I'll keep you safe

Chapter 47

The bell rang out, signalling the start of afternoon classes. Rachel sighed in relief as she glanced at the clock.

The day was almost over. Only two hours to go.

Despite the commotion with the Kelly Family that morning, Rachel's first day back hadn't been too bad. The rest of the morning and early afternoon had been quiet, allowing her to get on with paperwork and catch up on her emails. She'd gotten through half of her workload, and planned to do the rest of it this afternoon, which would take her up to the end of the day.

She and Eddie had, had a brief lunch in her office before the bell rang. Eddie had promised he would come and see her properly in the first half of period four (which was starting now), once he had finished the last few bits of marking. Rachel was more than capable of not seeing Eddie all day. But she had to admit, she'd wanted to de-brief with him about the Kelly Family, since they hadn't had chance to talk about it all yet. She wanted to talk about it at school, rather than having the discussion at home. Even though she lived and worked with Eddie, she wanted to keep their personal and professional lives separate as much as possible.

As far as she knew, Marley, Earl, Sam and Denzil were settling in quite well. Other than Jasmine raising a concern about Denzil's reading, there had been no news. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but she wasn't dwelling on it too much.

She looked up as Bridget tapped gently on the open door of her office. Rachel smiled at her.

"I've just had a call from Reception. There's a visitor here to see you" she explained

Rachel frowned, reaching for her diary to check her schedule for the afternoon. As she expected, it was empty.

"I don't have anyone booked in, Bridget, are you sure?" Rachel questioned

"Quite sure" Bridget nodded

Rachel frowned again

"I can call back and say you're busy?" Bridget offered

Rachel shook her head

"No, it's fine. I'll go down now" she insisted

She stood up, leaving the office and heading down the stairs toward Reception. Even though she felt nervous about this mystery visitor, she wasn't panicking too much. There was a high chance it was a parent who had come in on the off chance, wanting to see her about their child's progress or behaviour. It didn't happen often, but it did happen. As Head Teacher, Rachel felt it was important to put the time aside for those parents.

As she approached the bottom of the stairs, she saw Eddie walking towards her. She couldn't help but smile as his face lit up when he saw her.

"I was just coming back up to see you" he said

"I'm afraid you'll have to wait, I've got a visitor waiting in Reception" she sighed

"Sounds mysterious, who is it?" Eddie asked curiously

"I have no idea. Probably a parent" she shrugged

"Do you want me to come with you?" He offered

"No, it's ok. Why don't you come up to the office in about half an hour? I should be done by then, yeah? We need to talk about the Kelly's" Rachel suggested

"I'll see you later" Eddie nodded

They headed off in opposite directions.

As Rachel approached Reception, her heart started to beat rapidly as she saw who was waiting for her.

It was her younger sister, Melissa. The sister that she hadn't seen or had any contact with for 19 years, the sister who she'd deliberately left in the past.