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A male blackbird foraged for the last of the berries on the hawthorn while his mate tugged fat, juicy worms out of the ground. A squirrel scampered about, searching for acorns. His cheeks were already stuffed. If he could fit just one more in, then he’d go and bury his stash.
Golden leaves crunched underfoot, made yet more crunchy by a thin layer of morning frost still lingering from the previous night. Tamsin Price dragged her school bag along the floor before she sat down heavily on a bench beneath one of the trees. There was a nip in the air making her breath steam every time she opened her mouth. Making sure that her school coat was well beneath her bottom on the cold and icy bench, she pulled her collar up around her ears and watched the wildlife for a few minutes, smiling at their antics. They were very tame and not at all frightened of her.
She dug into her bag and arranged some of her belongings on the bench beside her. Mobile phone. Ear buds. Asthma inhaler. Mr Turford.
Teddy Turford was her oldest and her favourite teddy bear. She was a bit old for teddy bears, but this one went everywhere with her. She’d had him for ever, and he was small enough to fit into her school bag without anyone spotting him. She’d skived off school today, so it wasn’t an issue, but Tamsin would die of embarrassment if the other kids found out about Mr Turford.
She breathed in the smell of wood smoke. There was a bonfire somewhere. She hoped that whoever it was had checked that there were no hedgehogs asleep under the pile before setting light to it.
After scrolling through her phone for a bit, she went to the story she’d bookmarked the day before that had popped up on Facebook. Not that she was old enough to have a Facebook account, but that was soon remedied simply by falsifying her birth date. Every year she moved her birth year back a year and by her next birthday, it would read the right date at last.
It was the headline that had caught her eye:
BOY’S ATTEMPTED SUICIDE BLAMED ON SCHOOL BULLIES
She always found it a bit spooky that Facebook seemed to know everything about you. Apart from her real birth date, of course. But generally, if she Googled anything or if she followed a link to somewhere, within seconds Facebook would target her with adverts and stories based on what she’d just been looking at.
Tamsin shuddered. According to her dad it was Big Brother watching everything that everyone did. She had no idea who Big Brother was, but he seemed Very Important, and almost all-seeing. She hoped he couldn’t really see everything.
She’d read the story a few times the day before and now she read it out loud to Mr Turford. The words had hit a nerve. The story said the boy had been wagging school. Just like Tamsin was right now. The name-calling had really got to him, and when things started to get physical, he started to skive off school. Unable to face going back to school, he’d tried to cut his wrists. But he hadn’t cut deep enough and now he’d have scars on the insides of his arms for the rest of his life. The story didn’t mention the boy by name, but it did say that he was at a school in Birmingham. Tamsin’s school was in Doncaster, so there was no chance that she might know him.
Tamsin sighed and picked at a scab on her knee. It wasn’t quite ready yet and she winced at the sharp pain. She wiped away a small drop of blood with a tissue. “How painful would it be to slice at my own arm with Dad’s Stanley blade?” she asked her teddy, tucking the soiled tissue back into her coat pocket. She didn’t really want to think about it. “There must have been a lot of blood.”
She shuddered again. There were too many similarities between the story on Facebook and the real story in her own life. She frowned as she tried to remember when the bullying at her school had first started.
“Probably the first week of the new school year,” she said. Though try as she might, she couldn’t pinpoint what it had been over. Was it the hockey boots? She furrowed her brow as she tried to remember. Yes, it was something about hockey boots.
Carey Parkes had told JoJo Skinner that JoJo could have Carey’s old hockey boots. Everyone knew it was because JoJo was one of the best hockey players in their year but without a proper pair of boots, she wouldn’t be allowed to play in the inter-school tournament. The rumour was that JoJo’s parents couldn’t afford to buy her a pair of her own. Even if the other girls didn’t like her very much, they still wanted JoJo in the team because, more than anything, they wanted to win the trophy.
And then, for some reason, JoJo had helped herself to the boots from Carey’s locker, which wasn’t even locked, and when they saw her in them in the playground, Carey and all of her friends had laid into JoJo. it had started with just calling her names. But before long they were poking fun at her family’s lack of money, following her home, spitting at her, pulling her hair, accusing her parents of being junkies. It had gone on for weeks, but not once did JoJo report Carey and her friends to the teachers.
And then yesterday, JoJo didn’t turn up for school and Tamsin had seen the story on Facebook.
Why had JoJo helped herself to the boots? Why didn’t she wait for Carey to just give them to her? Did anyone even ask her? Maybe it had just been a misunderstanding. Or did Carey tell her to take them?
More to the point, though, why had Tamsin jumped on the bandwagon and joined in? It wasn’t really any of her business.
Tamsin shook her head. She wasn’t a bully. “I’m not a bully!” she told Mr Turford. But she’d given in to the peer pressure at school and she’d sided with the bullies instead of sticking up for JoJo. She’d joined the others when they ganged up on her. Tamsin was very much a bully.
What if JoJo tried to kill herself? What if she tried to cut her own wrists? Apart from not wanting that on her conscience, Tamsin didn’t think it was worth it, especially over a pair of hockey boots.
Tamsin stuffed all of her belongings back into her bag and tucked Mr Turford in too, then she swung the bag over her shoulder and made her way back down the hill towards school.
But she didn’t turn in to the school entrance. Instead, she carried on walking until she reached JoJo’s house. She knew which one it was because she’d followed her all the way there with the others.
Tamsin hesitated at the gate. She looked at the clean and tidy frontage. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the gate open and marched right up to the front door, rapping on the shiny red painted woodwork until her knuckles hurt.
A lady answered, who Tamsin assumed was JoJo’s mother.
“Is JoJo there?” said the girl.
“She’s not very well at the moment,” said the woman. “She’s in bed with the flu. Can I give her a message?”
“Yes, please tell her that Tamsin dropped by, and… and…”
“And?” said the pretty woman.
Tamsin pulled the bear out of her bag and held it out to JoJo’s mum. “Tell her that she can borrow Mr Turford until she’s better… and that I’m sorry.”
the end
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