Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2007 00:09:19 +0000 (GMT) From: Nathan Me Subject: James chapter 37 'James' by Nathan Email address nathan7new@yahoo.co.uk My stories are archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nathansstories/. This story contains material of a sexual nature and describes sexual acts between adults and children. If you find this kind of material offensive, if you are under the legal age to read such material or if it is illegal in your country, please do not read any further. My stories may contain some factual or autobiographical elements, but they are works of fiction and any apparent similarities of my characters to real people are not intended. This story is protected by copyright. It may not be downloaded, copied, printed or otherwise reproduced in any way other than for your private enjoyment and may not be changed in any way without express written consent of the author, me! I hope you enjoy this story. James: Chapter 37 Tom was surprised at how tired and subdued the children were crossing the lake. By the time they reached the centre it seemed most of them were ready to crash on their beds. Chris, Dean, Sam and James, however, followed him everywhere. By the time John, Liz, Scott and Charlie were ready to take them abseiling, a few had surfaced, but the rest had to be fetched. They walked down past the boats and up through the trees to a small cliff. To the right there was a narrow track that led between the trees and the cliff face, up to the top. Sandra and even a couple of the boys moaned at having to climb up before they could abseil down, but most were hyped with adrenaline and ready for anything, almost. The Centre staff all carried heavy equipment bags. John and Liz were up front, with Scott and Charlie at the back, trying to encourage Sandra and the other hangers-back. Once they had all reached the top, Liz started the safety briefing. She went through what they would be doing. This face was only 75 feet, but if anyone came back on future courses they might get the opportunity to climb or abseil cliffs a lot higher. "Safety is paramount. All instructions must be carried out exactly and immediately. In an emergency, any delay or silliness can lead to injury and, occasionally, even to someone dying. So before we get going, does anyone have any questions?" The group murmured that they had none, so Liz asked one of the boys to be her model. She showed them how to put on their harness and make it secure. She handed the boy his helmet. "What does 'Petzl' mean?" he asked. "It's just the brand name of the helmet manufacturer. Right, make sure the chinstrap is not loose. It needs to be tight, but not strangling you." She checked it and then stepped back. Behind her, Charlie and Scott had already started handing out the equipment. Each adult and child fumbled their way into the harness and the centre staff checked they had done it correctly. John had already set up two ropes and was ready to demonstrate how they would get down. Liz brought their attention back to her and talked them through, as John walked back over the edge onto the first slope and then gently released his grip, falling a few feet at a time. Soon he was out of sight, below where the cliff fell almost sheer beneath them. Charlie then repeated the demonstration, Liz once again, talking them through what he was doing. There seemed to be a little scuffle as a couple of the more nervous kids moved to the back of the group. That was ok. Watching the others might give them enough confidence to try it for themselves. Alan's group were up first. The kids insisted he go over before they did, so the counsellor allowed Liz to clip his descender to the rope and he began to walk backward to the edge of the cliff. As he went over, there was a huge cheer from the kids. Liz had to make them step back as a couple were getting dangerously close to the edge. It was at this point that Tom saw someone else, a few meters from the base of the cliff. There, sitting on a stool and looking up at them, was Mrs Daniels. The woman obviously had no intension of abseiling. Tom watched as each of Alan's group walked back over the cliff edge and made their way haltingly down the cliff face. They were going down in twos, one on each rope. Once the last of the four had started down, Sam volunteered Tom. He didn't mind. He had abseiled in South Africa a couple of years before and found it exhilarating. He took a slightly larger leap down than the others had and was soon back on the ground. As soon as John had helped him unclip himself, he stepped back and looked up. Sam and Dean were just coming over the edge. Dean seemed in his element, taking small leaps down the face. Sam proceeded much more cautiously, walking down the face backwards. Dean reached the ground first whooping with excitement and a few minutes later Sam joined them, red in the face, but smiling from ear to ear. Next came Chris on Dean's rope and a few minutes later, James on the rope Sam had come down. Both boys seemed to be quite confident and really enjoyed the experience. Tom followed Alan and his group back up the path to the top of the cliff. By the time they reached the top Ann and her group of girls had reached the bottom and Alex was trying to persuade one of his boys to have a go. Paul had no intention of trusting himself to a thin bit of rope, whatever Liz and Alex said. He stubbornly moved away from the cliff and watched as first the rest of his group and then the last of the girls went over the edge. Alan's group were eager to go again and wasted no time queuing up to go over the edge. Tom's boys too were eager, but had to wait for Alan's group to go first. James and Sam sat down with their classmate Paul. "You not been yet?" Sam asked, tactlessly. "Don't want to." Paul sulked. "Why not?" "Don't like heights." James wrinkled up his nose, "But you climbed the steep path up here. That scared me more than the abseiling." "Yeah, but at least your feet are still on the ground." "Well," said Sam, "they are when you're abseiling, just flat instead of upright." Both James and Paul shook their heads. They found Sam's attempt at logic hilarious. Soon the three of them were horsing around and they didn't notice that some of the girls were already queuing up again. "You three!" Tom shouted. "You coming?" James pulled Paul up and persuaded him to join them at the edge. He stood there, obviously considering it, but still scared. "How about you go down that rope and I'll go down this one at the same time?" James suggested. Paul looked at him, back at the rope and then slowly, very slowly indeed, nodded. Liz got him connected up straight away before he could change his mind. Both boys walked slowly back over the edge. Paul seemed to freeze. James saw him and immediately jumped sideways and gave the boy a really hard kick on the side of his shin. "Boys," Liz shouted, "None of that. Remember your safety rules." ""Ouch! You fuckin' bastard." Paul screamed across at his classmate, but James had already dropped down a few feet, well out of reach. Paul allowed the rope to pull through the descender, dropping slowly but constantly, his feet dangling rather than walking down the cliff. Still, in his haste to catch James, he managed to descend the whole cliff face and landed about the same time as James. As soon as he reached the ground he lunged for James and landed a punch on his upper arm. James staggered and John stepped between them to keep them apart. Once they were off the ropes, Paul squared up to James again. "What was that for?" "To get you moving." "I was fine by myself, you twat." "Good. And I guess you'll go and do it again to prove that then." "Too right I will." Sitting off to one side, James heard Mrs Daniels call him a little psycho. She said to John that children needed much firmer discipline than they must be getting at the school. James' stomach turned. He did not like this woman at all. He rarely took an immediate dislike to anyone, but the more he learned about her and the more time he spent around her, the more he disliked her. "The school's a good place." He told her. "Then why did I hear you asking that young volunteer if you could go and live with him?" "You shouldn't be listening to private conversations." "Oh, but you see, boy, it's my job to find out what exactly is going on and report it." She sneered. "Don't think for one moment that the department would approve of such an irresponsible and far too young a person fostering you. I know all about you." Just as she hissed those words, Sam and Tom reached the ground. Without even undoing his rope, Sam spun round, thrust his body forward and with all the venom he could muster, shouted at her, "And I know all about you and the two girls that died because of you." Colour drained from her face. She stared at the scowling face in front of her for what seemed like several minutes. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pulled tight as she tried to stare him down. "You don't know what you're talking about, boy. I suggest you keep you keep your obnoxious little face out of my business and worry about what is going to happen to you." "Mrs Daniels, I really don't think making threats is in the best interests of the children." Tom moved between them and the social worker. Her shoulders hunched, she pointed at him and said, "You better watch out you man. The department can extract a heavy price for the simplest of mistakes and I'm watching your every move." "Then it's a shame the department wasn't watching you when those two children died." A cheer rose from the group of children who had gathered round them. She looked around at her accusers and decided she could not win this round. Totally flustered, she mumbled something about it being a departmental error and not at all her personal fault, but no one heard what she said. They were all repeating Sam's accusation. Tom turned round and untangled the rope that was still wound around Sam's legs and waist and pulled the boy away from the woman. The noise of accusation from the remaining children grew, so she turned and quickly made her way back down the path to the lake and away from the children. With her departure, the afternoon's activity continued. Alan Spiller, the school counsellor, and Tom took Sam aside to ask what he was talking about and he told them the whole story that he had got from Andy. Sam sat on a rock and James, despite being told to carry on, had stubbornly sat and held his friends hand. "Andy used to get beat a lot by his step dad so he kept running away. Mrs Daniels was his Social Worker and she insisted that he was always taken home. One time, she wasn't on duty and the duty Social Worker put Andy in this home 'cause when the Police found him, it were the middle of the night and, as usual, he was refusin' to go home. So anyways, when he got there they found him a bed. Next day she is back and first she has this meeting, a case conference, where she makes these two little girls who had been staying at the home go back with their mum. The home was like run by a charity like Barnardo's or somethin' and they argued against it, but she insisted and made it happen. Then she makes Andy go back home as well. Next time he runs, she is on holiday, so he gets put in the same home again and finds out that the girls got killed by their mum's boyfriend. When she came back from her holiday, Andy had been in the home for three days and she screamed that he should have been sent back already. So, anyways, Andy says if he gets sent back his step dad might kill him like the girls and she turns round so no one can hear her and says to him that the world might be a better place without brats like him. She said that they didn't have the resources to look after ungrateful brats that had decent homes and if Andy couldn't live with discipline, then that was his problem. When Andy went back, his step dad broke his arm, but she made sure he still stayed at home. So that is why he hates her. She got those little girls killed and it was her fault he got his arm broke." Tom and Allan stood silently, in utter disbelief, not of the story, but that someone so callous could end up as the senior Social Worker for their district. The fact that the woman had responded so badly to Sam's accusation gave the whole story credence. When it was time for them all to return to the centre, she was the only topic of conversation. "Why don't we pin her to one of the archery targets and use her for target practice?" Dean suggested. "She's big enough. No one would miss," laughed Chris. "Do you think it's all true?" asked Sandra. "Course it is." Sam responded. "Why would Andy lie?" "Dunno. Just sounds, like, she should have been sacked or somethin'." "Yeah, well, she wasn't, was she?" "Bet she hates you now," she said. "I think she hates everybody," James countered. "Best not talk about this once we get back, ok?" Tom counselled. "We don't want to create another scene." "Yeah, but someone's going to do something about her, aren't they?" James asked. "I'm not sure what can be done. It's not like the school has any authority over her," Mr Spiller said. The barbeque meal was a lavish spread, but the children were still preoccupied with the scandal about Mrs Daniels. She, however, was nowhere to be seen and when Alan Spiller asked Ann and Nita if they had seen her, they said she had had some food taken up to their room, as she was not feeling too well. After the barbeque, most of the kids went off with the centre staff to take part in the archery. Sandra, another girl and a couple of the boys decided to stay in the centre and watch a DVD instead. Nita volunteered to stay with them. They sat and watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, while the others pretended to be Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Chris took to it straight away and was the first to get all his arrows in the large red centre of the target. Tom managed to miss completely with his first arrow and Dean missed twice. Sam managed to hit the target with all his arrows, but they were scattered all over it, none hitting the bull. James got two in the bull and one so close to the edge that just another couple of millimetres and it would have missed. However, he was pleased with his first attempt and his second go was a little better. Soon the Centre staff said the fading light would make it dangerous to continue, so they packed up and went back inside. They sat around drinking juice and some went in to see the end of the DVD. Other topics had started to creep into conversations, but most were still about Mrs Daniels. "Does she really have the power to stop me coming to live with you?" James asked Tom. "You remember I said it would be hard anyway?" "I guess." "Well, if someone high up like her opposes it, I don't think we stand much of a chance." "But would you want us to if we could?" asked Sam. "Of course I would, Sam. Nothing would make me happier than having the two of you come to live with me. I think you are both great guys and we would have a fantastic time together, but I really don't want to get your hopes up. I really don't see any way to make it happen." James' face dropped. The idea of living with Tom had been growing over the last few weeks. Seeing Tom around the school and getting close to him again, it just felt right that he should be with him. Why was life so complicated, so against him? Tom saw a tear grow in the corner of James' eye. He reached across and brought the tip of his finger up, allowing the tear to attach to it. "Can I keep this?" he asked, holding it up between them. James laughed, despite himself. More to come...