Ruby by Heather Burnside (sight word books .TXT) 📕

‘He’s attacked my daughter, Trina.’

‘Well, she must have done something to deserve it.’

‘There was a bit of trouble with your other son, Shaun, so I think Kyle was retaliating but…’

Mrs Gallagher jumped in before Daisy had chance to finish speaking. ‘That’s it then. She must have done summat to Shaun for my Kyle to attack her. Anyway, what do you mean by attack? They’re only bleedin’ kids when all said and done.’

‘It was him and his friends.’

‘And have you been to see their parents? I bet you bleedin’ haven’t, have you? No, it’s always my Kyle that gets the blame. Talk about give a dog a bad name…’

This time Daisy cut in. She was getting tired of Mrs Gallagher’s diatribe and her irritation emboldened her. ‘I don’t know who his friends are. Perhaps he could tell you. But he was the one with the knife.’

Daisy could see the stunned look on Mrs Gallagher’s face. ‘Knife! What the fuck you talking about, knife?’

‘Kyle cut Trina quite badly. She had to have stitches for a deep cut on her cheek.’

‘You’re joking!’ said Mrs Gallagher, staring at Daisy, her mouth and eyes wide with shock.

‘I wish I was,’ said Daisy, her tone measured as she tried to stay calm. ‘The doctors say she’ll be scarred for life.’

Mrs Gallagher reached a hand forward and placed it on Daisy’s forearm. The gesture of concern surprised Daisy. ‘You sure it was my Kyle?’ she asked.

‘Definitely,’ said Daisy. ‘Trina knows him, and her friend saw them attack Trina too.’

‘For shit’s sake!’ said Mrs Gallagher. ‘I don’t fuckin’ believe it. What next?’

It was obvious to Daisy that the other woman was shocked and appalled at what her son had done. It seemed like she had a whole heap of troubles on her mind. Daisy felt bad at bringing even more trouble to her door and for a moment she was tempted to utter an apology. But then she checked herself. After all, Trina was the victim, not Kyle, so she stayed silent and waited for Mrs Gallagher to speak again.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll sort Kyle out. And I’ll find out which of his bleedin’ mates were with him as well.’

‘Thank you,’ said Daisy and she was about to walk away until she realised that Mrs Gallagher hadn’t given her any real assurances. ‘Trina’s very nervous about going outside,’ she said. ‘She’s worried that the boys might attack her again.’

‘They won’t,’ Mrs Gallagher bit back. ‘Don’t you fuckin’ worry! I’ll take care of that.’

Daisy realised that this was the best she could expect from a woman like Mrs Gallagher. There was no point waiting for an apology so she thanked her again and returned home, relieved that the encounter was over and at least she had achieved something. In fact, the meeting had gone much better than she could have expected. As she reflected on things on her way home she realised that it was probably because the boys had crossed a line that even someone with Mrs Gallagher’s fearsome reputation wouldn’t tread.

Daisy didn’t tell Trina about the outcome of her visit to Mrs Gallagher straightaway. She wanted Trina to stay indoors a bit longer to give her time to come to terms with what had happened before she faced the cruel world outside. It was two days later when she decided to broach the subject.

‘Trina, you don’t need to worry about going out anymore,’ she began. ‘Kyle Gallagher and his friends will leave you alone now.’

‘Why? Have the police been to see them?’

‘Not exactly, no,’ said Daisy, sighing as she wondered how best to word this. ‘Let’s just say I have Mrs Gallagher’s word that they’ll leave you alone.’

‘Oh,’ said Trina, seemingly disappointed, and Daisy felt as though she had to add some more comforting words.

‘They won’t come near you now, but if any of them says anything I want you to tell me straightaway. I’m sure they won’t though.’

Trina just nodded and carried on with what she was doing.

*

Later that day Trina decided to venture outdoors. The first people she bumped into were Jessica and Laura. It was obvious from Jessica’s reaction that Laura had told her about what had happened and, instead of avoiding her as she usually did, Jessica stopped to talk.

‘It’s quite big, isn’t it?’ she said.

Trina was surprised that Jessica hadn’t mentioned her own experience at the hands of Kyle and his friends, and Trina’s unwillingness to get involved. She had expected animosity with Jessica criticising her lack of involvement, perhaps even telling her she deserved what she got. But instead there was a note of empathy in Jessica’s voice and Trina realised that the enormity of what had happened to her surpassed all that had happened previously.

Trina fingered the scar. ‘Yes,’ she said, with a hint of bravado. ‘Kyle Gallagher did it with a knife.’

‘I know,’ said Jessica. ‘I bet it hurt, didn’t it?’

‘A bit,’ said Trina, enjoying the attention.

Then Jessica lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘That Kyle Gallagher’s horrible. Him and his friends really scared me. My dad wanted to go to the police but my mam said it was best not to because they hadn’t done any real damage. Did your mam go to the police?’

‘No, but my mam says him and his friends won’t bother me again.’

‘Why not?’ asked Jessica.

‘My mam went to see Mrs Gallagher and she told her they’d leave me alone now.’

‘Is that all?’ asked Jessica. ‘Why didn’t she go to the police? What they did was really bad, wasn’t it, Laura?’

Laura nodded her agreement.

‘My dad would have gone to the police if they’d have done that to me,’ Jessica continued. ‘He said they can’t expect to get away with going around using knives. They want locking up. I bet your mam was frightened of going to the police because of what Mr Gallagher would do.’

Trina didn’t know how to respond so she shrugged then said, ‘I’m going to the shop.