Free Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton Page B

cynical,’ I said.
    ‘I’ve worked there, remember,’ Jenny said. ‘So I
know
to be cynical. It’s a business. And prize-giving is a part of that.’
    ‘You were only there for three weeks. And there’s a prize for improvement,’ I said a little lamely.
    Adam glanced up from fastening his bookbag. His look identical to Jenny’s. ‘That doesn’t mean anything, Mum. Everyone knows that.’
    ‘But you’d like to win it anyway?’ Jenny asked him.
    He nodded, a little embarrassed. ‘But I won’t. I never win anything.’
    She smiled at him. ‘Me neither.’
    Eight minutes later, we were in the car. Adam is the only person Jenny will hurry for.
    We were going to arrive at school early, as we did every morning. I know you think we shouldn’t
buy into his anxiety
but arriving five minutes earlier than necessary is something you have to factor in when you’re looking after him. It just is.
    ‘How long till you’re working at school again?’ Adam asked Jenny as we neared Sidley House.
    He’d been so proud of her being a teaching assistant there last summer, even though she wasn’t in his class.
    ‘After A levels,’ Jenny replied. ‘So just a couple more months.’
    ‘That’s really soon,’ I said, panicked by the proximity of A levels. ‘You must get that revision timetable sorted out this evening.’
    ‘I’m going to Daphne’s.’
    ‘But Dad’s coming home,’ Adam said.
    ‘He’ll be at the prize-giving evening with you, won’t he?’ Jenny replied.
    ‘S’pose so,’ Adam agreed, not fully trusting that you’ll turn up. That’s not a criticism; he worries about anyone actually turning up.
    ‘You should cancel,’ I said to Jenny. ‘At least do the timetable this evening, even if not any actual revision.’
    ‘Mum…’
    She was putting on mascara in the sun-visor mirror.
    ‘Working hard now means you’ll have so many more choices in the future.’
    ‘I’d rather live my life now than revise for a future one, alright?’
    No, I thought, it’s not alright. And if only she could put the mental agility used in that rejoinder into her A-level work.
    We walked the last bit, as we always do, along the oak-lined driveway. Adam was gripping my hand.
    ‘OK, Ads?’
    Tears were starting, and he was trying not to let them out.
    ‘Does he really have to go?’ Jenny asked. I was thinking the same. But Adam stoically let go of my hand and went to the gate. He pressed the buzzer on the gate and the secretary let him in.
    You’d been away filming since the day after Mr Hyman was fired, so you hadn’t been there to see the consequences. In our brief, badly-connected phone calls you’d been more worried about Jenny, checking up that no more hate mail had arrived – which it hadn’t, thank God – but it didn’t leave much space for Adam. And I hadn’ttold you; perhaps fearful of igniting a flashpoint between us. So you still didn’t know that for Adam it was almost like a grief. Not only had he lost a teacher he adored, but the adult world had proved itself cruel and unjust and nothing like the stories he read. Beast Quest books and Harry Potter and Arthurian legends and Percy Jackson – his whole literary culture up to this point – didn’t end like this. He was prepared for unhappy endings, but not unjust ones. His teacher was sacked. For something he didn’t do.
    And school was already mutating back into the hostile place it had been before Mr Hyman was his teacher.
    At quarter to six, after a ‘
lightning-quick supper, Ads!
’ and a change into clean uniform, we arrived early at the prize-giving with his shoes polished and his blazer brushed so he wouldn’t get into trouble. I was in faded jeans with a genuine rip as a protest, which he liked. ‘
Cool, Mum!
’ There’s a subversive streak lurking in Adam somewhere.
    Other mothers would be in their designer Net-a-Porter uniforms and expensive sleek boots.
    We were fifteen minutes early, partly because Adam is in the choir so had