SHORT STORIES

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STAYING SILENT

 

Heather was adopted as a very young infant. Her new parents brought her home and began immediately to raise her as their own. She never saw them as anything else, only mum and dad and they only ever saw a daughter. 

 

Her mum and dad, Michael and Agnes were older parents but Heather never seemed to notice, not at first anyway, and even when she did, they were still the parents that she loved more than anything. She was very close especially to her dad who spoiled her rotten. He was almost 60 when she was adopted and to Heather, he was the best dad in the whole world.  She had a good relationship too with her mum who also spoiled her, however, her mum wanted Heather to be the best at everything and when Heather wasn’t, her mum became very strict and Heather was often slapped. 

 

Heather’s dad had his own business and had to travel a lot due to it. He was often gone from Monday morning until Friday evening. He would leave her to school first before he went off and Heather would scream the place down in the cloakroom clinging to him until one of the nuns would drag her away and slap her hard when she wouldn’t settle down. She’d cry and cry for ages in class after and other children would laugh and snigger. 

 

In the school yard, Heather began to get bullied by a few of the other children. They would chant, ‘your real mother didn’t want you’ at her and ‘they’re not your parents, that old couple are your grandparents’. Heather would cry but she would never tell anyone. She was too afraid. The bullies were always telling her too that she’d be sent to an orphanage and that she’d never see her mum and dad again. 

 

Heather’s parents were well to do and she always had the best clothes and books. She never had to have hand me downs like many of the other children and she got bullied over that too. She couldn’t understand why some of the other children were so cruel. 

 

Once a year during school term, Heather’s parents would take her out of school with permission and they would go on a holiday, often abroad. She would come back to school then with a golden tan and one of the other girls began to say that she didn’t have a tan, that it was stuff she rubbed on, and had only pretended to go on holiday. One time, shortly after Heather had returned from holiday, a nun came to visit the school and put up a projector to show some slides. She was an Irish missionary who was based out in Asia and the slides showed pictures of Asian children and how they lived. The nun called them ‘The brown babies’. Later on that day, after school, when Heather was walking home by herself, the bullies ran after her and pushed her down an alleyway, causing her to fall. They began to kick her and told her to go back to Asia because she was a brown baby and didn’t belong there with them. Heather felt very afraid and prayed for someone to come along and rescue her but no one came. Finally the bullies stopped and went off, leaving Heather lying there. When she got home, she pretended to her mum that she had simply fallen. Her mum was cross and told her to be more careful in future as she had torn her gymslip. Heather ran up to her room and cried her eyes out. 

  

When Heather was 11 years old, her grandfather died. He lived in a neighboring town with her grandmother, and her aunt, uncle and cousin lived next door. Heather was very close to her cousin, Jennifer, in fact they were more like sisters. Both of them were an only child and their mums were sisters. So at the end of the 5th class in primary school, Heather’s parents decided to send her to the school beside her grandmother and family. Firstly her mum wanted to spend as much time with her own mum as she could, she felt that Heather’s granny needed all of her family around her. 

 

Moving into a new school was very difficult. Heather felt afraid, she was going to miss  her friends from her old school and she wasn’t sure how the new school children were going to accept her. Jennifer was in the same school only she was in the class below where Heather was going to start. The girls wished that they could be in the same class but it wasn’t going to happen. The two of them got up to a lot of mischief when they were together and Heather’s mum, who was a retired teacher, wanted Heather to study hard at school and become a teacher too. So she felt that if the two girls went into the same class, no work would be done. 

 

The day arrived and Heather’s mum brought her down to the school. It was her mum’s old school too where she went as a child. And the principal was a nun called Sr Giuseppe who had taught Agnes all those years ago. Sr Giuseppe brought Heather upstairs to her new classroom, and Sr Mari was already in the classroom waiting for her. She seemed nice enough to Heather but at the same time, Heather felt that she would stand for no nonsense. There were no pupils in the classroom when Heather arrived so Sr Mari got her seated and soon the rest of the class began to arrive. They all stared at Heather as they passed and Heather became very nervous as some of them didn’t seem very friendly at all. When they had all sat down, Heather was still sitting on her own. Then the door opened and a girl called Christina came in. Sr Mari immediately called her over and spoke quietly to her. She gestured for her to sit beside Heather. The girl reluctantly sat down but kept looking around. Then Sr Mari spoke to the class and introduced Heather and said she was going to be joining the class from her old school as her family were living nearby. Later another girl came in and went to sit down. She smiled at Heather as she passed. Heather knew her from music lessons. Her name was Bernie. She felt a little better that she finally knew someone in the class and someone who was nice and friendly. 

 

A few days passed and Christina wasn’t a bit friendly towards Heather. No matter how Heather tried, there just was very little response. Heather felt that many of the others continued to either ignore or snigger at her. She couldn’t understand why. Then one day out in the playground, one of the girls approached Heather and told her to go home. Said that she didn’t belong there. When Heather asked why, she was told that it was because she didn’t live in the town. She was a blow into the school and therefore not part of the gang. Heather protested that her mum came from the town and that her dad had his business there. The girl relayed all this back to a couple of other girls and they were sniggering. Then they said that they knew that she was adopted and that she had no family that wanted her. Heather’s heart broke. She couldn’t understand how they all seemed to know about her. 

 

Sr Mari was very strict and Heather was often afraid of her. Along with that and with how some of the other girls were treating her, she decided that she didn’t want to go to school at all. But she knew that she couldn’t tell her parents. So she began to play truant. She would often get her dad to sign a blank document that she had folded over, she would tell him that it was for a school project, but in reality it was a letter for Sr Mari to excuse her for the day or sometimes a few days, saying that she had a family event to attend to or that she was sick. Then she would go into school and hand the letter to Sr Mari and leave the school as fast as she could. She would sometimes go upstairs in her granny’s or her aunt’s house and hide in one of the rooms there. Other times, she would go up to the church and after making sure no one was around, she would hide upstairs in the gallery. She would stay in her hiding place until lunch time and then reappear in her aunt’s kitchen for lunch and then disappear again to her hiding place. Other times, she would walk up a back road and hide in one of the nearby fields. This went on for many months and she managed to get away with it, only attending school as little as she could. She was just too upset and miserable to sit in the class. Then one day, one of her classmates came into her granny’s shop and met up with Heather’s mum there. The girl asked her mum how Heather was and her mum, totally surprised, asked what she meant. The girl explained that Heather was hardly ever at school. Her mum upon hearing this, immediately went down to the school to meet with Sr Mari and Sr Giuseppe. None of them could understand what was going on. When Heather reappeared later in her granny’s house, she found her mum, Sr Mari and Sr Giuseppe waiting for her demanding an explanation. All she would tell them was that she didn’t like school and that she wanted to go back to her old school only to be told that it just wasn’t possible. She was watched like a hawk for the remainder of the school year. 

 

When Heather was due to start secondary school, her mum and the nuns thought that it would be a good idea to place her in the boarding school where a close eye could be kept on her by the nuns. Her mum had attended a boarding school in her day and she had loved it. Heather pleaded with her parents not to send her but her mum was insistent. Her dad wasn’t so sure but her mum was not going to be dissuaded. So time was spent getting all ready to begin both boarding and secondary school. 

 

The day came for Heather to go into boarding school. She was to begin in the nearby secondary school the following morning. Heather’s mum and dad drove her in and her mum began to carry her belongings up to the dorm where she would sleep. There were 8 beds in each dorm with a curtain around each bed. Heather was shown to a middle bed and told where to put her stuff. There were a couple of wash hand basins out in the open for the girls to wash up each morning and night. As the other girls came into the dorm each accompanied by their mum, Heather was looking around for a friendly face to help her feel more at ease in this scary place. She was just 12 years old and felt very scared. 

 

When the parents had all left, a couple of the nuns appeared, Sr Ailsa was in charge of the boarders and she began to explain all the rules, saying that they would be told things only once and that all rules were to be kept to the letter. Otherwise, they would be severely punished. Everyone was told to make their beds and come down to the refectory for their evening meal. Heather struggled to make her bed, especially as her bed was closed in on three sides by a partition. There was another bed on the other side of it. All the other beds were out on their own. Eventually, she managed and when she was ready, she followed the others down to the ref for the meal. The tables were all laid out in a way that she didn’t sit with anyone else from her year. The head of each table was a leaving cert student, followed by a fifth year, inter cert, second year and a first year with one other girl there too. First years were last to be served and Heather wasn’t looking forward to this meal at all. She ate very little. Food was forbidden in the dorms, however they were allowed to have a tuck box each which was kept in a cupboard in the refectory. They only got access to it at certain times. 

 

Everyone headed back upstairs later to get ready for bed, all too soon, it was lights out and Sr Ailsa warned that talking or moving of any kind was forbidden. So everyone lay as silently as they could. 

 

The next morning, one of the nuns came in and announced loudly that it was time to wake up. Each girl had a face cloth and a small towel and they took it in turns to stand at one of the wash basins to top and tail themselves. Then it was time to get dressed, they had to put on their school uniform and head into the convent chapel for morning Mass. After Mass, they came back over and went into the refectory for breakfast. Again, Heather ate very little as she just didn’t like it and felt very nervous. They went upstairs to the dorms to get ready for school and came downstairs then and crossed the yard to the secondary school. It was the first day and Heather felt very anxious. 

 

Starting off in a new school was very daunting as Heather had already experienced in the past. First years all met with the principal, Sr Gertrude, and discovered that they were going to be divided into 3 groups. Each group was shown then to a class room and given their planner for the year. The school day went well enough and the boarders returned to their refectory for lunchtime. Again, Heather didn’t eat very much and told herself that she’d run up to her granny’s after school and get something there. When the school day was over, Heather returned over with the rest of the boarders and as it was their first day, there was no real homework to do. 

 

So Heather decided to go over to her granny’s which was just a few yards away from the school. Her granny was delighted to see her and made her something to eat. She stayed there for an hour and promised to return the following evening. Upon returning to the boarding school after, she was met by Sr Ailsa who demanded to know where she had been. She told her only to be met with the reply, that she had no right whatsoever going up there as boarders were forbidden to leave school grounds. Heather began to cry and said that she had promised her granny to see her the next day, to which Sr Ailsa replied that she was doing no such thing. 

 

Heather went up to the dormitory still crying and found some of the other girls laughing. One of them called Gwendoline approached her and asked in a mocking tone, ‘ah what’s wrong poor baby’? Heather began to tell them what Sr Ailsa had said and they all continued to giggle. When it came time to go down for the evening meal, Heather decided not to go. Instead she lay down on her bed and cried. She hated being here and wanted to go home. After a short while, Sr Ailsa came marching in, clapping her hands and shouting ‘get up, get up’. She asked Heather what she thought she was doing and Heather replied that she didn’t feel like going down for tea. Sr Ailsa told her that boarding school was not about what she felt like doing, it was about obeying the rules and doing what she was told. So she was marched down to the refectory and sat at her table. Heather ate very little again, partly because she wasn’t keen on what was there and partly because she wasn’t going to be offered much. The head girl served up the food and by the time she fed herself and everyone else, there was nothing much left for Heather. Instead she went over to her tuck box and got herself a packet of biscuits and began to eat a couple. Sr Ailsa promptly marched over and snatched them out of her hand and then slapped her, telling her as she had been very naughty, she wasn’t getting any treats for the rest of the week. Heather felt the tears streaming down her cheeks again and Sr Ailsa told her to grow up and all the other girls who were nearby began to laugh again. Heather felt very alone and frightened. She wanted her dad to come and rescue her and take her home but there was no way to contact him and even if she did, she knew that her mum wasn’t going to upset the nuns. So she felt truly lost.

 

As the weeks went on, Heather felt more lonely and scared. The rules of the boarding school were tough and she wasn’t making many friends there. Many of the girls already knew each other from the different places they came from. As Heather came from nearby, there were no other boarders from her area. Her friends from class were all day pupils. Gwendoline began to take a real dislike to Heather for no real reason. She was constantly picking on her, and asking her questions about sex to which Heather didn’t know the answers. Gwendoline was one of the popular girls and a bully. A Lot of the other girls simply went along with what she said because Heather reckoned that either they really liked Gwen and disliked Heather or they were too afraid of Gwendoline to go against her. Either way, Heather felt very vulnerable and afraid. 

 

One night Heather awoke in the dark to feel a sticky hot liquid being poured into her hair and down her face. She didn’t know what it was but it didn’t smell good at all. Then the figure moved down and lifted Heather’s blankets and poured more of the liquid in between Heather’s legs. Heather asked who it was only to be met with a giggle. She kept asking what was going on but all she got was giggles. Then the figure moved away and Heather saw it go over and get into Gwendoline’s bed. She realized that it was her but couldn’t understand what she was pouring over her or why. She got up and went over to the wash basin to rinse off her face but had no way to wash her hair. Boarders were not allowed to wash their hair and had no way of showering. In the morning, Sr Ailsa came in and immediately lifted Heather’s blankets and dragging her out of bed, began to slap her for wetting the bed. Heather tried to protest that she hadn’t done it but was too afraid to tell what really happened so she simply took the punishment. 

 

The bullying by Gwendoline and a few others continued but Heather never told anyone. She was too afraid. Boarders got home from a Friday evening until a Sunday evening and Heather would cry before she went back, pleading with her parents not to make her go but she would never tell them why. She knew that her mum would go down to Sr Ailsa and that things would get worse for her. Her mum used to go down to the school quite regularly and speak to Sr Gertrude about Heather’s schoolwork. Her mum, being a retired teacher, wanted Heather to do well and go to university. When the other children would see her mum at the principal's office, they would come running and sniggering to Heather. Heather so wished that her mum wouldn’t do that but she was powerless to do anything about it. 

 

A few nights later, Heather woke again to find the same liquid being poured into her hair and over her face and chest. And down her body. She begged Gwendoline to stop but she wouldn’t. A few of the other girls got up to see what was going on and Gwendoline told them to go back to bed. The next morning, Sr Ailsa came in again and Heather got slapped for wetting the bed. She had to sleep in the wet bed until Friday came and then she could bring her sheets and blankets home to be washed. Her mum asked her what happened and she said that she spilled something on the bed by accident. But this was becoming a regular occurrence. Heather still hadn’t figured out what the liquid was or why Gwen was doing this. Until one night, she heard Gwen getting up and pulling out some kind of container. It was very hard to see as it was so dark but she could just make out the shadows. And then she heard what sounded like water being poured into a jug. Only Heather knew that there was no sink over there. And she got up and crept slowly and quietly over to Gwendoline’s bed and to her horror she saw her urinating into the jug. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing but she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t tell anyone, she was too afraid and also she knew that she probably wouldn’t be believed. Instead of going back to bed, she crept out to the door but she couldn’t go out into the corridor in case Sr Ailsa would catch her. In the darkness, she saw Gwendoline walk over to her bed and then heard her calling her. When she didn’t reply, Gwendoline simply went back to her own bed but returned later in the night when Heather had gone back to bed and fallen asleep. 

 

At lunch time the next day, after a bad morning in class, when others began to tell Heather that she smelled bad, Heather’s cousin Jennifer was coming up from primary school and saw Heather crying. She asked her what was wrong and Heather said that someone poured something into her hair and that it smelled bad. She didn’t tell Jennifer any more details. Jennifer suggested that they go up to her house and she’d help Heather to wash her hair. Heather went back to school feeling better but dreading going to sleep again that night. This went on for several weeks. Each time she would go up to her aunt’s house with Jennifer and get her hair washed until one time, Jennifer’s hair dryer wouldn’t work and Heather had to return to school with wet hair. Half way down the steps to the school, they were met by Sr Ailsa who demanded to know why Heather’s hair was wet. Heather didn’t reply and Sr Ailsa asked again. She said that she knew that Heather had gone up to her granny’s house in spite of being told that she was forbidden to do so. And then not only that but she had gone and washed her hair too. She began to slap Heather relentlessly and Jennifer turned and took off. Heather was crying hard as Sr Ailsa continued to slap her over and over. After a while, Jennifer arrived back with Heather’s dad. He saw his daughter crying and being slapped and he put an immediate stop to it. In a very calm voice he told Sr Ailsa that she was to never put a hand on his daughter again. She turned on her heels and walked off. Heather’s dad took her and Jennifer up to their granny’s house for the afternoon. 

 

Gwendoline continued to bully Heather but never poured anything over her again. But the verbal abuse accelerated. Somehow, Gwendoline had discovered that Heather was adopted and began to say hurtful things to her. She said that the only reason she was adopted was because her real mother and family didn’t want her because she was fat and ugly, and had trouble with her speech at times and had barbed wire in her mouth.  Heather had suffered a bad fall when she was around 8 and the fall had affected her teeth, making one of them crooked so at the age of 12, her parents took her to an orthodontist and she was fitted with braces. She was the only one in her year at the boarding school who had braces and Gwendoline began to call her barbed wire over them. Heather began to hide away her braces during the week up in her granny’s house and she would only put them on before going home. She felt bad because her dad was paying so much for her to have them but she couldn’t bear the bullying over them.  

              

The school year was two thirds of the way through and it was time for the Easter break. Heather was glad to be coming home for the week and a half. However, shortly after Easter Sunday, Heather began to get severe pains in her stomach and was up all night getting sick. Her parents decided to take her to the doctor the next morning and after examining her he told them to take her straight up to the hospital. He rang ahead to say that they were coming. She was immediately taken up to one of the wards and given a bed. Her parents were told to go home and come back later on in the evening. A doctor came along and examined Heather and told her that she was going to have an operation to have her appendix removed but for her not to worry. Heather was back in the ward later on after having the surgery and her parents came in and were surprised to know that she already had the operation. They stayed with her for a few hours and promised to come back the next day. Heather got home a week later and was able to relax for another week before she had to go back to school. 

 

Heather’s parents decided not to send her back to boarding school for the final term and she became a day student instead which made her happier. Even though her mum was strict at home, she knew she would be a lot safer. School was still unpleasant a lot of the time but knowing that she was going home and sleeping in her own bed each night made it a little more bearable. Heather often went up to her aunt’s house with Jennifer for lunch. Other days, they all went down to a cafe in the town and passed the time there. After a few weeks, it was time for summer holidays and schools closed for the end of term. Heather and Jennifer enjoyed their summer holidays and prayed for them to never end. 

 

However, as the summer was coming to an end, and Heather was getting ready to begin second year, her mum decided to send her back to boarding school again. Heather was terrified and begged her parents not to do that. But her mum said that boarding school was the best place for her. So back she went again. This time, the students were all due to get their own little cubicles as the dormitories were for first years. But when Heather arrived, Sr Ailsa told her that she was going back into the dorm with the first year students as there was no free cubicle left for her. Heather was heartbroken. She didn’t know what to expect with a new group of students and ones who were younger than her. She even ended up in the same bed as she had before. 

 

After school, the boarders were allowed to go out and play on school grounds and after evening tea, they had to go to study hall. Gwendoline found every opportunity to make Heather’s life a misery and she recruited a few others to help her. Each time Heather's adoption came up and Gwendoline made rude comments,she also said cruel things about Heather’s dad being much older. Heather adored her dad and it broke her heart to hear things like that said about him. The bullies mocked Heather when she struggled to speak properly at times. They called her names and made her cry which made them laugh and taunt even more. Heather hated school because of them. And many of the teachers were too strict so she just didn’t enjoy class at all. Her dream of becoming a teacher was slipping away as each day went on. She felt guilty because she knew that her mum would be disappointed and maybe angry if she didn’t study hard and get the marks she needed to get to university. But no matter how hard she tried, things just didn’t go to plan. She continued to struggle. 

        

Heather did manage to make a few friends among the boarders, some who were in her year and a few who were older. Their parents were friendly with Heather’s parents and this helped to break the ice. So she was glad to finally have people to hang out with. However, Gwendoline was always there in the background. But as time went on, Heather tried to ignore her as best as she could. 

              

Christmas was coming up and the school was going to put on a musical as they had in previous years. Heather had been one of many who were chosen to be in it in her first year. Everyone was auditioned for the play by a professional from Dublin and only those whom he saw fit got picked. Heather was looking forward to it. Especially as Gwendoline wasn’t going to be in it. She had auditioned but wasn’t chosen. So finally Heather was going to have an escape from her, at least for a while. They had to rehearse every day and that was fun. When the play was finally ready to be shown, everyone got into their costumes and it was screened for 3 nights. Heather enjoyed it so much, the play felt like she could be in another world for that time. 

             

All too soon, school was breaking up for the Christmas holidays. Heather couldn’t wait. She would be glad to be home and begin putting up the Christmas Crib and tree. She loved doing this. Her parents would take her to Dublin for a day to do Christmas shopping and meet up with her uncle who was a famous author. Heather was very fond of him as he always treated her kindly and sent her books. He never made her feel like she was anything else other than his niece. Her adoption never seemed to matter with him. She often wished that she could be an author like he was. Maybe one day………….

        

Christmas eve arrived and Heather and her cousin Jennifer went off with her parents to do some last minute shopping and have a meal out. In her eyes, Christmas eve was magical and she wished that every day could be like this. They went to a large town about 20 miles away. There was a good variety of shops there and Heather and Jennifer had fun going around them. They met up with her mum and dad after an hour and went to a hotel to have a meal. Heather wished that life could always be as easy and as pleasant as this. She wished that she never had to go back to school. But for now, she was embracing these wonderful days. 

              

Christmas day arrived and Heather and her parents went out to early Mass. The church had a large crowd and everyone joined in with the choir singing Christmas hymns. At home after Mass, Heather’s parents spoiled her with loads of presents. It was like being in toyland opening them all. Everything that she had wanted and more was there. At the time, she didn’t realize how lucky she was. She couldn’t wait to meet up with Jennifer the following day and tell her what she got and hear also what Jennifer got. Heather helped her mum to prepare the Christmas dinner, they started off with potato soup, followed by succulent roast turkey, mash, vegetables and roasties. Dessert was homemade plum pudding made by Heather’s mum. It came with cream and custard. Later, they had coffee and homemade Christmas cake. There were mince pies, and an assortment of biscuits and sweets. Later on in the evening, Heather and her dad played draughts and ludo, and her mum joined in to play snakes and ladders and cards. Then Heather and her dad played hide and seek. It was one of her favorite games. Heather’s parents always started a jigsaw puzzle on Christmas day and they enjoyed doing it and other ones over the new year too. 

             

Two days after Christmas, Heather and her parents went into her aunt’s house and spent the day with her grandparents and extended family. There were nine of them there together and they had a great day and made very special memories. Heather and Jennifer were talking happily about their gifts and deciding which one of them got the better ones. Later, they went out on a nearby country road for a walk. They played and ran a bit and then came back to the house to have the evening meal. Their grandmother was asking them how the walk was and if they had met anyone. The girls happily told her, Heather talking more than Jennifer as she was closer to her grandma. The evening meal was delicious, there were all kinds of cold cuts and fresh baked bread. Afterwards, they had fruit cocktail and custard, followed by Christmas cake and mince pies. When the meal was finished and they had all tidied up, everyone sat around to play cards and board games. Heather and her parents went home late and got ready for bed. 

             

The next few days were peaceful. They all went out to morning Mass and came home for breakfast and did household chores. They continued with jigsaw puzzles on and off during the day and watched Christmas movies.

            

All too soon for Heather, it was time to go back to school again, and sadly to reality too. In Heather’s case, it wasn’t a time of joy or happiness. She dreaded going back to the  boarding school. And especially in the path of Gwendoline and Sr Ailsa. Her parents left her in the boarding school one evening and she brought her bags upstairs to her dorm. Suddenly the door opened and Sr Ailsa came in and told her to pick up after herself. Heather didn’t realize that she had dropped her jacket as she came into the room. So she went and got it. She wondered why Sr Ailsa simply couldn’t have picked it up instead of making a fuss about it. But she didn’t dare say it. She was afraid of her. 

     

Everyone went down to the refectory for the evening meal. The cooks, Sr Jude and Sr Irene were out greeting the students coming in. Sr Ailsa came in and clapped her hands loudly and immediately everyone sat down and hardly dared to breathe. She was so strict and many of the students were scared of her. The food arrived and Heather wasn’t looking forward to it. The head girl began to serve and it was fish and veg and Heather didn’t like the taste of fish. However, Sr Ailsa wasn’t having any more of Heather’s fussy eating and she stood over her and forced her to eat the fish. Heather began to feel very sick and suddenly she felt something stick in her throat. Sr Ailsa hauled her off into the kitchen calling her a silly girl and telling her to be quiet. She bent Heather over and hit her hard on the back. Sr Jude began to give out and said that there were no bones in her fish and how dare Heather intimate that there were. Between the two of them, Heather got very upset and began to cry, which only caused Sr Ailsa to spank her hard on her rear. The more she spanked, the more Heather cried and the more Heather cried, the more she got spanked. 

   

When Heather went up to her dorm, she found Gwendoline and a few others sitting on her bed waiting for her. They were sniggering and asking Heather to let them see her rear. They knew that she had been spanked. Heather refused and Gwendoline grabbed her and began to pull at her skirt. Heather struggled and tried to pull away but they were too strong for her. They ended up ripping her uniform leaving a big tear in her skirt and another one at the edge of her jumper. Heather didn’t know what to do. It was the only school skirt that she had and she was afraid to tell on Gwendoline as she feared it would only make things much worse. So she hoped she could simply hide it all. She thought wrong.

The next morning, the bell went off and the tired boarders had to get up, wash up at the sink and get dressed before heading into the convent chapel for the 7:30 am Mass. When Heather got dressed, she tried to hide the tear in her skirt but one of the first years immediately saw it and asked her what happened. Heather just muttered and ran out of the room. She slipped into Mass and later at breakfast she saw Sr Ailsa heading down towards her. Her heart was in her mouth as Sr Ailsa asked her to stand up and turn around. Heather tried to refuse and Sr Ailsa grew impatient and asked her again. When Heather got up and turned around, Sr Ailsa saw her skirt and jumper and asked her how it happened. Heather was too afraid to tell her and said she just didn’t know, Sr Ailsa dragged her out into the corridor and asked her again to which Heather continued to say that she didn’t know. This denial resulted in another spanking of Heather’s already very painful rear end. She ran off in the middle of it and up to her dorm followed by a very angry Sr Ailsa who proceeded to continue with the spanking. She was then sent over the yard to school and found it impossible all day to sit. She was in agony. Teachers were ordering her to sit down and sit still but Heather just found it unbearable. 

             

Later on that day as Heather was struggling to walk straight, the principal Sr Gertrude shouted for her to come into her office. She asked her what was wrong with her. Heather said that she was sore but was a little afraid to say what Sr Ailsa had done. But Sr Gertrude was determined to get to the bottom of it, literally. So finally Heather knew that she had no option but to tell. However, Sr Gertrude showed no compassion whatsoever. She told her she deserved to get beaten if she had been naughty and disobedient. And then she promptly ordered Heather to return to class. When school was over for the day, the boarders returned to their dorms before they got some time to relax out in the grounds. Heather decided to escape up to Jennifers as she was still in agony. She thought her aunt might have some medicine to take away the pain. When Jennifer heard what had happened, she was upset and told her mum. Heather’s aunt got some liniment and applied it for her. It stung but her aunt said it would help after a while. She too was shocked at the extent of Heather’s bruising but knew her sister, Heather’s mum, wouldn’t say much so there was no point in ringing her to tell her. Heather’s mum, although very loving in her own way, was also a disciplinarian and respected nuns and other teachers. She had been a teacher herself and wanted her daughter to excel at everything she did. Heather struggled as she hated school due to all the bullying from both other students and some of the nuns. She just wanted to stay at home with her dad who always made her feel very safe. He spoiled her and always reminded her that as she had been adopted meant that they got to choose her specially. This always made her feel very much wanted at home. 

          

Jennifer went on ahead of Heather on the way back to boarding school. She wanted to be the lookout to make sure that neither Sr Ailsa nor anyone else would see Heather returning as she would get in trouble. Heather made it back in safely and went up to the dorm. After a while before the evening meal, Sr Ailsa came into the dorm and asked for Heather to come outside. She asked her why she had been on the school grounds with Jennifer shortly before. She said that Heather knew she couldn’t see Jennifer during the week as Heather was a boarder and Jennifer a day student. Heather said that Jennifer had just met her up at the gate and then Sr Ailsa asked how she had come to smell of liniment. Heather didn’t reply as she didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t understand how Sr Ailsa seemed to know everything. Sr Ailsa said then that she knew Heather had left school grounds and gone down to her granny’s house knowing that it was against the rules. And going against the rules had consequences. She got a washcloth and pulling up Heather’s skirt, she washed away at the liniment that Heather’s aunt had applied. Then she proceeded to spank Heather very hard again with the damp washcloth. The pain was awful and Heather cried out. Sr Ailsa continued spanking her and told her unless she stopped crying, she would continue to get spanked. It was unbearable. Heather begged to be sent home but Sr Ailsa was having none of it. 

            

Heather wasn’t allowed to have any evening meal or get anything from her tuck box. In fact, the contents of her tuck box was given away to another student. Heather sobbed hard. She was so hungry. Later on, at study, Heather’s stomach started rumbling and the other students were laughing. On the way back to the dorms later on, Gwendoline began mocking Heather relentlessly. She was making bubble sounds with her mouth. Heather tried to ignore her but Gwendoline just didn’t let herself be ignored. 

     

The weeks went on and things didn’t improve. Even though Heather had friends there, the few bullies made life so hard. And Sr Ailsa and Sr Gertrude were constantly on Heather’s case, making her suffer for just about anything. Heather just couldn’t do anything right in their eyes. She struggled with schoolwork and the nuns just wouldn’t accept that at all. 

           

After the Easter break, Heather’s dad put his foot down and suggested to her mum that Heather not return to boarding school. He realized that she was miserable there. Her mum agreed and Heather became a day student again. This time they promised her that she would not be sent back to boarding school again. Instead, they signed her up for the school bus so that she would be able to get back and forward to school each day. 

       

The bus driver was a miserable grump and the kids would never listen to him. He would stop the bus and march down to the troublemakers and tell them to stop it or he would let them out to walk home. They would quieten down for a while and then start up again as soon as he started back driving. And it would continue. After a while, Heather began to get brave and act up. The driver would land down and threaten her and she found herself bold enough to threaten him back. Her uncle, Jennifer’s father, was the bus inspector for the area. The years of bullying made Heather want to strike back to show that she wasn’t afraid anymore. 

             

Throughout the remaining years at school, Heather would act up and be brazen, and she was still getting bullied by Gwendolline and a few others. They would continue to mock her being adopted, and having older parents, and the way that she spoke at times. Heather felt the need to act up in the hope that the bullies would leave her alone. 

      

Bullying is horrible and no one should bully anyone, nor should anyone be bullied. It is something that never leaves the person. Life is too short……………………………………………………….

 

Helen Kiely O’Regan ©️

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