Multi Level Murder: A Cosy Mystery (The Wronged Women's Co-operative Book 8) by T E Scott

Author:T E Scott [Scott, T E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shuna Publishing
Published: 2024-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21: Bernie

It was two hours since Bernie had found out that her son was being bullied and she hadn’t done a single thing yet. To those who knew her as merely an acquaintance, that might have been surprising. But those who knew Bernie well knew that she liked to plan every move when she went on the attack. Like a cobra, she always waited until the correct moment to strike.

Not everyone seemed to have confidence in her ability to deal with the situation. Bernie had been fielding calls from Mary and Liz, each of them eager to offer their advice.

“Don’t go off on him for not sticking up for himself,” Liz had warned her. “You know that not everyone looks at the world like you.”

Mary had been just as quick to judge, in her own roundabout way. “They’re all just kids, really. I’m sure no one meant to hurt him.”

That sort of thing was very easy to say when it wasn’t your child that was involved, Bernie reflected. And she had seen Mary when her kids were threatened: the proverbial mongoose versus serpent sprung to mind.

It was funny, but Finn had been the one who had gone off on one when he found out. She had called him at work to tell him – making sure he wasn’t up on a roof at the time – and he had blustered about ‘giving the lads a piece of his mind.’ But Bernie knew how that would look if the little arseholes reported a six and a half foot tall man threatening them. No, much better if Bernie dealt with it, nice and quietly.

When Ewan came home from school, Bernie was waiting in the kitchen. Her first instinct had been to sit at the table and force him to sit down too, interrogation style, but Liz had warned her ‘not to go all Gestapo on him’. So she had tried to make it look a little less like an ambush.

“Hi,” Ewan said, dropping his bag at the door and moving towards the stairs.

“Why don’t you come in and chat with me,” Bernie said, plastering a smile on her face. “I’ve bought cookies.”

Ewan stiffened, pausing with one foot off the ground. “Cookies? What’s up, is someone dying?”

“No, just a wee treat,” Bernie said. Was she sweating? Why was this parenting thing harder than facing down murderers?

Enticed by the smell of sugar despite his wariness, Ewan came into the kitchen, grabbed a cookie and perched on the counter. He was almost as tall as she was now, his dark hair flopping over his forehead like he was trying to hide from the world. Bernie decided she needed to get on with it, or she would start feeling those soppy emotions that everyone else always had.

“I heard something funny the other day, and I wondered what you thought about it. Someone told me they had seen some kids pushing you around at school. So I wanted to know, are you having any trouble with the other kids?”

Ewan scrambled away, like a wounded animal.

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