing about this one, not even her name.

At the back of the gym hall, Vido Cuckles turns his head to Henckel Fairlaw. “Got my favourite ever girl here today,” he says. “I had so much fun with her last year! Far front right. Falla Bumber. I really got her jumping!”

“‘Clause three,’” drones Dickle, “‘H- punishments may be conducted in the school gym, the school punishment room, the staff common room, a classroom, school toilets, school corridors, the playground or anywhere else on school grounds out of sight of the general public.’”

Yarra sees some of the girls reacting to this. Second row far left, pretty but awkward Misty Lutyens turns her head to her right to see if Carrel Guelder will meet her eyes. Carrel doesn’t look back, but Yarra, just behind her, does. She registers the fright in Misty’s eyes. Not just in here? Anywhere on school grounds?

“‘Clause four. H- punishments may be conducted with observers, including direct relatives of punishee schoolgirls being present.’”

Dickle’s tongue flicks his upper lip as he looks with a smug, reptilian smile to the back of the gym hall. Yarra risks a glance behind her. All she can see is a wall of strangers. She wonders which ones aree relatives, and of which girls in here?

“‘Clause five. Any observer may participate as a punisher with permission from the overall supervisor of the current H- punishment.’ And today,” Dickle adds, “that supervisor is me.” He looks back at his sheet. “Still clause five. ‘Punishers are not required to focus their attention solely on a single girl but may, with permission from the overall supervisor or through negotiation with other punishers, attend to any other girl at any point.’”

Yarra’s eyes have settled on the girl just front and left of where she’s standing herself. Gorgeous Taudren-favourite Imenna Scutter will no doubt be in prime position for attention by those strangers at the back.

As Dickle reads out the next two clauses - who’s allowed to attend - how everything must be recorded - she finds herself wondering what they’ll try to force Imenna - or any girl here - to do. If they’re not just confined to this gym hall, that means they may not have to keep the girls together. She shudders. With another look back, she notices a couple of other men besides teachers, assistants or strangers back there. In the far left of the hall, two of the groundsmen - who the girls, essentially, try never to interact with - are looking smug. Though at least, she thinks with grim satisfaction, she can’t see any janitors. Of the groundsmen, it’s the older one and the bright-cheeked young one with the floppy blond hair. She sees this lad nudge the older one and point over to the back right of the hall.

“Eyes front!” Burris Eccar spits this directly at Yarra, making he jump, as he muscle-lumps behind her.

“‘Clause eight,’” Dickle continues. “‘Punishee fourteen and fifteen year olds should be clothed in at least undergarments and some form of top. However these may, for orange-skirted girls only, be of any size, width, opacity, elasticity or material. Punishers may wish to note that, in cases of slippage, displacement or some other failure of coverage, these restrictions are recommended but non-binding.’”

At least Farthing and Keet aren’t here, thinks Yarra. The only fourteen year old is Mercy Karp. The only fifteen year old that Yarra knows personally is Minty Ploom. But hey, way to go, Diddler - do make sure you let everyone know that any restrictions for them are optional. And she remembers the orange girls’ first so-called gym class a week last Friday. They’d dressed Farthing - a year eight - in shorts so loose - then ordered her to exercise with her hands on her head - that she might as well not have been wearing them at all, since they’d dropped down to her ankles just as soon as she’s started moving.

Dickle finishes clause eight. “‘Girls of sixteen and over may at any time be punished up to fully naked.’”

A girl Yarra so often finds her eyes drifting towards, pretty ash-blond Carrel Guelder, is right in front of Yarra. And she’s sixteen now. Misty, too. Up to fully naked. She’s so sure that will happen. Carrel. Fully naked.

Dickle starts droning through rules about how many strokes of this or that - canes, straps, paddles, wooden spoons - can be used on orange girls of this age or another. Then he gets to the rules on hand spankings.

“‘Clause eleven. H- punishments may include spankings by hand to buttocks and thigh backs for fourteen and fifteen year old girls, to areas between the waist and lower thighs for sixteen year olds, and are not to be restricted below the neck for older girls. It is clearly stated that there is no requirement to in any way limit hand spankings by number, frequency, intensity, or time.’” Dickle, revoltingly, licks his lips again when he’s said this.

The girl to her far left, in Yarra’s own row, lets out a whimper. Yarra knows the girl’s name is Shella Tanty. She’s generally quiet, from year ten - she hasn’t been part of their gang in the playground, though Yarra thinks she may have been in orange since the start. An unobtrusive girl, now dropped deep in the shit like the rest of them here.

“‘Clause twelve. For H- punishments, there is intended to be no limitation of any kind as to the position or pose that the punisher may require any girl to adopt.’” Great, thinks Yarra, rub it in. As if these wankers don’t have enough encouragement to be bastards already. Plus, she’s already had some of this from Tund - and the man was not subtle “‘ ... except where any such pose may prove literally impossible to achieve.’”

To Yarra’s immediate left is poor Remi Breech, from her own class. She sees the girl shudder, and doesn’t blame her. Remi got so unlucky yesterday - picked by lottery for orange when the other orange girl from their class, Misra Spinks, went absent. Then unfairly awarded an HP by Turd for allegedly looking wet between her legs. Yarra knows in her bones that Turd had picked on Remi because Remi is in Yarra’s class. Picked on not from any guilt of her own, but by association with Yarra. She feels guilty for a moment, then tries to force it down. As Donder says, ‘You’re not guilty for something someone else does to another unconnected person, using you as their excuse! The guilty person is the perpetrator, full stop!’