Fighting Back by Cathy MacPhail Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t think. Oh Kerry … ’
    Now she could hardly tell me for crying. ‘Oh Kerry – look what they did.’
    She stood up and pulled me back into the hall where the box for the television still stood. The top of the box was already open, and when I looked inside I gasped.
    I couldn’t believe it. How could anyone be so rotten?
    Someone had poured bleach all over the new television. Someone had deliberately slit open the packaging, and emptied a bottle of destructive, eye-nipping bleach all over it.

Chapter Sixteen
    ‘I bet it was her next door!’ Mum kept insisting. ‘I can imagine her sneaking across the landing, ripping open the box, doing THAT!’
    The packaging had been sliced open expertly, by someone with the tools to do it, a Stanley knife perhaps. I shook my head. ‘No, Mum, not Sandra.’
    She mimicked me. ‘Oh, Sandra is it now? Friend of yours, is she?’
    ‘Mum, this is another warning. From the Laffertys.’
    ‘All this because of that silly business with the girl. I don’t believe it.’
    She looked at the television set once again, and the tears began rolling down her cheeks. She had been so happy yesterday, so determined that things were going to get better, and now …
    ‘What’s the point of trying? No one is ever going to accept us here. They’re all just nasty people. Well, thepolice are going to know all about this.’
    I began to protest loudly. But nothing was going to stop her.
    ‘I know they’re useless. They haven’t protected us at all. But they’re going to know about this!’
    The police arrived fifteen minutes later, Sergeant Mait-land and the Gorgeous Grant. And we hadn’t even called them.
    ‘How did you know?’ Mum asked as soon as she opened the door.
    The Sergeant looked baffled. ‘Know what?’
    ‘About my television … ’
    I could see a little frown appear on his brow. Mum almost pulled him into the hallway.
    ‘Look what she did! Look!’ And she yanked off the cardboard packaging dramatically.
    The Sergeant looked really angry when he saw what had been done to our television. Then he asked, ‘Who do you mean, she?’
    Mum answered that at once, no doubts at all. ‘Mrs Ramsay did this.’ She glanced at me. ‘Sandra to her friends.’
    The Sergeant was already shaking his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Sandra wouldn’t do anything like this.’
    ‘NO? She tried to strangle me in the laundrette the other day! What do you think of that!’
    ‘She what?’ Sergeant Maitland looked baffled.
    ‘It’s another warning from the Laffertys,’ I said, and both the policemen and Mum looked at me.
    ‘That’s why we’re here,’ PC Grant said. He looked a little stern.
    Mum suddenly remembered she hadn’t even called them. ‘Yes. Why are you here?’
    The Sergeant answered her. ‘I’m afraid we had a complaint. It would seem you, young lady,’ the young lady was me, ‘set upon Tess Lafferty and left her bruised with a black eye and three stitches in her leg.’ He held up my tie. ‘And we have this to prove it.’
    I had done all that? He could see the thought pleased me and he scowled, really scowled. ‘It’s not funny!’
    ‘It is when you think there were four of them. All ready to get into me. And I beat her.’
    Mum looked worried. ‘You were in a fight?’ She took in swiftly my bleeding knees, my hair and pulled me close. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Suddenly she turned on the police. ‘So the Laffertys just snap their fingers and they have you running here to complain to us – isn’t that amazing? Perhaps, of course, Ma Lafferty owns you too!’
    Oops! Wrong thing to say. The Sergeant looked angry. ‘Mrs Graham, I didn’t think for a minute that your daughter had set upon Tess Lafferty, I came here because I wanted to make sure she was all right. As for your television, I can understand how you must feel about that. But we have a real problem with vandalism up here. What happened to your television might have nothing to do with the