Foreign Affairs Read Free

help get the hay in. They were allowed to play in the haystacks and in the barns and camp in the paddock behind their house, and their father
never
made them say their spellings to him
at night.
    Even better was to have a shopkeeper for a father. Mr Morrissey owned the sweet shop and newsagents in the village and it was open until ten o’clock at night. Hilda Morrissey was allowed
to stay up late during the summer to help her father in the shop and she was even allowed to work the cash-register. How Rachel would have loved a cash-register. When she grew up and had loads of
money she was going to buy a real one. Santa had brought her one last Christmas and although she had great fun playing shop she would still give anything to have a go of Morrissey’s real
one.
    Her thoughts were interrupted by a stinging sensation to her ear. A marble rolled down the front of her jumper. Rachel’s stomach twisted into knots. Patrick McKeown was flicking marbles at
her again. Her ear hurt so much she wanted to cry, but they’d all call her a cry-baby. Patrick McKeown was the meanest, slyest, biggest bully in the class. He was always picking on her
because he knew she’d never ever tell her father. If she told her father, the whole class would call her a tattle-tale and to be a tattle-tale was the worst thing. She pretended nothing had
happened and kept her head down, staring at her copy book. Another missile reached its mark. This time on the back of her neck. A few of the other children sniggered. Rachel swallowed hard and bit
her lip. She mustn’t cry in front of them. Why did Miss O’Connor have to be out today of all days? Rachel was petrified her father would come in and catch Patrick McKeown flicking
marbles at her. Then he’d be punished and she’d really be in for it. He would wait for his chance, some day when she was on her own, and stuff worms or slugs down her dress. That was
his favourite punishment. Rachel never knew when it was going to happen and consequently she always had to be on the look-out. She couldn’t tell anybody about what was going on because if she
did, Patrick swore that he would murder her and bury her body in Doyle’s woods and no-one would ever find her. She woke up in bed at night her heart thumping in terror at the thought of
it.
    ‘Have you got the answers to those sums, Swotty Stapleton?’ Patrick McKeown demanded, one eye on her, and one eye on the door. Rachel’s fingers shook as she passed back her
copy book. Patrick grabbed it and swiftly copied down her answers. Then, slowly, deliberately, he ripped the page out of her copy book and scrunched it up in a tight hard little ball, flicking it
at her with his ruler. ‘Do them neater,’ the hated bullying voice ordered. The rest of the class looked on approvingly as he threw her copy book back up towards her. Getting at Rachel
Stapleton was almost as good as getting at the Master. With the eyes of the class upon her and to jeers of ‘Swotty’ from Patrick McKeown, Rachel stood up and walked down the passageway
to retrieve her copy. Just at that moment her father walked through the door.
    ‘What are you doing out of your seat, Rachel Stapleton?’ He always called her by her full name at school.
    ‘Nnn . . . nothing, Sir,’ she stammered. Rachel had to call her father Sir at school.
    ‘Why is your copybook lying in the middle of the floor?’ the Master demanded. There was a collective intake of breath. Out of the corner of her eye, Rachel could see Patrick slowly
drawing his finger from one side of his throat to the other in a slitting gesture and making horrible faces. Her heart began to pound. Her father glaring at her and demanding an explanation and
Patrick McKeown prepared to slit her throat and God knows what else.
    ‘I’m waiting, Miss,’ the Master said sternly, his blue eyes like flints.
    ‘I . . . I let it fall.’ Her voice was no more than a whisper.
    ‘I can’t hear you.’ Her father folded his