Shadow Sister Read Free

stood outside the classroom windows and dropped his trousers.
    If you telephone the parents to ask them in for a chat, they never have time and they aren’t interested. If they do turn up, they barely understand what you’re saying because their Dutch is so poor – or they promise they’ll give their son or daughter a good hiding which you then desperately try to talk them out of. Often, they’re defensive. How dare you?! Are you saying they aren’t good parents? Isn’t it the school’s job to sort out problems? Isn’t that what they’re paying taxes for?
    Victor, one of my colleagues, was once punched by a father.
    ‘What should I do, Jasmine?’ I ask. ‘What would you do?’
    ‘I’d sleep on it.’ Jasmine gets up to make another coffee. ‘Think it over.’
    We sit there together, drinking our coffee in silence. I look at Jasmine over the rim of my cup. ‘I’ve got a headache.’
    She rests her hand on mine. ‘Just go home,’ she says. ‘I’ll call you this evening, all right? And whatever you decide, police or no police, I’ll stand by you.’
4.
    I’m glad I never cycle to work, even though the weather’s lovely for the end of April. I can’t take my bike because I have to rush off at the end of the day to pick up my six-year-old daughter from school. To my shame, she is sometimes there waiting for me, holding the teacher’s hand. But not today. It’s Monday, early in the afternoon, and I’ve got plenty of time to tell my story to the police.
    If I decide to.
    As I cross the playground on my way to the car park, I catch myself looking around. The sight of every dark-haired, broad-shouldered boy gives me a jolt and I only feel safe once I’m in my car with all the doors locked.
    As I join the busy Rotterdam traffic, it all comes back to me, piece by piece.
    From the moment the lesson began, Bilal had been looking me up and down. I was wearing a skirt – not a mini-skirt, it was to the knee – and high black leather boots. Slouched in his chair,Bilal looked from my legs to my breasts and then back again.
    Ignoring things is always the best approach, so I carried on with the lesson. Until Bilal raised his hand.
    ‘Miss?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘You look really hot today. Are you going somewhere?’
    There were some repressed giggles, but most of the room gave Bilal a cold stare.
    ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d keep such thoughts to yourself, Bilal.’
    ‘I bet you would,’ Bilal said. ‘You know what we call women in Morocco who walk around like that?’
    I gave him a warning look. I’d recently made clear to the class the consequences of swearing, specifically of using the word ‘whore’.
    Bilal sat up straight, leaned towards me as if in confidence, and said, ‘Prostitutes.’
    Anger coursed through me but I managed to control myself. ‘Do you have chewing gum in your mouth? Do be so kind as to put it in the bin.’
    Bilal worked his long body out from under the desk and walked, with the same sly grin, to the bin. He spat out the gum and went back to his place. As he prepared to sit down again, he stared leisurely, suggestively, at my breasts.
    That’s when I did something wrong. I should have told him to leave the classroom and report to the headmaster, but instead I looked at his crotch, my expression scornful. It happened so quickly – I shocked myself – I realised I was making a mistake, but it was too late. Bilal had seen it. His expression changed from sly to hard, his lips thinned and his eyes filled with a threat that set all the alarm bells in my body ringing. I stepped backwards and that’s when he pulled the knife.
    The memory fills me with a burst of confidence. I’m going to go to the police; of course I’m going to go to the police.
    I head back towards the centre, brave the traffic along the Coolsingel Canal and turn off into a side street called Doelwater Alley. I park there and look over at the ‘swimming pool’, as the mint-green tiled police station is