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A couple of times, Cynthia catches me staring off into the distance and asks me if I’m okay, and I say yeah, everything’s great, she shouldn’t worry about me, which just isn’t true. More than anything, I long to fall into my mother’s arms, sob my heart out and tell her everything that happened—about Jack and the attempted rape, about the carnage in the alley, about my escorting work and most of all, that I have fallen in love with a demon called Alex. I wish I could confide in her about everything, but unfortunately, I can’t, because she has enough to deal with right now, plus she’d never believe all the supernatural stuff, so I keep all my feelings bottled up in the hope that one day soon, when the time is right, I’ll be able to come clean with her.
Then on Thursday morning, I take my umbrella and trudge through the rainswept streets of Clapham to Freddie’s school for a meeting with his class teacher, Miss Barnes—a loud, boisterous lady with fuzzy brown hair, brightly coloured clothing and novelty glasses. As I take a seat in her messy office lined with dog-eared furniture, I decide she reminds me of a children’s TV presenter: overly cheerful and desperate to be liked, but ultimately fake.
“I’m so sorry, I’ll be with you in just two secs,” she beams, riffling through a stack of papers on her desk. “I can’t seem to find Freddie’s school report anywhere. I’m sure it was here a moment ago. My goodness, what am I like? I’m so bloody disorganised!” Miss Barnes laughs in an attempt to ingratiate herself to me, but I only manage a tight smile in return. There’s something about this woman I do not like and decide it’s best to tread carefully until I know more about her.
While Freddie’s teacher continues to fuss over the missing report, I scrutinise her office closely. The walls are covered with kid’s drawings and it smells of floor polish and pencil shavings, the hallmark of a typical primary school. For a moment, I close my eyes and am transported back to being an eight-year-old again. Looking back, I’d actually quite enjoyed my time at primary school. It was only when I went to secondary school that things began to go wrong.
“Found it!” Miss Barnes trills, holding up a grey folder that I presume is my brother’s report. Silently, she flips through a couple of pages to familiarise herself, and then adopts a more authoritative tone. “Okay, thanks for coming today, Jessica. You are Freddie’s…?”
“Sister,” I clarify with a nod.
“His sister, great. And where is his mother?”
“Sorry, Cynthia couldn’t be here today because she’s travelling abroad tonight, so I came instead. I’m on record as one of his next of kin.”
“Fine. Well, let’s get down to it then.” She clears her throat. “To start with, I just wanted to say what a lovely boy Freddie is. He has a wonderful little personality with so many good qualities. He just has trouble concentrating in class sometimes. Also, sometimes he can be a bit disruptive to the other kids because he lacks concentration, and that’s one of the areas we really need to work on.”
“When you say disruptive, what do you mean exactly?” I ask.
She spreads out her hands. “Freddie gets easily distracted in class. He finds it hard to follow instructions, gets bored easily and doesn’t seem to engage with the books we give him to read.”
“That’s because the books are boring,” I snap. “He doesn’t find them intellectually challenging. The reading level you have put him at is far below his capabilities. My brother is more advanced than you give him credit for, but you’re still giving him books for five-year-olds to read.”
Miss Barnes looks very offended. “Really? Is that what you truly think? I suppose we could assess his reading level again and see what comes back. However, I do have other concerns. Whenever we ask him to read in front of the class he freezes up and refuses. Part of our literacy assessment is based on the child being able to confidently speak in front of their peers, and Freddie isn’t really capable of doing that at present. He appears to have difficulty with social interactions.”
“That’s only because my brother is shy when put in front of large groups of people,” I counter fiercely. “What’s wrong with that? Lots of kids are shy at his age. Anyway, what about his maths? He’s very good with numbers. Why don’t you talk about that instead of focusing on the negative?”
“Yes, I agree he is exceptionally good at maths and that is one of the few areas I have no concern about. But…” His teacher releases a heavy sigh. “I’ll get to the crux of the matter. Freddie can be quite tactile with the other children, and that has been causing problems.”
“What do you mean by tactile?”
Miss Barnes scratches the side of her mouth. “He keeps trying to hug the other children, even when they don’t want him to, and then he gets upset and sometimes lashes out when things don’t go his way. I’m sure he means well, but Freddie seems to find it hard to acknowledge other children don’t always want their personal space invaded.”
My temper flares. “But that’s just Freddie showing affection to the other children. Me and my mum give him hugs all the time. We are a very demonstrative family. I don’t understand why it’s a problem. The world needs more love, not less of it.”
“Be that as it may, we’ve had several complaints from some of the other parents. The truth is Jessica, we’re at a point where I don’t believe this school can provide Freddie with the level of attention he needs any longer. Ravensbourne is a small school with only one teaching assistant per class, but what Freddie needs is somebody to devote their full attention to him on a daily basis, and we are just not able to do that here because we simply don’t have the resources.”
Taking off her glasses, she shines up the lenses on her cardigan and puts them back on. “We’ve always known he was on the spectrum and when Freddie first started here, we thought we could meet his requirements. Sadly, I no longer think that is the case, so we are going to have to explore other options.”
“What are you suggesting?” I say sourly.
“I think you and your mother are going to have to seriously consider sending Freddie to a school for autistic children. Somewhere they can cater to his needs. That’s my personal opinion, anyway.”
“But we’ve already looked into that,” I say. “Those specialist schools are expensive, and my family does not have the money to pay for him to go to one. Plus, we really want Freddie to mix with regular children as we feel it will be good for his development.”
“I understand,” she says with faux empathy. “But you’ve got to think about what’s best for Freddie. If you did decide to send him to a private school which specialises in autism, then you could always apply to the local council for funding. Did you know there is help for low-income families? If you’re interested, I’d be happy to help you fill out the relevant application forms and walk you through the process.”
“That won’t be necessary, thank you,” I say, standing up and putting on my coat. “As of next week, we will be taking Freddie out of school to go travelling for a month, and after that we will look to explore our options.”
“You’re taking him out of school?” Miss Barnes appears alarmed at this news. “This is the first I’m hearing of it. Does the head teacher know?”
“Not yet,” I reply, walking towards the door. “But she will. Don’t worry, we’ll put it in writing and send the school a letter.”
“Please, Jessica, don’t be too hasty. Whatever you and your mother decide to do, you must make sure it is in Freddie’s best interests.”
Turning around, I look her dead in the eye. “That’s exactly what I’m doing. Putting my brother first. I was on the fence about what to do, but you’ve just made the decision for me.” Without another word, I leave the office and close the door behind me. I feel exhilarated. Well, at least that’s one less thing to worry about, though how I’m going to explain my decision to Cynthia, I have no idea. Once more, it will need to be a discussion that is put on ice until her return from Germany.
The rest of the day passes quickly. When I get home, my mother’s bedroom looks like a bomb hit it. There is an explosion of clothes everywhere as she does some last-minute packing for her trip this evening. She asks me how the meeting at the school went and I tell her it went okay, carefully adding that there was talk of sending Freddie to a specialist school, but I refuse to elaborate further. We’ll talk about it when she gets back, I say. My mother shows a vague interest, but is so stressed about catching her flight, she appears to barely be listening, which to be honest suits me just fine. The less said the better.
