The Arabella Conundrum

Part Eight- The Reaction Formation

I turned the key and awaited my fate.

"ARABELLA!! IS THAT YOU!" Shouted a furious highly accented women. I opened my mouth to reply but I stopped when her face appeared. Gita Patel aka my grandmother was red faced, anger seeping off her four foot eleven frame.

"I do not believe what I just heard on the telephone!" She exclaimed. "I cannot believe you," she pointed her finger at me. "would do such a thing. My Arabella would never do that." She shook her head clearly ashamed.

"I put up lots of things with you," she said her English getting muddled since she was angry. "More than I would for your father or your uncles or your aunties but you are explaining this."

"I..." I stopped and lowered my head. "I didn't mean to, and I didn't mean to leave school either."
"This does not explain why though," her voice still sharp and crisp.

"It was just," I paused not wanting to tell her the real reason. "I don't know ok, I just got hot-headed." I pretended and lied. She frowned for a moment, thinking about what I said.

"No!" she declared. "This is not the reason," she again shook her head. "My Bella wouldn't do that, tell me the reason."

"I told you the truth" I meekly added.

"No! Tell me the real truth!" she demanded angrily. "NOW"

"He's called me a ....." I shouted really loudly. I will not repeat it nor write it down. My eyes went wide and so did hers. "He called me a ...." I whispered calming down.

"Bella," she breathed. "We are telling the school about this."

"No, we can't!" I quipped quickly. "No we can't, I don't want anybody to know!"

"We have too, they are threatening expulsion if we don't," she told me. I froze in shock.

"Expulsion," I whispered.

"Yes but we're sort it out," she concluded. "Now apart from that, is there anything else you want to talk about," she questioned concern filling her face. "You looked very upset when you came in."

"Uhmm," the thoughts of what I talked to mamma brown about came into my head. "No, nothing I can think of."

I gave her a weak smile and moved past her. I knew I should have talked to her and listened to what Mama Brown said but the moment I was offered the opportunity by my grandma to talk about it I chickened out. I chicken out because I don't know how to talk about it, how to open up. Yeah I could talk to Mama Brown about some aspects of it because she is different. And I can't explain why she is different and that's a pathetic reason. But I cannot go and open up to my grandma about my issues and troubles because she is probably experiencing worse than me. It's her son who is fighting and risking his life in battle. And it's her who has to support me and my three siblings when she should be retired by now, not working to feed us. I just cannot allow myself to burden her with any more. Especially after what I did today in school. I looked over at my grandma, my sweet, yet slightly scary grandma who was looking back at me with so much concern.

"You mind if I go in my room, I've got a headache. I'll go pick up the little ones though later ok?"

"Yeah sure, I'm sorry for assuming you would do those things. I'm coming to school tomorrow with you, I got the morning off, we'll sort this thora (little) problem out."

I just nodded and once in my room, I collapsed on the bed, exhausted by it all.

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"What are you doing here?" I stared wide eyed at Ollie who was stood outside the nursery. My grip tightened on my pushchair that contained Seb and Teddy whilst I balanced Ellie on my left hip, her tiny hands clutching tightly onto me.