The Italian Doctor's Perfect Family by Alison Roberts

Author:Alison Roberts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-11-18T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

ALICE was sitting, all alone, on a seat outside the headmaster’s office.

Pip finally slowed her pace. ‘What’s going on, Alice?’

‘Nothing.’

Which turned out to be precisely what the headmaster was concerned about.

‘Alice just isn’t doing anything at the moment,’ he informed Pip. ‘No work in class, no homework, no effort in any direction that we can detect. We’re worried about her.’

‘Oh.’ Pip looked at Alice, who was now slumped in a chair beside her in front of Bob Henley’s desk. She was staring at the floor and gave no indication that she was at all bothered by the fact she was in trouble.

Where had the child gone, who had rushed home from school eager to share the day’s accomplishments or bathe in the glow of parental pride engendered by a good end-of-term report?

Pip couldn’t also help wondering where those pleats she had painstakingly pressed into Alice’s school uniform last night had gone. Melted by the large splodge of green paint, perhaps? Her gaze travelled swiftly over her daughter as though seeing her from Bob’s point of view. A lot of hair had escaped the ponytail, a thread dangled from a drooping hem on the stained uniform and socks that should have been knee-high were slumped around ankles. From head to toe, Alice looked scruffy. And supremely bored.

‘We’ve had to confiscate her mobile phone and separate her from her friend, Dayna. Their behaviour in class has simply become too disruptive.’

‘I had no idea,’ Pip sighed.

‘Of course not. We thought it would be helpful to bring you into the picture sooner rather than later.’ Bob made a steeple of his fingers. ‘This has been a rather dramatic change for Alice over the last couple of months. I wondered if you knew of anything going on outside school that could be making the difference.’

Pip sat up a little straighter. Had she been neglectful as a parent in not informing the school of Shona’s illness? She hadn’t even thought of doing so, thanks to Shona’s insistence that things remain as normal as possible for Alice’s sake.

To give her time to get used to changes.

Like the change her relationship with Toni was causing.

If the school had noticed a difference over a period of nearly two months, that meant the deterioration in Alice’s behaviour coincided with Pip’s relationship with Toni and predated any hidden tension she might have picked up since the diagnosis of Shona’s illness. But it had been Alice who had encouraged Pip to find a boyfriend. Did she now resent the fact that Pip had someone else of significance in her life?

And if that resentment was enough to cause the negative change in attitude at school, how much worse would it be in a few months’ time—or however long Shona might have left?

A clear flash of her own resentment towards her mother in initially withholding the truth about her condition swept through Pip. As well as another resentment that Toni had sparked by suggesting Shona was wrong in trying to protect Alice like this.

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