Someone as observant as Andrea McCall was not going to miss the split lip. Just like she didn't miss the bruises and occasional limp that Kaileigh had come in to the shop with. Andrea knew damn well what was going on there, but unless the girl chose to press charges against her father there was little anyone could do. The girl was seventeen though and would be eighteen in a few months, and then she would be able to do whatever she wanted - except buy alcohol or see an R rated movie, of course. Andrea suppressed a little smirk as she watched Kira Sveltlan vanish back up the stairs with her new purchase.<br/><br/>It was an interesting fact that shoplifting in Misfits was unheard of in spite of the fact that she had teenage kids wandering around unsupervised...<br/><br/>Andrea took the key out of the cash register again and headed back into her office. She closed the door and then put a finger softly on Kaileigh's lips, carefully missing the painful cut. "Hush, child. Here." She held her arms out and took Kaileigh into them in a motherly hug. The sort of hug she knew the girl didn't get from her mother. The mother.... By the Twins, that had been a major fuck-up! Irene O'Connor had been groomed, readied, and then the silly bitch had gone and fucked Darren O'Sulivan. Andrea had been elsewhere at the time, but when Mrs O'Sullivan had given birth to a girl, Ms McCall had found a way to get herself in the right place at the right time. Much to the amusement of her mentor. But Gwen was not in any position to dictate policy and hadn't been for some time. Andrea was in charge now, at least in this neck of the woods, and this time there would be no fuck-ups.<br/><br/>"There, now. Feeling better?" She held the teenager away from her a little bit. "Here, let me put something on that lip."<br/><br/>Andrea's herbal remedies were famous (or infamous) across the town. Even people who publicly denounced her as a bad influence and a sinful harlot (the latter accusation having no basis in fact whatever) would secretly buy her creams, powders and potions. Because, unlike the crap they could buy from the drug stores, Andrea's remedies actually worked!<br/><br/>She pulled open a drawer of her desk and took out a small pot, an inch diameter, by an inch deep, opaque grey glass at the bottom with a white plastic screw-on lid extending halfway down the pot. Andrea quickly unscrewed the lid revealing a vile sickly pink coloured cream that smelled rather like fermenting strawberries. "Come on now, don't be a baby. It will only sting for a moment." She scooped a little of the cream onto her finger and brooking no resistance, managed to dab it onto Kaileigh's lip. And indeed it would sting for a few seconds, then it would stop hurting, the revolting smell (and even more disgusting taste) would fade. In about an hour, if Kaileigh chose to look in a mirror, all she would see on her lip would be a thin white line. And by the evening, even that would have gone.<br/><br/>The pot was returned to the drawer and the drawer was closed. "Now, sit down and tell me all about it. And then, you can tell me whether you want the job." Andrea sat on one of the office chairs and directed Kaileigh to the other.