Deliver Me From Evil by Alloma Gilbert Page A

when the same thing started happening to me. Sometimes, if Sarah saw me, she’d wave limply, and I’d wave back coolly. We weren’t very close and didn’t like each other much, but there was an understanding between us, a sense of each knowing what the other was having to endure.
    Eunice’s constant vigilance meant I became vigilant too, and as she was always peering out of a window trying to see where I was in the playground, so I always felt as if I was under her gaze. Whether I was or not. One thing she was monitoring was whether I was playing the games she allowed me to play or not. Eunice had strict rules about what was acceptable. For instance, I was not allowed to play cowboys and Indians as it involved the use of guns or ‘Power Rangers’, which were all the rage at the time. This game was ‘demonized’, as were many others. If I played the wrong thing, I would be punished later at home. I used to hide behind the hedge to avoid her gaze, then I’d play something forbidden, like ‘Ninja Turtles’, my heart in my mouth, hoping she couldn’t see through the hedge. Or that someone wouldn’t tell on me, somehow.
    Ironically, Eunice would drum into us that playing these ‘worldly’ games would make us more aggressive. She said she was punishing us to save our souls. Eventually though, when she decided we were the Devil’s kids, we couldn’t be saved, so it was just Eunice venting her anger, by then. If I looked up and found her looking at me, she’d say to me I wasn’t ‘innocent’, like a normal child. I was too ‘aware’, and thus I was ‘demonized’, I had the Devil in me. She said the Devil was what made me look at her when she was looking at me. Only she didn’t know how many times I had looked up when either she wasn’t there or when she wasn’t looking.
    One day at school I had been playing Power Rangers in what I thought was a safe place behind the hedge. However, Charlotte had seen and reported me to Eunice. Charlotte was the main squealer at home but Sarah sometimes buckled under the pressure.
    As I came in from school Eunice was standing there, waiting for me. She looked extremely grim and I knew instantly I was in trouble.
    ‘What were you doing?’
    I had to think quickly. What did she mean? What had I done now?
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘You evil little liar. I saw you. You were playing a demonized game. You know you were. Own up.’
    Oh Lord, she saw me. I said nothing, however.
    You know you’re not allowed to play worldly games. I won’t allow it.’
    Eunice strode over to me and grabbed me by the throat, squeezing the life out of me. For a moment everything went white, then black, and then I was back in the room, with her eyes boring into mine, her mouth, with its foul breath, only inches away. I could smell her body odour, which was always rank, as it wafted over in her excitement.
    You are not to play the Devil’s own games. D’ya hear? You’re not innocent enough.’
    I was choking, gasping, my two hands trying to wrench her one hand away from my throat. There was no air going in at all and I was struggling against fainting altogether.
    ‘Relax, child. I’m teaching you a lesson. It’s for your own good. You’re too aware, you’ve got the Devil in you, for sure.’ Out of the corner of my eye, as I struggled to breathe, I could see plump Charlotte watching, looking smug. However, Sarah was peeping through the banisters at me, looking terrified, as always.
    Suddenly Eunice let me go and I fell to the floor, gasping like a fish that had just been landed. My throat hurt like hell and I gulped air in as fast as I could. My head was swimming and I still felt faint. All I’d done was play a game behind the hedge – that was innocent enough for me.
    By the time I was approaching nine years of age, I was doing quite well at school. I liked my lessons and the teachers, who were kind and thoughtful – the total opposite of Eunice. I loved art, especially drawing, and I also had