Don't Tell Mummy by Maguire Toni

Author:Maguire, Toni [Toni Maguire]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007279838
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2006-12-09T11:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

The check-up at the hospital had gone well, and I was pronounced fit to return to school, although I was to be excused from all sports and PE classes, as I was not yet considered strong enough for them. That news I received with pleasure; popularity was won at that particular school not by the ability of a pupil in the classroom but by their skill on the hockey field, speed on the netball court and agility in the gym. None of which I excelled at. Now I had a cast iron excuse to escape the lessons I disliked, and the ridicule that inevitably followed.

My mother had taken a short holiday from work to get me settled and for the next two weeks I enjoyed coming home to her. There were always hot, freshly baked scones and a pot of tea waiting for me and, on Fridays, homemade coffee cake, my favourite. But my greatest pleasure was having my mother to myself, being able to chatter to her without feeling the stealthy gaze of my father following me around.

After I’d eaten and played with Judy I sat at the kitchen table with my homework, which was more demanding now that I was in the seniors and had a lost term to catch up on. My mother would prepare supper as I worked, and as I sat in that warm kitchen I wished those days would never end.

I made up my mind then to stand up to my father when my mother returned to work. I would tell him that now I knew what he did to me was wrong. Although I had always loathed what he did to me I had, up till then, accepted it as unavoidable. After six weeks in a happy household I had come to realize just how wrong it was. Instinctively, I had always known that I must not discuss ‘our secret’, knew that it was a shameful act, but was still too young to see that the shame was his not mine. I felt that if I told people what was going on they would never again see me as a normal child and would in some way blame me.

Lulled into a false feeling of security, I had settled back into school. My reputation for being delicate made me even more of an oddity, but at least the other children left me alone. Their teasing and taunting ceased because after such a long illness the teachers had made it clear that bullying me would not be tolerated.

The last day of my mother’s holiday arrived, bringing with it the reappearance of the jovial father. He entered the house, a dazzling smile on his face and a faint smell of whiskey on his breath. I tried not to wince as his hand chucked me under the chin and then slid up my cheek to rest on my head.

‘Look Antoinette, I’ve a present for you.’ He unbuttoned the top of his coat to show me a small grey wriggling bundle of fur.

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