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‘I’ll go,’ Sophie said, standing up. ‘If we wait for you, it’ll all be over.’
Kate scowled and then laughed. ‘Good point.’
Sophie grabbed her coat from the hook and went outside, using her classroom fire door for a quick exit. A group of children were squabbling and jeering, and in the middle, she could just see Tom’s hi-vis jacket. The teaching world’s most hideous fashion accessory had finally paid off.
‘Excuse me,’ Sophie shouted above the furore. ‘Move out of the way.’ And a few of the children did, wandering off in twos and threes but looking back to bear witness to the action.
In the centre of the circle, she found Tom holding two girls away from each other. Sophie instantly recognised one of them as Cassie.
‘Can you deal with one of these, please?’ Tom said, breathless and angry. His cheeks were red and his jacket and hair dishevelled from the ruckus.
‘Of course,’ Sophie said.
‘Lily, you go with Miss Lawson.’ He gently manoeuvred Lily, and the sullen-looking girl walked towards Sophie.
Sophie considered asking for Cassie instead, then decided against it, thinking that it might be a conflict of interest having to deal so directly with Cassie’s behaviour, especially when it wasn’t even in her classroom.
‘Come on, Lily,’ she said, and Lily followed her back into the building. Kate had already vacated the room to allow for the conversation to take place.
‘Are you hurt?’ Sophie asked. Lily slumped herself down into one of the chairs and shook her head. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing,’ Lily said, looking down at her feet.
‘It didn’t look like nothing.’ Sophie looked at Lily, whose hair was sticking out all over the place. She had marks on her face where Cassie had apparently clawed at her.
‘Cassie was being annoying,’ Lily said. ‘And she stole my pencil case.’ She held up the offending item. ‘I was just getting it back.’ She sniffed and wiped her nose with a muddy and wet sleeve. Sophie passed her a tissue.
‘Well, Lily, you know there are other ways of resolving an argument like that. Fighting with someone is never OK. We’ve been through this.’
‘She stole my stuff,’ came the angry reply.
Sophie could see she wouldn’t get anywhere with Lily while she was this wound up. It was always difficult dealing with the students who habitually flouted the rules. Sophie concentrated on her breathing and composed herself.
‘Why don’t you go and sit outside Miss Davies’s office? I’m sure she’ll want to speak to you this afternoon,’ Sophie said once she was happy Lily wasn’t injured.
As a frequent visitor to the head’s office, Lily groaned and took herself off in the direction of the corridor in which visitors to the head sat and waited. The children called it the corridor of shame and it was the fifth time Lily had spoken to the headteacher in the past fortnight. It obviously wasn’t working. Sophie made a mental note to speak to someone about Lily and what else they might be able to do to address her behaviour, or whatever was behind it.
Sophie rubbed a hand over her face and brushed her hair back – part exhaustion and part frustration. She would have to speak to Cassie now, and then she’d have to speak to Liam too after school. This was not the next conversation she’d envisaged having with the man she had spent such a wonderful evening with only a few days ago.
‘Miss Lawson?’ Tom poked his head around the door frame with Cassie loitering in his shadow. ‘Can you look after Cassie? I’m happy to have the talk with her but she needs a first aider before that.’
‘Of course. Come in, Cassie.’ Sophie indicated a seat for her to sit in.
While Cassie sat down, Sophie went and found the first aid box from the craft cupboard. Tom mouthed a thank you to her before closing her classroom door and calming down the children that were congregating outside.
Cassie’s hair was as messed up as Lily’s. She’d worn it up again today, but now bits of it hung out of the hair bobble and she already had a bruise forming on her chin.
‘Let me look at you,’ Sophie said, waiting for Cassie to give her permission to tend to her injury. Above where her chin had clearly been walloped, Cassie’s eyebrow had a cut that was dripping blood down onto her top. Sophie knew it was likely to appear worse than it was, but it didn’t stop her from recoiling as she took a closer look. Cassie’s blood-splattered top didn’t help the situation, either.
‘Sir said I should come and tell you what happened,’ Cassie said, sitting on her hands.
‘I’m listening.’ Sophie cleaned the wound with an antibacterial wipe. It was quite deep, and Sophie was in two minds as to whether or not this was the kind of first aid that was slightly beyond her. It looked clean despite its continued bleeding. She held a gauze to it for a minute or two to assess just how much blood Cassie was losing and to decide what her next move would be.
‘I took something of Lily’s,’ Cassie said, playing nervously with the ribbed edging of her school jumper.
‘I know. She told me.’
Tears started to roll down Cassie’s face, mingling with the blood and dirt that was already there.
