The Unlikely Daddy

• 38 •

Mr Bentley and Mr Dylan came back into the room after their brief conversation to see Logan now lying down next to Alfie, softly rubbing his back as Alfie slept.

Once Logan had clocked that his teachers were observing him, he immediately stopped what he was doing and sat himself back up. He didn't particularly mind that they knew he cared about Alfie, but he still felt somewhat responsible for maintaining his cool kid image.

"He'll be asleep for a while, I bet" Mr Bentley told Logan, knowing how exhausted Alfie had been.

"Oh. Do you want me to go back to my class then?" Logan replied, worried he had overstayed his welcome in Mr Bentley's office.

"No, don't be silly. I didn't mean that at all. I just meant that we'll probably be waiting for a little while before he wakes up again" Mr Bentley clarified.

Mr Bentley knew that Alfie would need Logan to be there when he woke up, so he was in no way suggesting that Logan should leave.

Logan, Mr Bentley and Mr Dylan then sat awkwardly for a few minutes before Logan decided to speak again.

"What else did he say at the police station?" Logan asked, hoping he would be able to get as much information as he could so he could support Alfie better.

Initially, Mr Bentley was reluctant to divulge what Alfie had disclosed. But, after mulling the idea over for a moment, he understood that Logan was one of the strongest support networks that Alfie had, so it was important that he knew the full picture.

"He told us that a police officer had taken him home the night that his dad had died and that when he had an accident, the police officer hurt him" Mr Bentley recounted.

"Why would he do that?" Logan asked, admittedly very angry at the thought of somebody doing something to hurt Alfie purposefully.

"Some people make some really ugly choices" Mr Bentley couldn't rationalise what the police officer had done himself, so answering Logan's question was difficult.

"And those people deserve to be in prison, not in a job where they are expected to protect children like Alfie" Mr Dylan added, feeling calling the behaviour 'ugly' was an understatement.

"He'll go to prison, right?" Logan continued to question.

"That'll be down to whether to police do their jobs properly now" Mr Bentley sighed, knowing how often things like this got brushed under the rug to preserve the police's reputation.

"Oh" Logan didn't really understand how all of this worked, so was disheartened to know that the person who hurt Alfie wouldn't definitely be going to jail.

"Our job now is to make sure Alfie feels heard and supported by us. It was a scary thing for him to have to openly talk about, so we need to let him know we are all here to listen and look after him" Mr Dylan said.

Logan nodded, knowing he was already planning on doing that anyways.

The room then fell into silence once again as everybody waited patiently for Alfie to wake up from his nap.

50 more minutes went by before Alfie began to stir himself awake. He stretched his arms above his head before violently rubbing his eyes with his hands.

"Hey buddy" Mr Bentley spoke quietly as to remind Alfie where he was and that he was safe. He imagined Alfie being quite overwhelmed with waking up somewhere he wasn't used to.

"Logan" Alfie beamed, completely ignoring Mr Bentley.

"Hi bug. How're you feeling?" Logan smiled happily back at Alfie.