Deasil Street

6.2

Megan was often online chatting with Allain after school. They were becoming quite good friends now, even when he wasn’t babysitting – or ‘hanging out’ as they called it. Today he needed a favour, could he come round?

He was in a bit of a jam. He was meant to be off sick, but he saw someone badmouthing him on facebook so had gone to school at lunchtime and beaten the guy up a bit. He was bound to tell, so he needed an alibi.

Everyone at school knew Megan was one of the only people he liked rather than just tolerated, and saw outside school… So the headmistress was bound to call her into the office to question her. Would she lie for him?

Megan agreed straight away. But on the bus to school the next day she started getting pretty nervous. She prided herself on looking the part, but she wasn’t actually much of a bad girl. If she was called into the heads office, would she be able to pull it off?

Everything happened like Allain said it would, but then he probably had plenty of experience with being in trouble. Megan tried to stay calm and ignore the butterflies in her tummy.

Why yes Ma’am, she had seen Allain recently. She’d been round his house to cheer him up but he’d been too sick to let her in so she’d just pushed the card under the door. There was no way he could have come to school to beat up Jake. She bet he’d run into a wall and had seen an opportunity to get Allain into trouble.

Yes ma’am, she had heard about the fight. But Jake Dawes was always making stuff up. Like the lies he put on facebook about Allain in the first place. Or that he had an uncle who had been to space.

The headmistress believed her. She knew Allain was a bit of a wild card, but Megan was a good kid. She wouldn’t lie about something serious like this. She let her return to class.

Megan left the office in a daze. She’d gotten away with it! Her heart was still beating fast, and her hands were all sweaty… but it had worked. Back home after school, with more time to think it over Megan was thrilled. It had been so easy! Allain would be impressed. And this could be only the beginning, she could do anything!

Ambrose was still upset over the loss of her agent, and her moping about had finally forced Bernice out of the house and into a job. She’d managed to get a place working behind the bar a local dive.

After work, she’d often get chatting to either the customers or the friendly cop who made sure last drinks were served on time each night…

In fact, she was bringing a guy home after almost every shift. She’d never really had time to date when she’d been caring for her parents 24/7. As she saw it, she was making up for lost time.

But Ambrose was worried about her housemate. A bit of fun was one thing, but Bernice could get herself into real trouble.

Bernice was careful about her choices though. The men were always happy for a one night stand and nothing more. She avoided the vulnerable who might want more, or get obsessive. In fact she was avoiding emotion of any kind. But was this making her happy?