Trust in me ...?

Trust. Such a small word; but such a hard thing to earn & so easily lost . We know we can't trust Shere Khan; we thought we could trust my 15 year old step daughter. However our trust was badly misplaced. She has lied to us - brazen full on lied to a direct question. A lie that now has far reaching & expensive consequences.

She has recently been working very hard at both school & her part time job. She has been getting A's for her GCSE's and has been generally a delight. So when she asked if she could go to a boy neighbours' "gathering" on Saturday night we said yes, sure. The house is literally across the road from us. But of course we wanted to be responsible so we asked her - directly - his parents do know about this don't they? Yes she said, he says they do. Will there be alcohol? Oh no she said. And we had no reason to doubt her word. I negotiated hard with FauxSurreyHusband to get her a late pass – home by 11pm was agreed. And off she went. Only to bring herself home before 10 claiming the party was “really boring, full of geeks” and promptly run upstairs. Odd I thought but knowing that so many are labelled geek by her friends thought no more of it.

However last night a letter came through the door. From the boy in questions' parents. They had absolutely NOT known about the party - he had NOT been given permission. And they had returned to the thing we all read about in the papers and tut & wonder how it happens. A trashed house. The damage runs into £1000's from what we can gather. The invite had gone out on Facebook, so many people just turned up uninvited. But who are these people who go to a house party and then trash the place? And I don't use the word trash out of context.

The parents are conservatively estimating the cost of the damage at around £10k and are considering billing all those who attended and you know what, I think they should. The kids who attended stole & drank ALL the alcohol in the house, rugs & carpets were destroyed by mud & god knows what; all beds had been “slept” in (including a 10 year old boys bed & and I use that term in the ‘sleeping with’ context. Eeeew), their snooker table was damaged beyond repair; someone had punched a huge hole through an internal door; garden furniture was set on fire; speakers were chipped & damaged; the pond was full of detritus & all the fish killed as a result; and someone – someone really bright – had lit a blowtorch in the garden shed which is full of combustible stuff – that would’ve taken out the house next door if that had gone.

After hard questioning it transpired that the stepdaughter & her friends had decided to leave when they realised things were getting out of hand. OK brownie points for that BUT no brownie points for turning a blind eye and not telling an adult about the carnage being wrought over the road, about a neighbours (and friends house) being defiled. We could’ve done something about it had we known. 

So the hard bits. Lying to our faces & then choosing to save her own skin by not confessing to having been at an unauthorised party and by doing that allowing a neighbour’s house to be “trashed”. How do you even begin to dole out a punishment for that? Answers on a postcard please…