The Good Girl Read Free Page A

the afternoon. She couldn’t wait any longer for Romy’s father to appear. It wasn’t fair on the girl. Her anger towards Stuart transferred to him. Knowing what was at stake, how could he be late? She would have to be careful not to betray her feelings in front of the girl. One of the most important issues, Mrs Arnold had flagged, was to present a strategy that made Romy feel as though the adults around her were in control of the situation. They all had to present a united front.
    She knew Romy would be feeling nervous about
being called from class. Since as far as she knew she wasn’t in any trouble, she might be worried that something had happened to her family. Ailsa phoned her assistant to send Romy into the office.
    ‘Everything is fine at home,’ said Ailsa abruptly, as soon as the girl breezed through the door. She had spoken a little too quickly and Romy looked puzzled, as though unsettled at the possibility that something might be wrong. She left the door open. It was the best evidence yet that she had no idea what had happened.
    Ailsa was overwhelmed with a desire to protect her. Perhaps Stuart was the only person in school who had seen the video clip? Perhaps she need never know? And then just as quickly she abandoned the idea because the file was like a forest fire. Matt had kept her updated through the afternoon on websites where it had appeared and what action had been taken to get it removed.
    And besides, as Ailsa was fond of telling troubled students, everything that went wrong should be used as an experience to learn from. It was a way of encouraging children to believe in the possibility of renewal. People could evolve. Reputations could be rebuilt. Except in this case she wasn’t sure she really believed her own rhetoric. She vaguely remembered the story of a girl in south London who threw herself off a building when a boy refused to delete sexual images of her from his phone. She felt a sudden venomous rage towards the boy in the video. He had obviously forced her to do this. She needed to confirm his identity as quickly as possible.
She would press the girl for details. After that she would have to speak to his parents. He would be expelled. The police would be called. He would be prosecuted. But none of this would make the girl feel any better. In fact it could make her feel worse.
    Ailsa got up from her desk and slowly walked over to close the door. She wanted to delay the moment for as long as possible. She looked at the girl’s face, knowing that in the next minute her world would tip on its axis.
    ‘Is there something wrong?’
    ‘How is your work going?’
    ‘I was in a Biology exam.’
    ‘Were you doing a practice paper?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘How was it?’
    ‘Fine. I think. Now I’ll never know, because I was only halfway through and it won’t be a true result.’
    ‘Medical school is very competitive.’ Would this affect the girl’s application? Ailsa wondered. A new worry rippled through her body. She had to accept that she had no control over the situation, Mrs Arnold had advised, barely able to disguise her excitement at this latest drama. Matt had said something similar, then he had contradicted himself by insisting that he would personally take charge of checking which websites were showing the film.
    Even if they got to the bottom of how this had all started, there was no telling where it might end. She thought of the draft she had written for her next assem
bly. She wanted to warn the pupils about how in the digital age one badly thought-out decision could end up defining you for the rest of your life. She swallowed a couple of times.
    ‘There’s something you need to see, Romy,’ said Ailsa.
    ‘What are you talking about?’ asked the girl.
    Ailsa opened the file in the corner of her computer screen.
    ‘I’ll sit on the sofa while you watch. I’ve seen it already.’
    ‘Is it something to help with my university application?’ Romy asked as she pressed