sweets. Carly and Anna moved to grab what they could, but suddenly they heard a man’s voice behind them.
‘Oi, you lot!’
As one, they turned their heads to see who was calling them. The newsagent was running towards them. ‘Give me that stuff back. I’ll call the police on you.’
The three girls were like pigeons dispersing at the sound of gunshot. Quick as a light switching on, they ran in three different directions, Anna and Carly disappearing in opposite ways down the street, Sadie speeding down the alleyway that led past the bins and back into the estate.
As she ran, she nervously congratulated herself on not risking their little shoplifting escapade on the estate. Everyone knew her there, even the shopkeepers – it was difficult to get away with anything. She looked back over her shoulder to see the shopkeeper running after her, and felt a little surge of adrenaline in her stomach as she upped her pace. The alleyway turned a corner and then led out on to an area at the foot of a grey concrete tower block where people parked their cars. There were about fifteen vehicles, all fairly old and run-down. Without stopping to think, Sadie hurled herself into the middle of the car park and hid down by the side of a rusty old blue Fiesta. She tried not to breathe too heavily as she crouched, holding her sweets, and she strained her ears to hear the patter of the shopkeeper’s feet as he emerged from the alleyway – only to find that she had disappeared. She heard him swearing to himself in his pronounced Asian accent. ‘Bloody kids. Always the bloody same.’
Suddenly, to her horror, she saw someone approaching. He raised an eyebrow at her just as she heard the shopkeeper calling to him, ‘’Scuse me, my friend. You seen a young girl running through here? About thirteen, maybe a bit older, long brown hair.’
The man paused, and seemed to be wondering if he should reply or not.
‘She just stole something from my shop, you see,’ the man continued, a bit desperately.
Sadie threw an imploring look up at the man.
‘Sorry, pal,’ he replied in a northern accent. ‘Didn’t see anyone. She can’t have come this way.’
The shopkeeper breathed out in annoyance. ‘Bloody kids,’ he muttered again.
The man watched him go. ‘It’s all right,’ he said finally. ‘He’s gone.’
Slowly Sadie stood up, flashing the man her most winning smile. ‘Thanks,’ she said. As she spoke, the alarm on her digital watch beeped twice. Nine o’clock.
‘Shouldn’t you be going to school?’ the man asked her.
Sadie’s grin grew a bit broader. ‘Yeah,’ she replied, clutching her sweets and starting to slip away. ‘Yeah, I suppose I should. Um … Anyway, thanks again.’
The others, she knew, would be back at their usual meeting place by the swings. Flushed with the success of her adventure, she ran off to meet them.
Stacy Venables had wanted to be a teacher ever since she was a little girl. Her mum had been one, and her dad too, so she supposed it was only natural. Of course, teaching now wasn’t as it was then. Her mum had never had to deal with pupils using four-letter words to her face, and whenever Stacy told her about the things she had to put up with, she would shake her head, tut and start talking about standards. But standards in the cosy corner of Wiltshire where the Venables family lived were very different to standards in inner-city London. Stacy remembered the time her parents had given her what for when she had asked if her eighteen-year-old boyfriend could stay the night. If they only knew what kids nowadays were up to: drugs, sex – they needed so much more than education, she always thought. They needed a bit of care – a bit of what they weren’t getting in the home. That was why she tried to make herself seem accessible to the children. Unlike her female colleagues, who wore severe suits in rough, cheap material, Stacy wore jeans. In summer she wore a white T-shirt and a black leather jacket – much to the disapproval of the disciplinarian headmaster, Mr Martin; for winter she had a succession of thick, woolly thigh-length cardigans that seemed to match her full head of long, curly hair and made her appear, she thought, a bit more homely.
Of course, she was still a teacher, and subject to the disdain and abuse most of the kids at school gave anyone in authority; but every now and then she felt as if she had made a difference, and that made her efforts worthwhile.
Miss Venables stood patiently at the gates to the school. It was ten past nine now, and the two police officers who stood outside the school every morning and afternoon to keep away undesirables had just left. It saddened her that they had to be there, but she knew it was the right thing. Prevention was better than cure, even if some of the older kids were savvy enough to arrange meets with their dealers just round the corner, where there were no uniforms. Last year a boy had been excluded for having a wrap containing three rocks of crack cocaine. Bright enough kid, decent family – you never could tell who was going to go down that line. The police had been called, a fuss had been made and the children had been told that this sort of behaviour was not to be tolerated. Stacy had argued that he should be given help, not exclusion, but hers was a lone voice, soon drowned by the head. She had received a letter from the lad’s parents just a couple of months later, saying that he had gone missing and that the police weren’t hopeful of finding him unless he wanted to come back, but thanking her for everything she had done for him.
It saddened her, too, that they had to lock the main gates to the school, not so much to keep the children in as to keep other people out. You could never be too careful these days.
She looked at her watch. Another minute for the stragglers and then she’d lock up.
Just then, around the corner, came three familiar figures.
Miss Venables had a soft spot for Sadie Burrows. It wasn’t just that she looked appealing, with her glossy long hair, olive skin and those beautiful almond-shaped eyes. Some kids just had something, a spark, call it what you will – when you’d been in the job for a while you found you could recognize it easily, and you knew how rare it was.
It didn’t make her a goody-goody. Far from it – more of a charming tearaway, and plenty of the teachers in the school had marked her out because of that. She was neither brilliant academically, nor poor – just average, although here that almost made her stand out. Sadie could be cheeky and mischievous, just like any other kid. But she was definitely the daughter of her father, a man well known all over this part of London as being able to sell umbrellas in July and sunscreen in December. Just don’t ask where it came from. Tommy Burrows had a twinkle in his eye that he had passed on to his daughter, which meant that whenever she was caught crossing the boundary, it was impossible to stay angry with her for long.
‘Come on, you three!’ she shouted at the girls as they approached. ‘You’re late. I was just about to lock up.’
‘Sorry, Miss Venables,’ Carly and Anna intoned in unison.
‘Why are you late? What have you been doing?’
‘Nothing, miss,’ the two of them told her rather guiltily.
‘Sadie?’ Miss Venables turned to the ringleader with a raised eyebrow.
Sadie looked straight at the teacher. ‘Carly had to get the little ones ready for school, miss. Me and Anna said we’d wait for her.’
Miss Venables looked at each of the girls in turn. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Oh, Miss Venables. Would I
