The muffled voices wake me around 3 oclock in the morning, disoriented I try to work out where they are coming from.  The pub is shut, so it can't be customers and the only people who should be here is me and Dad.  I carefully push the door, slinking quietly into Dads room but he's flat out, snoring and clearly too tired to even get undressed.  He's literally fallen on top of the bedding and crashed into a deep slumber. I creep out, trying not to wake him tip-toeing back into my room. 

I pull back the curtain at the corner to nose out of the window, down into the courtyard that the smokers use.  There is Bell with the boys, my heart rate starts to raise, is she in danger? should I wake Dad? but then I hear her laugh, she must know them.  She's sat on the bench with the boys gathered around her, their bikes thrown carelessly to the ground.

Their voices are muffled almost hushed and are hard to make out.  There  seems to be an ease between them.  The boys seem more relaxed, their body language is a lot less hostile with no rigidness to it, which I hadnt thought possible, without the intention of attacking.

I make out her congratulations on a good job.  The larger one of the boys looks up at the window to which I quickly duck down hoping not to been seen.  I sneak back up, scared to look but curiosity drawing me in.  They seem oblivious to me.  Why was she congratulating them on a good job?  Maybe she means when they came to my rescue earlier, then she knows what happened.  She couldn't have said anything to Dad as he would have woken me with million and one questions then had us out of here.

Why didn't she tell him? Unless she really wants to keep us here.  But why? and why is she helping us? no one helps us.  I feel my head ache with the hundreds unanswered thoughts and questions pounding on my brain like a locked door that won't budge.

I return quietly to my bed with the hope that sleep will clear my brain and make sense of all this. My mind is tired almost scrambled by all that's happened.  I'm used to relying on my wits and gut instinct but this all feels so hard to judge.  I don't want to take away any of this from Dad he's given up so much to care for me but I feel a menacing undercurrent beneath us and it scares me, the thought of us getting swept away by it.