Page 64 of Gold Digger
“This is Oliver Harding the Duke of Buckingham, Miss Forest’s fiancé and Hayley’s other guardian. We will be at the school in twenty minutes. Please keep the child safe until we arrive.”
“All the children are kept safe here,” the officious bitch snapped.
“Clearly not,” Ollie said in a low voice, shaky with fury as he hung up on her.
“Okay, baby,” he said to me as he turned me towards him by my shoulders. I blinked up at him. My eyes were stinging. Hayley had been hurt. “We’re going now.” I nodded, still feeling numb with shock. “It’s going to be fine. We’re going to sort it out. Hayley will be fine.”
“Right,” I whispered. He nodded, then tucked me under his arm to steer me out of the office.
“Oh, sugar,” I said, turning to Felix as I left. “The meeting, Felix, I?—”
“Fuck the meeting,” Felix said, and I nodded, but my heart sank. The irony was that the more Hayley needed me, the more I had to flake out on work, but also the more I desperately needed the financial stability of work.
Chapter 31
Not for over five hundred years
Lottie
“Obviously, if violence is involved, we really need to see if we’re meeting Hayley’s needs because —”
“Who hurt my sister?” I said in a low, furious voice. Hayley squeezed my hand, and I looked down at her. She gave me a quick shake of her head, which only infuriated me further – that head shake meant,don’t bother, there’s no point. I clenched my teeth in frustration. Both Hayley’s knees were scraped, and she had a bruise blooming under her left eye.
“I don’t think that rehashing the specifics is really of any value. The other children involved are?—”
“Children?” my voice was rising now. “Multiple children attacked my sister?”
The head teacher shifted uncomfortably. “Well, the other children arealsoinjured. I believe it was a playground dispute that escalated and?—”
“And how the hell would a playground dispute escalate or even start when my sisterdoesn’t speak?” I was shouting now. I knew shouting was counterproductive, but I couldn’t help it – these people were supposed to keep Hayley safe. Playground dispute, my arse. Hayley had been targeted by bullies again. Mychest constricted and I started to feel like I couldn’t breathe. Then I felt his hand on my back.
“Breathe, Lottie,” he murmured in my ear, and I felt my eyes sting but blinked the tears away.
“If we could keep this civilised,” the headteacher said, her mouth set in a disproving line. “There’s no need for raised voices.”
“But you’re nothearingme,” I said through my clenched teeth. “Hayley couldn’t have started a playground dispute – she doesn’t speak to the other kids. She’s being bullied. You’re supposed to keep her safe and you’re not doing it. You need to keep her safe.” My voice broke on the last few words which only made me angrier. I did not want to appear weak in front of these people. I needed them to listen to me.
“Miss Forest,” Hayley’s class teacher put in. “You have to understand, there are over thirty children in each class and?—”
“What is the SEN budget allocated for Hayley?” Ollie put in, his voice calm but firm.
When we first arrived at the school and saw Hayley, she ran to me and gave me a tight hug. Ollie’s furious expression as he looked down at us was so fierce I had thought he might lose his shit there and then. But by the time Hayley had pulled back and looked up at him he’d managed a tight smile for her as he smoothed her hair back from her tear-stained face. “Don’t you worry, stowaway,” he’d said, taking her hand in his. “We’ll sort this out.” Then we’d been led to the headteacher’s office by the form teacher and now he seemed to be the picture of calm.
“Er… I’m not?—”
He smiled a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Shall I remind you? Hayley has a SEN budget of six thousand a year. Where was her teaching assistant when this playground incident occurred?”
“She doesn’t have a teaching assistant.”
Ollie’s eyebrows went up in mock surprise. I had a feeling he knew very well that Hayley didn’t have a teaching assistant – something I’d been pushing for months. “What is the money being spent on then?”
The headteacher’s face started getting red. “We don’t allocate the budget on an individual basis. The money goes into a pot for the whole school, and we can use it according to need at the time.”
“Ah, I see, and when has Hayley had a ‘need at the time’, requiringanyof the budget allocated to her to be spent on her? Has she had any additional inputat all? Anything above and beyond the other children to reflect the six thousand your school is given for that very purpose?”
“We are going wildly off the point here,” the headteacher snapped. “I don’t?—”
“It’s not fair; we know that,” the form teacher blurted out. “Hayley isn’t disruptive. She gets on with her work. She’s bright. She just…”
