Windy Valley Secondary – Trials of the Young and Restless

by Shaney Connell 03.OCT.08

Susan is at home, unaware that her mother was attacked in public, at knife point.

Susan sat on the porch talking with the neighbour Mrs. Roberts about her desire to go back to school. Susan had never given the old lady much thought. To her, Mrs Roberts was just someone sitting on the veranda, listening to other people’s gossip. Just these few hours spent with the lady showed Susan just how much harder life was back when Mrs Roberts was a young girl.{{more}} When she was a girl, Mrs Roberts was so poor, she had to exchange school for life in the fields.

“Take up your book, me a tell you. No good being a dumb dumb like me. See these hands, they can’t much hold anything, let alone do anything. Not an easy thing working in the fields, where the sun hot hot, and me body mash up, but ah had to do it”.

Luckily, these days, Mrs Roberts didn’t have to worry about money. All her children lived abroad and regularly sent money back home. The only thing she missed was seeing her grandchildren. She was happy to see each of her five sons succeed. She had done her duty as a mother.

“I always thought you should be one of those pretty girls on TV,” she told Susan.

“What! Like a model?” Susan laughed.

“They earn good money – it could get you through college.”

“That is a good idea”, Susan thought. It could help her get where she wanted to be. Her thoughts were distracted by the sight of her mother. Mummy? Susan questioned. She could hardly recognise her, the bruise on her left side of her face and the slash across her arm all showed signs that she had been in a confrontation.

Susan did the best she could and attended to her mother’s wounds. Who could have done such a thing? She thought. She glanced at her mother and realised that her mother was staring hard at her. She dared not ask the question, just in case it would set her mother off.

It was Mrs Roberts who finally asked “Who did this, who did this to you?”

“Sharpie,” Susan’s mother finally spoke.

“Sharpie did this to you?” Mrs Roberts replied with a surprised look on her face.

“Yes, but it’s not Sharpie’s fault.”

“Then whose fault is it?”

She turned and looked at Susan. “It’s yours.”

In astonishment, Susan slowly withdrew from her mother. How could she say such a thing?

“Is best you did beat me yourself” continued her mother.

Susan started to wonder if Sharpie had indeed knocked all the senses from her mother.

“You put yourself with Sharpie. You get yourself pregnant. You tell me you getting married.”

“I never said we’re getting marr…” before Susan could complete the sentence, her mother’s fist landed across her face.

She never saw when her mother stood up, towering over her, and she never saw her mother’s leg swing back. All she felt was the thud and the excruciating pain when her mother kicked her in the belly. Susan doubled up in pain. Her baby, she thought, she’s attacking my baby. Susan rolled into a ball. The second kick missed and hit her shins, but the third kick hit her face. She heard the crunch sound and she knew that her jaw had jarred out of place. She needed to get out. She screamed, but the louder she screamed the harder seemed to be the battering.

“Shut up! Shut up!” Each word was accompanied by either a kick or a fist.

“Oh God! Oh God,” said the frail old lady in dismay. “You go kill her! You go kill her!” Mrs Roberts tugged at Susan mother’s arm, but all Susan’s mother did was push her aside. Mrs Roberts came back again, but this time she shielded Susan, taking some of the blows. She grabbed hold of the bottom of Susan’s mother legs “Run!” she yelled, “Run!”

Susan’s eye and face had begun to swell. She couldn’t stand, instead she crawled as fast as she could to the gate. Susan disappeared from Mrs Roberts and her mother’s sight…

The Windy Valley Secondary series is fictional. Any resemblance to real events, places or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.