Free Punished: A mother’s cruelty. A daughter’s survival. A secret that couldn’t be told. by Vanessa Steel

a fright, and it certainly worked.
    The guard came over to us. ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked.
    ‘I don’t suppose you’d like a little girl?’ Mum said. ‘You can have this one, but I warn you that she’s very naughty. Maybe you can send her to work in the coal mines.’
    ‘She’s got pretty blue eyes.’ The guard looked down at me sympathetically.
    ‘Nonsense. Look at her! She’s ugly as sin!’ Mum marched off with me trailing in her wake, trying to grab hold of the fashionable swing coat she was wearing. I begged her to lift me up, scared of losing her again, but she ignored me. A tearful, snotty little girl trying to cling on to her favourite coat must have wound her up no end.
    * * *
    I wonder if she might have liked a pretty, sociable daughter she could show off to strangers like a fashion accessory, or if she would have preferred not to have had kids at all? All mothers have their days when the kids drive them crazy, with whining and being clingy and getting in the way. However, for some reason my very existence seemed to drive Mum crazy. She just couldn’t bear me being around. At least once a week, usually more, God would tell her about some crime I had committed and I would be beaten and locked in the spider cupboard until bedtime.
    * * *
    When Nigel and I had been out at school all day, mealtimes became a flashpoint, an opportunity for Mum to take out the frustrations of her day. She played a despicable trick one night when I’d just finished eating a stew she’d made for dinner.
    ‘Did you enjoy that?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes,’ I said warily.
    ‘Was it delicious? One of your favourite meals ever?’
    ‘Em, yes.’
    ‘That’s interesting.’ Mum’s eyes glinted. ‘Do you realize you’ve just been eating Whirly? I made a rabbit stew.’
    Nigel reacted first, spitting out the last bite in his mouth. ‘Ewwwuuh, that’s disgusting.’
    I jumped to my feet to run out into the back garden but Mum extended a hand to stop me. ‘What do you say?’
    ‘Please may I leave the table?’ I mumbled, and she gave permission. I rushed straight out to the rabbit hutch and was devastated to find it empty. There was just a hollow in the straw where Whirly had been sleeping when I looked in on him that morning. The stew rose in my throat and I retched violently, and began to cry. Mum came out to watch, and Nigel followed close behind.
    ‘How could you?’ I demanded through my tears.
    ‘You silly girl. It was only a stupid rabbit.’
    ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Mum. It’s wrong. That was Nessa’s rabbit, not yours,’ Nigel complained.
    ‘Shut up! I’m fed up with both of you. Get out of my sight. Go to your beds now.’
    I lay in bed wide-awake, thinking of the bits of Whirly in my stomach and feeling utterly sickened. I remembered his twitchy nose and trusting eyes and the way he liked his head being stroked and I burst into a fresh wave of crying. I hoped against hope that Dad would come home that night so that I could tell him – he had bought Whirly for me after all – but he didn’t appear. I hardly got a wink of sleep and crawled out of bed the next morning weighed down by grief.
    I was sitting at the breakfast table unable to swallow a morsel of my cereal when Nigel burst in the back doorlooking excited. ‘Nessa, guess what? Whirly’s back. Come and see.’
    We ran out to the hutch and sure enough, there he was, nose twitching, looking up to see if I had brought any carrot tops.
    Mum was laughing her head off when we trooped back indoors. ‘Got you!’ she crowed. ‘You should have seen your face when you thought you’d eaten him. That was hilarious!’
    She was triumphant after each malicious victory of this kind. Far from infuriating her in the way I used to as a pre-schooler, I got the impression that she couldn’t wait for me to get home from school so she could inflict her next sadistic punishment on me. Caning didn’t give her the same satisfaction because