What You Don't See (wlw)

[14] Head Girl

Verity 

It wasn't hard to guess why the three of us had been called to the pastoral manager's office, although I was confused as to who had told her what had happened on Saturday. I doubted Henrietta, since it doesn't make her look great and Amy said she was waiting to tell her dad still so I don't think she'd have gone straight to the school. I hadn't even spoken to anyone about it other than Amy - not that I really speak to anyone anyway - so it was a bit of a mystery. 

The meeting started when Henrietta finally filed in, her expression frustrated. 

"Great, you're all here." Mrs Allwood stated. She was sat behind her desk, her hands clasped together leaning on it. It gave an air that she knew it was a serious matter but didn't want anything to turn to intense right away. 

"I wanted to talk to you because Mrs Pollard said she's heard quite a few rumours going round among your year group about events on the weekend. I understand that things often get misconstrued but the rumours are of a serious nature so I wanted to check in with you three to see what actually happened." Mrs Pollard was the art teacher, meaning that it was probably Henrietta talking to her friends that she overheard. I had no idea how Henrietta would phrase it though - as I said before, it doesn't look great for her - so it was entirely possible that she'd spun the whole thing to make Amy appear in the wrong. 

"Can I just ask, sorry, why is this any of the school's concern?" Henrietta piped up, almost making me laugh. She was panicking; this is like the first time she's ever been caught for who she actually is. 

"Yes, I understand why you'd think that it wasn't a school issue, but bullying between students is very serious so we have to take events taking place outside of school into account." Again, I thought back to what Henrietta could have possibly said to her friends. Could she have spun it that Amy was bullying her? No, that would literally be impossible, there's no way that she could have managed to do that. 

"You think I'm bullying her?" She pointed towards Amy, who was sitting very still in her chair. I recognised redness in her face that wasn't there before and yet again all I wanted to do was hug her. She clearly didn't want to be in this situation right now and I didn't blame her one bit. 

"I'm not making any accusations right now Henrietta, I'm just understanding what happened first." I noticed Mrs Allwood changed her casual demeanour to a more grave one at Henrietta's words. Maybe she saw through her bullshit as well, who knows. "So Amy, can you tell me exactly what happened on Saturday?" 

I saw Henrietta trying to interject but Mrs Allwood just gave her a face that made her stop. 

"I erm, well Henrietta sent me a text in the morning asking if we could go on a walk together. So I said yes, and yeah walked to her house. She met me there and we started walking up a hill near her house I think. It was fine for a while but then Henrietta started saying ermm, well very unkind things about Verity which I disagreed with." I felt an acute pain in my chest at the idea that they'd fallen out over me. It meant a lot to me that Amy had defended me obviously but it still pissed me off that I was the reason why she'd been left on her own. "And so we got in a bit of an argument, until she started saying some other unkind things about my disability. And erm... yeah at some point in the argument Henrietta left, which was really scary to me because..." I could tell she was struggling for the words, as if justifying why Henrietta was in the wrong was difficult. I wanted to speak up to support her, but I knew it was better for Mrs Allwood if she heard it from Amy directly - plus this whole meeting would be over quicker. "Because I didn't know where I was and I can't navigate like a sighted person. I ended up calling Verity who came to find me and supported me when I was upset." 

Henrietta's face was bright red at this point. "Miss she's not telling the truth. I didn't leave her! We got in an argument, yes, but I just took her back down the hill again - she's lying!" I'd never seen her look so worried in my life.