The teacher frowned. “Work?”
Lucas froze. He realised late that he’d said too much. Mr Vance took a step closer. “Lucas, where are you working?”
The boy’s face closed. “It’s just some shifts.”
“What shifts?”
Lucas looked toward the bedroom. “Please don’t make this a problem.”
Ms Morgan entered the kitchen at that moment. She had been speaking with Eleanor using short questions and allowing time for responses. She stopped when she heard Lucas’s tone. “What’s happening?” MMrVance looked at her. “He says he’s working.” Ms Morgan turned toward the boy. “Is that right?” Lucas stared at the floor. She pulled out a chair and sat down rather than towering over him. “Lucas, I’m not going to shout at you. But I need to understand how much you’re doing and whether you’re safe.” He remained standing. “If you tell someone, I’ll lose the job.” She nodded slowly. “That might be something we need to address, but we won’t ignore the fact that your family needs support. Tell me about the work first.”
Lucas sat opposite her. He answered cautiously at first, then with increasing detail. He described the bakery, the late shifts, the journeys across London, and the way he tried to sleep between school and his responsibilities at home. He explained that he had accepted more hours after the household fell behind on bills and that he sometimes worked through most of the night before going directly to school. MMrVance listened without interrupting. The more Lucas spoke, the more the teacher’s earlier accusations returned to him in humiliating detail. If you’re old enough to stay awake all night, you’re old enough to accept the consequences. He remembered saying it with complete confidence. He remembered the laughter. He remembered the boy’s expression.
“How much sleep do you get?” MsMsorgan asked.
Lucas rubbed his forehead. “Depends.”
“On a school night when you’re working?”
He hesitated. “An hour. Maybe two. Sometimes a bit more if I can sleep on the bus.”
Mr Mrnce stared at him. “You’ve been doing this since September?”
Lucas nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
The question came out more sharply than he intended. Lucas looked at him, and for the first time since the visitors arrived, something like anger appeared in his face. “I tried.” Mr Mrce frowned. “When?” Lucas swallowed. “You asked why I was tired, and I said things were bad at home. You told me everybody had problems.” The teacher opened his mouth, then closed it. Lucas continued, his voice growing steadier. “When you took my phone, I said I needed it in case someone called about Mum. You said that if I cared that much about my family, I should stop wasting my time.” MMrVance remembered the incident. At the time, he had believed he was confronting a student using family circumstances as an excuse to break school rules. Now he understood that Lucas had been telling him the truth, albeit in fragments, for months.
“I didn’t know,” the teacher said.
Lucas stared at him. “You didn’t ask.”
