LIV
On Monday morning, Finn woke up and said he wasn’t feeling well. I coaxed him to eat his breakfast but it was taking him an age to lift the spoon from the bowl to his lips. This had been an all-too familiar sight over the last few mornings. Finn used to be a great eater – he would wolf down whatever dish we put in front of him – but lately, he would languish over his breakfast. I decided to err on the side of caution and keep him at home from school for the day but five minutes later, he was bouncing around the house and I knew there was nothing wrong with him. I didn’t think much of it but when he tried to do the same thing on Tuesday morning, I started to suspect he was anxious about going to school.
We walked together towards the school and as soon as the red-bricked building came into view, I felt Finn’s fingers cling tightly to my own.
‘What’s wrong, sweetheart?’
He was biting down on his bottom lip. ‘I don’t want to go in there, Mammy.’
‘But you have to go to school. All your friends are there.’
‘I have no friends.’
‘That’s not true. What about all the little boys you play with in the yard?’
‘They don’t want to play with me any more.’
All the traffic noise and parents’ chattering faded into the background and was replaced by an angry buzzing noise in my ears.
‘W-why not?’
‘Because Elliot told them not to.’
‘Did they say that to you?’
He nodded his head. ‘Elliot told them not to play with me because I’m fat.’
‘You know that’s not true. He’s not allowed to talk about you like that, sweetheart. If he says anything like that again, you have to tell your teacher.’
‘But then he’ll be even meaner if I tell on him.’
‘I promise you, honey that if your teacher knows what’s going on, he won’t be allowed to call you names any more.’
I eventually managed to prise my hand from his grip and I saw white marks from where his fingers had pressed into my skin. I convinced him to go into the classroom by bribing him with a trip to the toy shop at the weekend.
‘We need to talk to his teacher,’ Jay said that evening when I told him what had happened.
‘Just hold on, I’ll talk to Maya. I don’t want to drag the school into it if we can help it.’
‘Liv!’ Jay cried out in disbelief. ‘We need to go straight to the teacher. Enough is enough. Elliot is bullying our son and what’s more, he’s turning the other boys against him too.’
‘But Jay, it isn’t that straightforward. Maya is my friend; if the shoe was on the other foot, I’d hope that she’d come to me first. I owe her the courtesy of letting her know before the whole thing blows up. Hopefully, she can sort it out with Elliot beforethe school needs to intervene. Once she knows what’s going on, I’m sure she’ll deal with it.’
‘You said that last time and did nothing about it. We can’t let him get away with this. It’s been going on for too long. You said to give him time to settle and we did that. Now it’s nearly Christmas, it’s getting worse and it’s taking its toll on Finn.’
‘I know, I can see it.’
‘So you’re going to talk to her?’
‘Yes,’ I said a touch defensively. ‘I need to pick the right time. I can’t just ambush her by bringing it up at the school; maybe I could ask her to go for coffee,’ I suggested weakly.
‘All right,’ he said sceptically. ‘But if this doesn’t work then we’re going straight into the school.’
‘Of course,’ I agreed.
I hadn’t seen Maya since the fundraiser at the weekend. I had half-thought she might call me the following day, embarrassed by what she had confessed to me on Friday night, but I didn’t hear a thing from her.
I took up my phone and drafted out a text:
