AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I blink and try to take that in. For some reason, I believe his unlikely tale.
“Who are you, sir?” Gregory repeats his question. He’s polite but persistent.
“You can call me Mr Haigh. I’m a…friend of Jenna’s.”
“We heard she was attacked…” Gregory regards me as though he half suspects I may be the guilty party.
“She was. She’s going to be okay though.” I drag over a spare chair and join them at the table. “You said you were studying…?’
There’s another chorus of nodding.
“What are you studying?”
One of the girls, Bella, I think, answers. “English homework. Shakespeare.” She pulls a face.
“I’m doing geography,” Polly claims, producing a tattered notebook from a bag beneath the table.
“Egyptians,” is Ned’s area of interest. “It’s a project,” he clarifies proudly. “Pharaohs an’ pyramids an’ all that.”
Wee Robbie has yet to stop crying, though his specialist subject would appear to be snakes and ladders.
Gregory steps in. “Robbie canna read. Jenna’s been teaching ’im. Me, too, sometimes.”
“Doesn’t he go to school?” I demand.
Gregory shrugs. “Sometimes. He doesnae get on too well there.”
“What about you?” I ask. “What are you studying?’
“English, maths, and history,” he informs me. “I want tae do law.”
“Do law?”
“Aye. At Stirling University. I need an A and two Bs. A levels,” he adds in response to my obvious puzzlement.
Ah. ABB. His targets for his exams.
“So, you can go to university if you get those results?”
“Aye. I reckon I can do it, too. Jenna…I mean Miss Delaney…offered to help me.”
“In what way can she help?” She may be gorgeous, but I wouldn’t describe her as academic particularly.
“My mam sold my laptop, so she bought another for me tae use here. We can get a bit o’ peace an’ quiet, somewhere tae work. An’ she pays students — undergraduates — to tutor us if we need it.”
I lean back and close my eyes. At least I now know what Jenna spent Ethan’s missing money on.
“How long has this been going on?”
“About six months.” The group let Gregory speak for them all.
Ah, since old George got locked up. It’s dropping into place a bit.
“How many kids are coming here?”
“It varies. As many as twelve some days. Some just come for the food, though.”
“She feeds you as well?”This just gets better and better.
