Page 55 of Second Chances at the Board Game Café

‘Taylor, I really shouldn’t have said anything. It’s none of my business.’

‘Did Ollie see it happen?’

‘Yeah, from the library window. He hates the playground, so he’s wangled staying inside.’

‘Max was definitely pushed?’

‘Definitely. Ollie wouldn’t make something like that up.’

‘Who pushed him? D’you know?’

‘Jordan.’

‘From Max’s class? Not one of the Year 6s?’

‘Ollie said it was Jordan.’

The tears began to stream down her cheeks and Ava handed her a tissue. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’

‘I’m glad you told me,’ said Taylor as they got off the train and set off towards the café.

And she was glad, only she didn’t know what she was going to do. No matter how many meetings she had with the headteacher, nothing changed. She was sick, totally sick, of having to deal with situations like this on her own. If only John played a proper role in Max’s life, or at least showed a fatherly interest more often. She glanced at Ava, as they reached the town centre, wondering if she might ask her advice, but the girl was what? Eighteen? Or perhaps only seventeen?

She would confide in Harry, she decided, once she’d apologised and given him the full explanation of why a relationship was off the cards for the time being. But when she arrived in the upstairs room of the café, there was no sign of him.

As Taylor advised on choices of thread, demonstrated how to sew a buttonhole and gave her opinion on different fabrics, she kept half an eye on the door, wondering if he was running late, although she had the distinct feeling that he was the kind of man who’d never run late in his life.

She struggled to focus on the tartan shirt that Mrs McCardle was trying to fashion into a waistcoat, and her mind went completely blank when someone asked her about fitting an invisible zip, but it wasn’t only wondering where Harry was that distracted her; in her mind, Taylor went over and over the conversation she’d had with Ava on the journey. Max had been pushed. Deep down, she’d known that all along, had felt it in her bones as her gran would have said.

*

The following morning, she still hadn’t a clue what she was going to say to the headteacher when she set off for the station with Max.

He didn’t seem to have suffered any lasting effects from his fall. There’d been no sleepiness or vomiting, thank goodness.

‘The bang on the head doesn’t seem to have affected his cognitive abilities,’ Sylvia had said, when Taylor returned the previous evening. ‘He won three times. I can see I’m going to have to up my game.’

Ava was waiting on the platform as usual when they arrived. Taylor gave her a brief wave. Ollie, she thought, looked like a nice boy, sitting on a bench with his nose buried in a book. It was hard to believe he might be one of the gang that Max was scared of, and Ava had said he preferred to spend lunchtimes in the library, but he was in Year 6, so she didn’t go over to join them.

She waited until she and Max were settled on the train before broaching the subject of the previous day’s ‘accident’ again. Ava, she’d been pleased to note, had boarded a different carriage; Taylor didn’t want their conversation to be overheard.

‘I’m going to talk to the head again this morning,’ she said. ‘About your fall yesterday.’

‘Why?’

‘Was there anyone on the climbing frame with you?’

‘I dunno,’ said Max.

‘Did someone push you, perhaps?’

‘Don’t say anything. They’ll pick on me more if you do.’

Taylor sighed. ‘You can’t go on like this. I spend half the morning and half the afternoon on the school run when there’s a perfectly decent school less than ten minutes’ walk from the house. And I wouldn’t mind if you were happy at Essendale Primary, but you’re not. You hate it.’

‘If I start a new school, I’ll get picked on for being the new boy.’

‘You don’t know that, Max. It’d be a fresh start.’