I assure him. ‘No one knows you yet.’
‘They do,’ he says. ‘They know who you are too. They said you’re evil.’
‘What?’ I squeak, laughing nervously. ‘I’m evil?’
‘Because of the shop,’ he tells me. ‘It’s gonna close all the other shops.’
‘Sweetheart.’ I grab his hand. ‘It isn’t, I promise you. And their parents will realise that. They’re kids, they don’t know what they’re talking about. They’ve just heard their mums and dads saying things. Did Mrs Snowball not help you make friends?’
‘She doesn’t like me either,’ he says, eating a quarter slice of toast practically in one bite.
‘Of course she does,’ I insist. ‘She’s the headteacher, she likes all the kids.’
‘She wouldn’t let me eat my lunch,’ he tells me.
‘She what?’ I ask angrily.
‘She wouldn’t let me eat my lunchbox.’
‘Why the truck not?’ I ask, remembering to edit my outburst this time.
Frankie shrugs.
‘Is this why you’re so hungry?’
He nods.
Oh, my poor little baby, why on earth wouldn’t she let him eat his lunch?
‘Everything is going to be better tomorrow,’ I promise him.
After we finish up our food Frankie gets back to his game. I retrieve his lunchbox from the floor by the front door, and look inside, just to make sure. Sure enough, there’s his lunch, untouched.
I grab the chocolate and toss it to him.
‘Here you go, kiddo,’ I say.
‘Thanks,’ he replies, without the usual enthusiasm you expect from kids on the receiving end of chocolate.
I make myself a cup of tea, grab my laptop and take a seat on the sofa. I connect my laptop to my phone, because there’s no Wi-Fi here yet, and begin researching the area, trying to work out some kind of plan to get the locals on board. I can’t get Mrs Snowball out of my mind. Why did she think it would be OK to tell my son that he couldn’t eat his lunch? And the fact that the kids wouldn’t talk to him today, because of me…
I grab my phone and set an alarm for the morning, to make sure that I arrive at school early enough to have a word with Mrs Snowball. No one messes with my kid.
Sitting outside the headteacher’s office is not something I ever thought I’d be doing again, not with Frankie being such a little angel.
Back in my school days, my mum would often find herself sitting outside the headteacher’s office with me, waiting to find out what I’d done now. I wasn’t a bad kid, I was just a bit of a rebel.
Looking at me today, you wouldn’t believe what I used to look like. I’m five foot eight, which I’ve always known was tall for a woman, but I only recently learned that my height puts me four inches above the national average, and four inches is a lot – in this context at least. I’m a good shape, I think. Things could be smoother or tighter, but I think everyone thinks that and, anyway, I think my curves complement the girly-girl (creeping into high-maintenance) look I have these days. I like to look good, with my highlighted hair, manicured nails and nice outfits.
Back when I was a teenager though, I was so thin that I looked unhealthy, being so tall. My natural dirty blonde locks were dyed a multitude of colours, sometimes all at once, and my face was a mess of too much eyeliner and plum lipstick, finished off with a nose ring – fake, of course, because for some reason my young, hip, liberal mum wouldn’t let me make holes in my face, and for that I’m extremely thankful now.
I was a young rebel, an activist, a bit of a hippy…I thought I was going to change the world, one small protest at a time. Of course, I was never going to change the world by fighting to make the school kitchen use free range eggs, or switch the floodlit school sign off at night to save electricity, but it felt important for me to make a difference, so I tried. Anytime I was in trouble and my mum was called in, it wasn’t because I was a bad kid, it was usually just because I’d kicked up a fuss about them cutting down a tree in the car park, or because I’d used a black glitter gel pen to draw the anarchy symbol on the back of my hand. Of course, there was that one time 15-year-old me called our geography teacher, Mr Adler, a bastard because he brought a real ivory pen in to show the class – a story which I mistakenly told Frankie, because now he jokes that, so long as he never does anything worse than that, he can never really be in trouble with me.
Sitting here before school starts, waiting for Mrs Snowball to see us, gives me major flashbacks, except this time I’m not in trouble, she is. I still can’t believe she didn’t let my son eat his lunch and the longer I sit out here waiting to speak to Mrs Snowball, the angrier I get.
‘Good morning, Holmes family,’ she says brightly as she opens her office door.
‘Good morning,’ I say politely. ‘I was hoping to have a word about yesterday.’
‘Not a problem,’ Mrs Snowball replies, before turning to her secretary. ‘Tilly, why don’t you take Frankie and get him some breakfast.’
I bite my tongue. Perhaps it would be better to have this conversation without Frankie around.
‘Miss Holmes, step into my office, take a seat,’ Mrs Snowball instructs. ‘It is Miss, isn’t it?’
‘Call me Lily,’ I insist.
‘Lily,’ she says softly, taking a seat behind her desk. ‘What can I do for you?’
I glance around Mrs Snowball’s office as I take a seat opposite her. Her office isn’t what I expected, with not a single scrap of paperwork anywhere – everything must be neatly filed. Instead, the desk, cabinets and shelves are all covered with tiny ornamental cottages, each one unique, and with such intricate detail.
Mrs Snowball catches me staring.
‘Do you like my Lilliput Lane collection?’ she asks. ‘Each cottage is a replica of real cottages and scenery in England and Wales. I’ve been collecting them since the Eighties – they stopped making them in 2016, you know, so they mean even more to me now. They bring me such joy.’
I contemplate for a moment exactly how these tiny cottages bring Mrs Snowball so much joy, and I wonder if maybe sometimes she lays them all out on the floor and walks around, pretending to be a giant. I watch as she lightly brushes the rooftop of the snow-covered cottage that sits on her desk with her fingertip. I’m not sure if she’s dusting it or petting it, but it knocks any thoughts of Mrs Snowball playing Gulliver’s Travels out of my head.
‘I wanted to see you, just to see if you could shed any light on what happened yesterday,’ I start. ‘Frankie was starving when he got home from school and, it turns out he hadn’t had any lunch. I asked him why not and, well, he said you wouldn’t let him. I figured it must be a misunderstanding
