Chapter 12: Cora - The Foster Child

When I walk into the office on Tuesday morning Mrs Stirling is waiting for me, her expression stern.

‘Good morning, Mrs Stirling. How’s Tilly?’ I ask.

‘You may well ask. Mrs Taylor-Brown said that Tilly is so upset by the way you treated her that she wants to change schools.’

The way I treated her? I can feel my cheeks flush. ‘I’m so sorry that Tilly is hurt and upset but I really don’t see what I could have done. I was on the phone…’

‘Tilly was in your care. And she said that you shouted at her and scared her.’

‘I asked her to be quiet while I was on the phone and to stop rocking the chair. I was firm but I didn’t shout…’

‘As you know Mrs Taylor-Brown is head of the PTA and one of the governors. Mr Taylor-Brown is one of our biggest sponsors. If they take Tilly out of school, it could have serious ramifications financially.’ Mrs Stirling’s tone is icy cold.

‘I can only apologise,’ I say. I’m concerned that Tilly is so upset that she doesn’t want to come back to school, and I get the feeling that Mrs Stirling wishes she hadn’t hired me now. I don’t know what to say, I feel like the situation is spiralling and I don’t know how to control it.

‘We can only hope that Tilly will change her mind in a couple of days. She has a lot of friends in Thatchbury Primary so hopefully she won’t want to start again in a new school,’ Mrs Stirling says. ‘But do remember to call me if you get a similar situation with a child that you can’t cope with in future, Mrs Hamilton. We don’t want anything like this happening again.’

I nod. ‘I will.’

I try to get on with my work and keep my head down, hoping it will all blow over but the day seems to drag. I can sense the resentment of the other teachers when I go into the staffroom. I actually feel like handing in my notice but I talk myself out of it. I’ve been a school secretary for years. I’m good at my job and I love working at this school – and living in this village. I’m going to stick it out.

It’s a busy afternoon, which at least takes my mind off things. When I’ve finished I’m pleased to see Gabby waiting for me even though she hasn’t got Daisy and Tom today.

‘I thought I’d pass by the school and see how you’re doing,’ she says. ‘Has it been a tough day?’

I nod and tell her what Mrs Stirling said.

‘Try not to worry about it. It’s a shame that poor Tilly hurt her ankle but it wasn’t your fault and I can’t see Anita pulling her out of school. She loves being in the PTA and on the board of governors. I’m sure she’s just flexing a bit of muscle, she’s like that. She thinks that she can order everyone about. Chester, her husband, is the same.’

I hope that Gabby’s right. I hate unpleasantness of any sort.

I’m glad of Gabby’s company on the way home, I feel like everyone is staring and whispering about me.

A group of lads in the secondary school uniform slouch past. One of them, a tall, stocky lad with blond hair stops and gives me a dark, scowling look then whispers something to the lad next to him, who looks over his shoulder and stares. Then they both carry on their way.

‘Cheeky sod!’ Gabby retorts.

I feel a bit shaken at the intensity in his glare. ‘Who is it? I’ve never seen him before.’

‘Caleb, Tilly’s brother. He’s a bit of a rogue. I guess he’s heard about what happened to Tilly.’

And he’s blaming me. Great. Just what I need.

There’s a silver car parked outside her house. ‘It looks like Scott’s home,’ she says. ‘See you tomorrow.’

I wave and carry on to Virginia Cottage, where I’m surprised to see the gate swinging open. I closed it behind me this morning and heard the catch click shut. Although I didn’t lean over and bolt it there’s no way it would have blown open. We must have had a visitor. I wonder who it was and am irritated that they didn’t close the gate when they left.

I step into the garden, closing the gate behind me, and look around, clasping my hand to my mouth in dismay when I see that the flower beds have all been trampled on, with most of the plants broken. It’s a wrap-around garden so I go round to check if the flower beds at the back have all been wrecked too. They have.

We only planted some new bulbs there a couple of weeks ago. What on earth has happened?

For a moment I’m too devastated to move but then I pull myself together and start to look around for clues. There has to be an explanation for this destruction. Surely someone hasn’t come into our garden and trampled on everything just out of spite. You’d have to have a massive grudge against us to do that! Then I spot muddy dog paws all over the patio.

It must have got in through the open gate and run amok. But I can’t understand why a dog would cause all this carnage, running around, trampling on everything? Almost as if it had been locked in here and couldn’t get out. Yet the gate was open. It doesn’t make sense.

I don’t want Elliot to come home to this destruction so I put some gardening gloves on and go out to tidy up the garden the best I can. I bend down by one of the dug-up flower beds where we’d planted the bulbs. I don’t know what I’m looking for as I prod my gloved fingers in there but I really feel that the dog was digging for a reason. Then my finger touches something hard. I scoop the soil away, pull it out, and wipe the dirt off it.

It’s a dog biscuit.

I guess there’s nothing strange in that, the previous owners might have had a dog and it buried the biscuit – dogs do bury things – then we disturbed it when we planted the bulbs.

Something compels me to go over to one of the other dug-up plants and prod the ground around it.

I find another dog biscuit. Then another.

Finally I have a collection of a dozen dog biscuits under the newly planted plants.

This is too much of a coincidence. Elliot said that he’s lived here for eight years and he’s done a lot of gardening, so surely all these dog biscuits wouldn’t have remained buried in the ground all this time. Also, it’s not possible that we didn’t come across at least one of them when we planted the new bulbs.

There’s only one credible explanation. Someone deliberately put those dog biscuits into the soil then let their dog loose to trample all over the garden and dig them up.

Who on earth would do such a thing? It doesn’t make sense.