Free Breaking the Silence by Casey Watson Page B

just get into
more
trouble. D’you understand that?’
    Jenson looked crushed suddenly, and I wished Marie hadn’t placed such emphasis on the word ‘more’ there. Because Jenson had obviously leapt on it immediately. And I watched his eyes begin to fill with tears again. ‘So is it my fault?’ he said brokenly. ‘Is she in trouble cos I ran off from school today – is that it?’
    ‘Good lord, no!’ Marie reassured him. ‘No, not at
all
, Jenson.’ She took his hand and squeezed it. ‘Of course you
shouldn’t
have run off – you know that, don’t you?’ Jenson nodded. ‘You should have done as Casey and Mike said, shouldn’t you?’ He nodded again. ‘But the judge decided what he decided before he even knew that. It’s not your fault, Jenson. It was because Mum went on holiday, that was all. Because you’re too young to be left – both of you; you and Carley are both too young, and she should have realised it wasn’t appropriate to do that … that’s all.’
    Jenson turned to me now, wiping a sleeve across the end of his nose, obviously keen not to get either himself or his mother into any further trouble. ‘I’m sorry for running off, Casey,’ he said forlornly. Which made me want to scoop him up and hug him, but I resisted. It would probably just set him off crying all over again.
    ‘That’s okay, sweetie,’ I said instead. ‘You just gave us all a bit of a fright, that’s all. No harm done.’ I ruffled his hair. ‘As long as you
don’t do it again
, okay? Anyway, let’s have this drink, shall we? Then we’ll get you back to ours. Honestly, I can’t believe you were all set to leave us without your new DS!’
    Which raised a smile at last.
    And Jenson did seem to cheer up as we headed back to our house, and delighted in explaining to me how he’d figured out his escape plan.
    ‘I know the main gates get locked,’ he explained. ‘They have to do that cos of paedophiles and serial killers and that – so when it was lunchtime I went to the fence round the field. It’s a long fence, and there’s always bits where it’s a bit broken and that. An’ most of it leads on to a big road round the back, and it’s good because the offices an’ that are on the other side, so they can’t see you. An’ I found a place really easy, so that bit was okay …’
    ‘And off you went.’
    ‘No, I couldn’a gone then. Cos of the afternoon register. So I had to wait till I got a chance –’
    ‘Which you were lucky to get, by all accounts.’
    He looked sheepish. ‘Yeah, well … an’ so I had to take it, didn’t I? An’ then I just legged it over the field, took my school sweatshirt off, so no one would tell I was a school kid, and legged it all the way home.’
    If I’d suppressed a smile at ‘paedophiles and serial killers an’ that’, I was hard pushed to do so at his delightful 9-year-old reasoning that if he took off his sweatshirt no one would know he was a ‘school kid’. An image came to mind, then, of an alternative universe. One in which there were two grades of child – the normal, school-going kind, and an underclass of other kids, who were occupied differently. Little chimney sweeps, vagabonds and Dickensian-style urchins, who roamed the streets when the rest were doing their sums. ‘So,’ I asked, ‘what about your sister? What about Carley?’
    The made him scowl. ‘She an’ Mum had already gone – I
knew
they would! I just knew it!’
    ‘Gone where?’
    Jenson shrugged. ‘Round Gary’s, most probly. I bet Carley didn’t think I’d do it. But I
did
!’
    I decided not to probe further into the machinations of Jenson’s family. Best not to inflame things further and get him all wound up again. But one thing was for sure – it didn’t augur well for the outcome, in terms of getting Jenson home again. I had just the one impression of his mum so far – irresponsible. No, actually, two. Irresponsible and neglectful. And just what was the business with