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‘Karen,’ she said gently, ‘it’s all right.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Karen told her.
She was shaking, and Debra could see panic in her eyes. Karen stood up, pushing her chair away from her, her milkshake carton falling on the floor as she stumbled into the table.
Debra stood up as well, terrified that she might lose her as Karen rushed out into the street.
The boy, Debra noticed, was watching them, a knowing and somehow rather intimidating look in his eyes.
As she hurried past him, intent on catching up with Karen, she heard him say tauntingly, ‘Great tits.’
She stiffened instinctively, stunned not so much by his comment, but by his self-assurance. He couldn’t be more than fourteen or fifteen at the most, but, despite that, there had been something in the way he looked at her that told her that he wasn’t simply repeating parrot-fashion a comment he had heard made by someone older.
She caught up with Karen just as the girl was about to dart across the road in front of an oncoming car.
Grabbing hold of her, Debra hauled her back. Tears
were pouring down Karen’s face. She was shaking... not trembling, but shaking.
Instinctively Debra wrapped her arms around her, holding her as tightly as she could, rocking her as she held her, not knowing what had happened, just knowing that she needed her comfort, her help.
When she felt she was calm enough she walked her back to the car, but then, instead of taking her back to the home, she took her to her own house.
Once they were inside she poured Karen a glass of milk and made herself a cup of coffee.
‘What is it? What’s wrong, Karen?’ she asked gently.
It was like floodgates opening, forced apart by the weight of emotion and despair behind them.
It was him, the boy, Karen told her. He had started following her round, saying things to her, calling her names. He called her a slag, and said that she was a prostitute. He had followed her into her room one afternoon. He had had a knife. He had told her that he would use it on her if she didn’t do everything he told her.
Someone had come in and he had gone away, but she was frightened of him, Karen told her. Frightened of the way he kept looking at her.
Debra didn’t make the mistake of disbelieving her. Even if she hadn’t been able to hear the loathing and terror in her voice, what she had seen in the boy’s eyes, despite his youth, confirmed everything that Karen was saying to her.
‘I’ll have to tell the superintendent, you know that, don’t you?’ she told Karen gently. ‘Not just because of you, Karen. Think... if he’s threatening you he could be threatening other girls as well.’
‘If he finds out I’ve told you...’
‘He won’t,’ Debra assured her.
The superintendent heard her out in silence when she asked to speak to him alone and told him what had happened.
‘I was afraid of something like this happening. He’s got a record of bullying and worse. He shouldn’t really be here—or rather children like Karen shouldn’t be here. And we call it taking them into care.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll make sure that Karen is properly protected.’
‘And the boy?’
‘Another member of your group has been trying to help him to no avail. I understood you’ve got a new member, Marsh Graham. Apparently he’s going to take over. It seems he’s had some experience in this field. He’s suggesting a course where the boy can find a legitimate vent for some of his frustration and aggression.
‘Personally I think it might be too little too late. Thank God Karen confided in you.’
It wasn’t just Karen who was afraid of the boy, Debra admitted later as she washed up her supper things. She too had experienced unease and apprehension when he looked at her.
Fourteen. She hoped Marsh could help him, otherwise who knew what type of man he might grow up to be?
CHAPTER FOUR
