Until You're Mine by Samantha Hayes Read Free Book Online Page A

desperately to think of something normal to say. ‘How many children do you have at the school?’
    ‘Just the one. Lilly. She’s in the same class as Oscar and Noah. They often play together so if you’re up for a bit of after-school chaos one day, we’ll have to arrange a visit.’
    ‘I’d like that,’ I say. The playground, with its odd-shaped climbing frame and spongy tarmac beneath, its bricked-off area with several newly planted trees and chimes hanging from their twiggy branches, and a few big pots of dried-up rosemary and lavender (labelled, curiously, ‘Sensory Garden’), is filling up with mothers. Some have pushchairs which they rock mindlessly back and forth while they chit-chat, some are on their own, and there’s just the one dad with a group of women clustered around him as if he’s a prize bull. ‘I think the boys would love that. I want to keep everything as normal as possible for them.’
It’s hardly their fault
, I think.
    ‘She said you were good,’ Pip says.
    Her hand is on my arm. Gently, I pull away. ‘I just want to be the most help I can. It’s my job.’
    ‘Where are you from?’ Pip asks.
    Here we go
. ‘Kent originally. Then my parents divorced and I ended up living with my mother in the back of beyond in Wales. Not many kids at my school went on to university, me included, but I knew from a very young age what I wanted to be. I’ve always loved kids. I went to college and studied childcare and it’s landed me some amazing jobs. I’ve recently been in Italy where I took a course in the Montessori method. It was a brilliant experience.’ I cringe inwardly. It sounds too rehearsed.
    ‘No way,’ Pip chimes. ‘One of my other friends is crazy about the Montessori method. She’s got her three little ones on a waiting list. I’ll have to introduce you.’
    Please don’t
, I think. Then that grin again. It’s as pre-programmed as my story and will remain that way until I leave.
    Eventually the bell rings and, like a bunch of well-trained dogs, the waiting mothers and the father – who’s now got several other dads around him – all turn to face the school door. A string of children files out with a weary-looking teacher leading the way. She makes them stand in a line and, one by one, they spot their mummies and their little feet itch to break away into the arms of home. Oscar and Noah are nowhere to be seen.
    ‘Is this the reception class?’ I ask Pip.
    ‘It is,’ she says, not taking her eyes off a little blonde girl at the end of the line. They are waving at each other. Lilly, I presume. With lopsided bunches and a cute turned-up nose, shiny shoes and a pink lunch box, she is clearly the class angel.
    ‘I don’t see the twins,’ I say.
    ‘Oh. No, you’re right.’ Pip glances up and down the line in case I’ve missed them. I don’t think there’d be any mistaking those two livewires in this well-behaved line-up.
    ‘I’ll go and see the teacher,’ I say. My heart kicks up a gear. Is it my fault if they’ve escaped from school or been kidnapped on my first day at work? Getting the sack this early would be no good. No good at all.
    ‘Hi, Mrs Culver,’ I say. ‘The boys. The twins. Oscar and Noah.’ Her expression tells me that she vaguely remembers me from this morning though her child-worn brain is probably yelling that it was a thousand years ago since we shook hands in the brightly-decorated classroom.
    Mrs Culver scans the line-up. ‘I counted them all,’ she says. ‘Lilly, do you know where the twins have gone?’ Then she turns to me, ignoring what Lilly says. ‘Probably making water bombs in the boys’ loo.’
    ‘I think that Lilly knows . . .’ I look at the little girl. She’s trying to say something.
    ‘Speak up, Lilly,’ Mrs Culver snaps.
    Lilly points inside the single-storey school building. I wink at her and grin. It will buy me points when we finally meet. I head off inside, leaving Mrs Culver to hand over the rest of the