Anna darted home from the promenade cycle track like a bat out of hell.  David followed in hot pursuit hauling his mangled bike behind him.  Their faces were beetroot, their hair dank and lank with sweat and their eyes glistening with tears.  David also dripped scarlet blood from his cut and gravely palms and complained that his black and blue and grazed knees were killing him.

            Anna blurted out, “We were riding our bikes on the track when Greg just appeared from nowhere.  He was driving like a madman and he was coming straight at us but then at the last minute he swerved and he threatened that our throats would be cut cos he pretended to cut his own throat with his finger.  It was really scary.  Then he disappeared, but it wasn’t long before he was coming at us again.  He must’ve only driven around the block.  On the second time tho, he rammed his car right into David and knocked him flying.  I jumped off my bike to see if David was ok and the next thing we saw was Kim charging towards us effing and blinding. She was yelling, ‘You bloody stupid dickheads; don’t you realize that my dad is gonna kill you?  You’ve got no idea what he’s going to do next.  All I can say is God help you when he gets hold of you.  You’re a pair of prats.  He can’t stand you or your horrible, bitchy mum.  You are all shitting, fucking arseholes.’.”

            David continued the narration, “As I was getting back up onto my feet, I shouted back to her, ‘Why don’t you keep out of all this?  This is between your dad and my mum.  It’s got nothing to do with you.’ But then her face went black, her nostrils started flaring and she began stamping and stromping towards me.  She grabbed my bike and chucked it really hard into the wall, making the front wheel buckle.  So I went up to her, put my bloodied hands on her shoulders and kicked her hard as I could on her legs.  Then I legged it.  She was howling and screaming, ‘You fucking little bastard; you’re dead.’  She began to chase us and she was swearing her head off all the time at the top of her voice.  Everyone was looking at her.”

            Sarah was pleased that her son had the spunk to stand up for himself and that he gave Kim ‘what for’ back, especially as she’s six years older than him and almost twice as tall.  But the attack on David and Anna infuriated her.  Greg was a pathetic deranged piece of bacterium picking on her two little kids, especially as he did so in such a despicable and dangerous calculating manner - using his car as a missile.  It was sheer luck that David wasn’t hurt more seriously.  Or was it?  Probably not.  Shrewd Greg always did know how far to go and what he could get away with.  He bloody well knew that if he put any of them in hospital then he’d pushed it too far and the police would have to act.  Sly Greg was keeping well within the perimeter-boundaries.

            She knew that there was no point calling cops but did so anyway - just for the record.  As expected, the version from the Potter camp, according to police, was that David and Anna had started this latest altercation.  They had approached Kim, threatened her and had tried to run her over.  The buckled wheel was caused by David accidentally riding into a wall when Kim managed to dive out of the way.  And he was injured falling off his bike.  Well, of course there was no way the police were going to side with her and take any action against him; they’d already made it pretty clear that Gregory Potter was untouchable.  In fact she half wondered why they weren’t charging her or rather David - with common assault on Kim and criminal damage to Greg’s car, caused when it made contact with her son!  But this was no laughing matter.  Sarah knew that she and the kids were, quite simply, sad sitting ducks.  The police were on Greg’s side.  It was a deeply disturbing fact.

            She pondered the plight of his daughter and realised that she too was his victim.  She was a mere pawn in his shabby, scheming mission.  But then again, looking back, that’s all Kim ever was to her father.  She was a puppet - someone there for him at his beck and call to take over his ex-wife’s role.  She had to fetch and carry and run his errands, clean his house and make his meals.  She had to fetch his pills and attend to his nightly medical needs.  And she had to LIE - ugly lousy lies - just to save his face and cover his arse.  It had been like this whenever she and Greg had argued [which had been often.]   Kim hadn’t been aware that her father was using and abusing her for his own means.  She had construed it as love and there was no way she was ever going to be receptive to any suggestion of the opposite.  Whatever her daddy said was gospel.  All she had to do was be the good little loyal child and daddy would look after her and protect her.  What a wicked lie and a revolting abuse of power.  Her father was rotten to the core.  Poor Kim was in fact a very mixed up lonely naive girl.  Lee, on the other hand had seen the dreadful situation for what it was and had rebelled - with limited success, for he was also still terrified of and oppressed by his father.  Sarah prayed that one day Kim and Lee would find the strength to break free of their repugnant father and admit the truth but she knew that in Kim’s case it’d take a miracle.  She’d walk on hot coals for him.

There was a little flicker of light along her dark depressing interminable tunnel.  Jimmy Oliver suggested writing a stern letter to the other side warning that if Greg’s relentless obsession with stalking and harassing did not cease then she would be instigating injunction proceedings.

Sarah agreed with her children that it would be useful to have some self-protection for the family in the house and also for David and Anna when they were out in the town.  The majority of the kids in the neighbourhood had ball-bearing/pellet firing guns of various descriptions.  Some were toy ones which shot plastic pellets and which were quite effective if the target was shot on the flesh.  Others were various types of sports guns, which shot plastic and metal ammo and which were more powerful.  She agreed that her kids could have a sports gun each as long as they were used for target practice only, at home.  She explained that such guns could only be used under adult supervision and only on private land.  They would, however, be allowed to use such a gun on Greg if he was spotted on their property!    She allowed them to have a toy gun too, for use, if necessary, down town.  

Sarah was tempted to say that they could take the more effective sports gun out, just in case they were attacked again, but decided against it because of the legalities.  Although many people [including kids of all ages] carry illegal lethal weapons with intent to kill, she knew that if her kids were stopped by police and asked if they were in possession of a sports gun, they’d be charged with carrying an offensive weapon.  Although Greg could get away with what she viewed as attempted murder on her son, the rules were different for her family.  But self-protection they certainly needed since the law was clearly failing them.  What other choice did they have?

As the family tucked into their tea, David, in thoughtful mood, piped up:

            “You know when I got knocked off my bike, nan came to ask me if I was ok.”

            “Don’t be daft,” Sarah responded, “Nan died. You must’ve imagined it.”

            “No I didn’t.  She was there.  She was wearing a long red mac and she was carrying her gloves and a brolly. She was looking really concerned and she said, ‘Are you alright David?’ and I just looked at her, smiled and said, ‘Yes I’m fine,’ and then she went.”

            “Well, that’s a lovely memory,” replied his mother, unconvinced that David had encountered his nan in spirit form; for Sarah was no believer of ghosts.

            “You think I made it all up, don’t you?” asked an indignant David.  “You think I’m just a crazy kid with a big imagination.  You never listen to me.  You didn’t take me seriously when I told you that I’d met God either - in the field, with Anna and Beth.”          

            “Tell me again,” urged a shame-faced Sarah.  She didn’t have a clue what David was going on about.  God? .... Field? .... Beth?

            “Remember the night when Greg had a BBQ cos it was his birthday?   We all went to his party.  All his family were there, including his cousin and Beth.”

            “Oh yes, poor Bethan,” recalled Sarah, visualising her mother - vengeful Donna Black.

            “Yeah, I remember everyone was getting tipsy,” butted in Anna.  “What is it with you adults that you have to drink all the time?  Beth used to say that she liked her mum when she was at the ‘happy’ stage cos she’d give her mum a pound and ask to swap it for a fiver.  She’d get five quid back too!  But she was always worried cos the ‘happy’ stage didn’t last long and she dreaded her mum’s ‘monster’ stage.  The best thing she could do then was clear off out of the way for a few hours until her mum had drank herself stupid and then slept it off.”

            “Everyone got really drunk,” continued David.  “Even you got quite tipsy, mum.  You must’ve been cos you didn’t notice when I had a few sips of your lager.  Ugh it was yuk.  Beats me how you can drink the stuff; I can’t stand it.”

            “I remember putting you three to bed and Beth begging to move in with us.  I wish I could help that kid,” said a thoughtful Sarah.

            “It was then that I told you about God; about meeting him for the first time.  Beth showed us.” David added enthusiastically.

            “I guess I wasn’t really listening then.  I had other things on my mind; like how to get away from Greg all in one piece.  Tell me now.”

            David reminisced, “We were getting depressed because you lot were getting argumentative.  We were saying that if adults didn’t drink, they wouldn’t fight and kids wouldn’t get picked on.  We were telling Beth that we hated our step-dad cos he was drunk most of the time and was always nasty to us so we had to try and keep out of his way.  She told us that all her family are horrid to her nearly every day and that she spends most of her time alone in her bedroom, crying.  She said it wasn’t always like that, her mum used to be good to her until she met Stuart three years ago and then she turned bad.  Beth told us that her two friends in school have also got mothers who used to be kind but who changed when they got new boyfriends because the boyfriends drank too much and smoked dope.  We were wondering why, when two people meet and one is good and one is bad, the bad one always manages to change the good one.  Why can’t it be the other way around?”

            Sarah listened to the revelations wide-eyed and open-mouthed.  Anna listened intently, smiled and nodded.  Her son continued-

            “Beth said that when things get really bad for her at home, she prays to God.  She goes off on her own for a walk, finds a quiet spot in a field, or in the woods and she sits cross-legged on the grass and meditates.  She always feels much better because God comes to talk to her.  She said she’d teach us how to do it.  So without any of you lot even knowing that we’d gone, we followed Beth to the football field.  We sat cross-legged in a circle facing each other and holding hands.  Beth told us to just forget about everything; then she said to concentrate on God.  She said to just will him to come and visit us, and that if we want it to happen badly enough then it will.  After a few minutes of us being still and quiet and calling him in our heads, we all saw, at the exact same moment, dazzling white light.  We opened our eyes and saw him sitting there in our circle.  He was white, about the same size as you mum and he had a long cloak on.  His beard was bushy and it was really cold where he sat.  He had a really kindly face and he kept turning around to look at us all.”

            “Did he say anything?” enquired an enthusiastic but shocked Sarah.

            David replied:

            “Yes; he said, ‘Thank you very much for believing in me.  Don’t be sad.  It won’t always be like this.  Things will change for the better soon.  Trust me.  I love you and bless you,’ and then he went.  We tried to call him back again but he didn’t come.  Beth says that not many people can get him to visit because they don’t really believe.  God told her that he’s having a job getting through to people because their minds are closed and many are weak and have chosen the wrong path in life - Satan’s.  He told her that he has his little helpers and that he tries to visit people in different ways, sometimes in their sleep.  He says he needs more people to obey him and help him defeat the evil in the world so that Satan will be destroyed.”

            Sarah was dumbfounded.  It was a truly heart-warming tale but she tended to take the view that this was just a case of kids being kids and having vivid imaginations.  What bothered her was that all three felt so utterly powerless, distraught and alone that they’d resorted to sitting in a field praying to the great unknown.  It bothered her that they had to do this for some relief to their wretched lives of sorrow and suffering. 

            She immediately felt a flush of guilt and began blaming herself entirely for the pain and anxiety that she’d put her kids through while she’d been involved with evil-minded Greg Potter.  Not knowing what to say and with tears smarting her eyes, she reached out to her children, drew them close and cuddled them.

David and Anna did not want or need to hear anything.  They knew how their mum felt.  They had not intended for her to feel this way and they urged her not to blame herself, saying that meeting God had been a fantastic experience and that they were the lucky ones.  They wanted their mum to know God too but knew that it was easier for kids to reach him.  They believed that everyone has got their little bit to do in life to change the world into a better, safer, fairer place.  Sarah had her reservations but did not divulge any to David and Anna, telling herself that maybe they did have an enviable divine experience.  Maybe they did have a message; after all any action, which would combat evil and promote righteous behaviour, certainly made good sense.  Sarah asked herself on whose authority was she questioning the kids’ observations and spiritual beliefs and she told herself that she should be a little more open-minded.  After all nobody, not one person, knows the truth about God, his angels or the heavens.