The Guilty One by Lisa Ballantyne

whom do you have for us today?”
    “This is Daniel,” said Minnie. “Daniel Hunter.”
    “I see, and how old are you, Daniel?”
    “Eleven,” he said. His voice sounded strange in the room, like a girl’s. Daniel looked again at the carpet and Minnie’s muddy boots.
    Mr. Hart’s eyes narrowed as he regarded Daniel. Minnie opened her bag and put a piece of paper in front of Mr. Hart. It was paperwork from social work. Mr. Hart took it and lit his pipe at the same time, biting hard onto the stem of the pipe and sucking until the dirty, heavy smoke drifted over Minnie and Daniel.
    “It seems we don’t have his papers in from the last school he was at. What was the last school he was at?”
    “Maybe you could ask him? He’s sitting right there.”
    “Well, Daniel?”
    “Graves School in Newcastle, sir.”
    “I see. We’ll request it. What kind of pupil were you there, Daniel, would you say?”
    “Dunno,” he said. He heard Minnie breathe, and thought she might be smiling at him, but when he turned she wasn’t looking at him. Hart raised his eyebrows and so Daniel added, “Not the best.”
    “Why do I sense that to be an understatement?” said Hart, relighting his pipe and sucking until smoke blew down his nose.
    “This is your new start,” said Minnie, looking at Daniel. “Isn’t it? You plan on being proper exemplary from here on in.”
    He turned to her and smiled, then turned to Hart and nodded.
    T he next morning, Daniel awoke with the thought of the new school pressing on him, heavier than the blankets of his bed. So many new schools. He listened to the chickens in the yard outside and the pigeons cooing in the gutters. He had dreamed about his mother again. She was lying on the couch in the old flat and he couldn’t wake her up. He called an ambulance but the ambulance wasn’t there yet and so he was trying to wake her, trying to give her the kiss of life as he had seen on television.
    The dream was close to something that Daniel had actually experienced. Gary, his mum’s boyfriend, had beaten up Daniel and his mum and then left, taking most of the money and a bottle of vodka with him. Daniel’s mother had spent what was left of her dole money on a hit because she said she wanted to feel better. When Daniel woke in the middle of the night, she was hanging off the couch with her eyes half open. Daniel had been unable to wake her and had called an ambulance. In real life the ambulance came quickly and they revived his mother. Daniel had been five.
    Again and again he dreamed of her. Each time he could not save her.
    Daniel lay on his side and reached into the bedside drawer. His hands closed on the egg, which was cold as a stone now. He warmed it in the palm of his hand. Again he reached into the drawer, his fingers searching for the cheap gold necklace that she had worn around her neck and given to him one day when he was good. When he was good.
    It was gone.
    Daniel sat up and took the drawer out. He placed the egg on his pillow and searched through the drawer for the necklace. He upturned the drawer, and shook out the sock and the children’s books, the pens and old stamps torn from envelopes that had been left in the drawer by her other children. The necklace was not there.
    “I can’t go to school,” he told her. He was dressed in the clothes she had laid out for him: white vest and pants, gray trousers and a white shirt. He had done the shirt up in a hurry and the buttons were mismatched. He stood before her frowning, with his hair sticking up.
    Minnie was spooning out porridge for him and dropping aspirin into a glass for herself.
    “ ’Course you can, love. I’ve made your lunch.” She pushed a bag of sandwiches toward him.
    He stood before her trembling, the egg in his right hand. His clean socks were getting all mucky from her kitchen floor.
    “Did you steal my necklace?” He could only whisper it.
    Minnie raised an eyebrow at him.
    “It was in a drawer with the egg and now