Chapter Thirty-One Violet
Chapter Thirty-One
Violet
Charlie was working late, and I’d gotten off work early today, so I was happy to go get Harper from school. Jeanne had texted me, and we were going to take the girls for ice cream, since the weather was so nice.
When I arrived at Rosewood River Elementary School, Jeanne was already there, and she didn’t look happy.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered. The girls were still getting their backpacks from the classroom.
“Denise Quigley is the problem. She’s calling the girls ‘babies’ because a few kids in the class went down the demon this week.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes at the same time.
“What is the deal with this slide?” I chuckled. “I keep hearing about it. And Charlie said she needs to be ten years old to go down it. Is it that big?”
A loud laugh escaped her mouth. “No. Charlie and I went down that damn thing when we were in kindergarten. It’s just old and the sides aren’t super high, but I was thinking of going down with Lily, so I could hold on to her.”
Denise’s mom stood a few feet away from us as her son ran in and out of the classroom, and she just talked on her phone. Mrs. Wharton did not look happy as she escorted him out for the second time since I’d arrived.
Harper and Lily came walking out with frowns on their faces, and Denise hurried out after them.
“You two really can’t go? I can’t believe you’re afraid of a slide,” she said, and my hands fisted at my side.
“I’m not afraid, it’s just my dad’s rule that I can’t do it,” Harper said, hands on her hips, head high.
Attagirl.
“My mom said I could go if I want to, and I’m not afraid at all.” Lily glared at Denise.
“I bet you’re too much of a baby to go down, even if you go over there.”
“How about you take care of yourself and mind your own business?” Jeanne said to Denise as she took Lily’s backpack from her.
“Poor Harper is the only one who isn’t going,” Denise said before sticking her tongue out and then laughing. “Maybe we should call you ‘scaredy-cat baby Huxley.’”
“Denise, why don’t you go help your brother.
He’s licking the pavement again.” I bent down and hugged Harper.
I was definitely going to ask Charlie to speak to the school about this.
Denise was clearly bullying Harper at this point, and the school needed to get involved. “Hey, Harps. How was your day?”
“It was fine. Can we go with Lily and Jeanne to the demon and watch Lily go down before we get ice cream?” She blinked a few times, and I could tell she was fighting back tears.
Harper didn’t get upset often, so I knew she’d had a rough day.
“Of course we can. Let’s go check this slide out and cheer Lily on,” I said, slipping her backpack on my shoulder and taking her hand.
Lily and Harper were filling us in on all the drama from the day.
The way Denise had made fun of several kids, and Bianca had gone home with a stomachache after Denise had told everyone that Bianca had gone up the ladder on the slide and then come back down the ladder because she’d been too nervous to go down.
Denise Quigley was a bully, and I had a problem with bullies.
I would assume the teacher was aware at this point, but I was going to insist that Charlie make an appointment to discuss this situation to see how they were going to handle things.
“Harper told Denise to leave Bianca alone, so Denise got real mean to Harps,” Lily said. “And Denise had to pull a red card, which means she sat out recess for being a meanie.”
“What did she say to you?” I asked.
I didn’t miss the way Harper shook her head ever so slightly at her best friend, as if she didn’t want her to repeat it.
“It wasn’t a big deal. She just called me a baby,” Harper said.
When we turned the corner, I laughed at the sight before me.
It was just an older playground slide like I used to go down when I was a kid.
It wasn’t like the new fancy slides with the high walls on the sides and the spongy padding on the bottom.
It was certainly not anything I hadn’t seen before.
The park had some older swings with chain-link sides and black rubber bottoms, like the kind I used to do flips off of.
There was a merry-go-round and a wooden seesaw that looked like it had seen better days.
I watched a few kids go down the slide, and it was a bit steep and the sides were lower than on the slides you saw at newly remodeled parks, but if you came down carefully, it wouldn’t be a big deal at all.
Several kids stared up at it like it was some sort of mythical beast they’d been told about.
A kid was up at the top shouting at his mom to take a picture before he came down.
It was definitely steep, and the kid came flying down, then tucked into a ball and rolled on the ground before coming to a stop.
“Oh, look who came to watch me,” Denise said as she walked up behind us. “I’ve done this so many times. It’s so easy for me.”
She marched past us and climbed the stairs, and I glanced over to see her brother attempting to get on the seesaw, which looked like it would be impossible to ride without getting several splinters.
I waved at his mom and then pointed to the seesaw to make sure she knew he was on it, but she just turned her back to me and continued talking on her phone.
“Who is she talking to all the time?” I huffed.
“I have no idea. But she’s got one on the demon and one on the death-saw,” Jeanne said.
I laughed. This park had quite the reputation from the locals who’d grown up here.
“Harper! Lily! Look at me! I’m not a big baby!” Denise shouted from the top before sitting down and pushing off. She came down faster than the last kid, and my instincts had me running toward the bottom of the slide to break her fall.
She crashed into me, and I fell back and wrapped my arms around her to keep her from hitting the ground hard.
She got up and laughed. “You didn’t need to do that. Maybe Harper needs help, but I don’t.”
“You’re welcome,” I hissed, scrambling to my feet and brushing off my jeans.
“Come on, Mom,” Lily said, and she took Jeanne’s hand and walked toward the back of the slide.
“Lily’s going down and you’re not,” the little hellion taunted as she moved to stand in front of us and laughed. “Poor Harper Huxley.”
“Hey, walk away, Quigley,” I said.
“You can’t even take her down because you’re not even a real mama. You’re just her friend. Only a real mama could go down the slide with her.” She smirked.
This kid was like seven going on seventeen.
She could write the mean girl manual all on her own.
And this slide had been ridiculously built up, as it wasn’t even the tallest I’d seen—not that I was a slide connoisseur by any stretch, but this was not that big of a deal.
“How about you go find your own mom?” I grumped, wrapping an arm around Harper’s shoulder.
I leaned down and whispered in her ear, “She’s just jealous.”
Harper nodded as she stared up at the demon, where Lily and Jeanne stood at the top.
I squinted, trying to make them out, and Lily was definitely hesitating.
She sat between her mother’s legs, and they pushed off.
Harper squeezed my hand as we watched them come down.
With Jeanne behind Lily, she wasn’t moving quite as fast, and they stumbled a little at the bottom, but Jeanne was able to right them easily.
A few more kids arrived and made their way to the top.
“How was it?” Harper asked Lily.
“It was fine. It wasn’t even that fun,” her best friend said, keeping her voice low.
A few kids from their class showed up and came over to congratulate Lily.
“Are you going down?” Davey asked Harper.
“My dad won’t let me,” she said.
“And Violet isn’t her real mother, so she can’t even take her down. She’s just like a babysitter,” Denise said as she moved right in Harper’s space, the little stalker she was.
Harper shoved her back, which shocked me.
I’d never seen Harper get physical with anyone.
“Go away. Violet is a real mother. She’s not on the phone like your mom always is!” she shouted.
“Hey, hey, hey.” I took her hand and walked her away. “Harps, you can’t react to her. That’s what she wants.”
Tears ran down her face, and I bent down to get eye level with her and wrapped my arms around her.
“She’s been saying that all day. That you’re not a real mama. That I’m just a big, sad baby.” She sniffed.
I had the sudden urge to drop-kick Denise Quigley, even though I knew I couldn’t do that. It didn’t stop me from wanting to.
“She’s just unhappy. You’re not sad and you’re not a baby.”
“You feel like a real mama sometimes, Vi,” Harper said, her voice cracking as the words left her mouth.
I feel like a real mama when it comes to this little girl.
“I love you the way a mama does, Harps. And that’s all that matters. So Denise Quigley can suck a lemon,” I said, and Harper’s body shook with laughter as she sniffed a few more times.
I looked up at the slide as two more kids came down, one by one, without incident.
Jeanne had just done it with Lily.
“I know you do.”
“And we don’t care what Denise Quigley thinks, Harps. We know how we feel. We know who we are. She’s got her own issues. So let’s just have some fun today and ignore Denise, okay?”
“Okay. I like that idea.” She smiled after wiping the last of her tears away.
“Maybe me and Harper could go down the slide together,” Lily said. “It’s not really even bigger than the one at Blushing Park by your house that we go down all the time. It’s just not yellow and pretty.” Lily chuckled.
“Do you think I could go down with Lily, Vi?” Harper asked me, with all the trust in the world.
“Let me ask you something,” I said, tucking the hair behind her ear. “Do you want to go down the demon because it’s something you want to do, or because you don’t want Denise to tease you about it?”
Because we are not going to let a seven-year-old bully decide what we do.