Still Got It

Chapter Six

S telios’s little face still had Grace worried. The boy’s solemn dark eyes seemed huge in his head, and he hadn’t put up his hand once during the lesson. When she’d pushed him to answer a direct question, his reply was vague. Even when she’d allowed the others to let off steam with a five-minute race around outside, he’d just sat on a bench and watched everyone else.

During her long career in primary education, she’d seen everything from children losing their parents before they were ten to pupils having to cope when a father went to prison, and, in a couple of cases, full-on abuse. She really didn’t think any of these scenarios applied here, but she knew what an unhappy child looked like.

The bell rang for the end of the class and Grace waited in the playground and ticked off her list as each child went home with a parent or trusted carer. When Stelios’s mother, a smartly dressed but harassed-looking young woman, arrived, she took her opportunity.