Little Prisoners (3 page)

‘Five kids!’ Mike exclaimed, voicing my own thoughts. They’d been busy.

Anna nodded. ‘Indeed, but it’s these two, being older than the babies, who are proving problematic for us. Up till now the service has been unable to find anyone willing to take them.’

‘Why were they removed?’ I asked her. ‘I mean, I can see they’ve been neglected, but is that it? Is that the only reason?’

Both Anna and Robert looked slightly uncomfortable at the question, and it was Robert who now stepped in to answer. ‘Mainly,’ he said. ‘Yes, that’s about the size of it.

Gross neglect, quite a number of complaints, from various sources, and the parents, to be frank with you, seem incapable of looking after themselves, let alone five kids. Learning difficulties, both of them. Dad fairly mild but, in the mother’s case, really quite severe. So we’ve been going through the usual channels, of course – there’s a court hearing coming up soonish for a full care order, but as the hearing date’s got closer, and our investigations more frequent – and also more thorough, of course – it’s become increasingly clear that we’d be doing the kids a disservice if we left them with the parents any longer.’

‘But why so sudden?’ Mike asked him. ‘That’s what we don’t understand. Why now as opposed to after the actual hearing. What’s prompted it?’

He was getting to the nub of it. There
must
be a reason. What had they discovered, bar the lice and the stench and the obvious dishevelment, that would prompt them to take the kids so suddenly?

Anna answered. ‘Like Robert said, the situation’s just deteriorated. And despite several warnings, the mother’s not turned things around. We simply couldn’t leave them, that was all. She’s not been feeding them, washing them, washing their clothes – stuff like that, mainly. And they’ve been eating out of dustbins and stealing food from other children’s lunchboxes in school. We just had to act, basically … well, you’ve seen for yourselves now, of course.’

I glanced towards the living room. ‘Those poor, wretched kids,’ I said. ‘They just look so sad and scared. This must be awful for them.’

‘It has been. It
is
. It was really traumatic taking them.’ I saw the anguish in her expression and I believed her. This was probably the least edifying part of her job. No, more than that – it must have been grim for her. ‘They were clinging to their mum,’ she said. ‘Screaming at her to stop us. To help them. Really upsetting …’

She tailed off, and I could see it was upsetting her now. ‘So what about their stuff?’ I asked briskly, to change both the tone and the subject. ‘They don’t seem to have much, even by these kinds of standards.’

‘That’s it,’ Anna said. ‘They have nothing. Literally nothing.’ She nodded towards the hall. ‘I helped pack, so I can tell you, there’s nothing of use in there. Couple of sets of disgusting pyjamas, a couple of raggy hoodies and T-shirts – very little else.’

I could feel a wave of sadness wash over the table. Poor, poor children. What desperate straits to be born into.

‘So,’ Mike said, trying, as I had, to lift the tone again, ‘anything else useful you can tell us?

‘Well, just about their medication, really,’ Anna answered. ‘We’ll obviously sort everything out paperwork-wise, when we have the pre –’ she smiled ruefully. ‘Ahem, pre-placement meeting. But in the meantime –’

‘Medication?’ I asked. ‘What medication?’ This was news to both of us and it filled me with dismay. Sophia, our last child, had had a rare disorder called Addison’s disease, and along with all her other problems, the illness had caused many, many more, as we struggled with a regime of careful nutrition and daily meds, any wobble in which
could potentially make her seriously ill. And
had
done, more than once. I shuddered to recall the stress of it. And now again. What on earth was wrong with these ones?

‘Oh,’ Anna said, colouring slightly. ‘Did John not explain? Or maybe I forgot to explain
to
him. Both the kids have been diagnosed as having a form of ADHD. They are absolutely
fine
on their Ritalin,’ she was quick to reassure me. ‘And they’ve both had it for today, so you don’t need to worry. In fact, it’s nothing to worry about in any case, really. Just a tablet each morning and that’s all there is to it. They do have a specialist they’re under, of course, but they’ll be here so short a time that it’s not going to be relevant to you. Just a tablet a day, and that’s it sorted.’

That the children had ADHD – attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – wasn’t really much of a surprise to me. As a behaviour manager in the local comprehensive I’d dealt with plenty of kids in school who were similarly afflicted, and was familiar with the condition and its symptoms, not to mention the action of Ritalin on them – that ‘zombie’-type demeanour the drugs seemed to make them have. But, yes, compared to Sophia’s Addison’s disease, this
was
mild. But I felt my hackles rise, even so. Not relevant to me?
Of course it was relevant
, I thought,
you silly woman
! And fancy just springing something like that on us at the last minute. Did she really forget before? I was doubtful.

‘Okay,’ I said pointedly, ‘but is there anything else we should know?’

‘Not really,’ she said, seemingly oblivious to my slightly chippy tone. ‘Like I was saying, we’ll be here the same time
tomorrow for what should have been the pre-placement planning. I’ll bring all the paperwork, of course and – oh, in the meantime, my boss asked me if I’d give you this.’

She reached into her bag and pulled out a white envelope which, when I opened it, turned out to be stuffed with ten-pound notes.

‘What on earth’s that?’ asked Mike, seeing it and grinning. ‘Danger money?’

‘It’s two hundred pounds,’ Anna replied, her own smile somewhat sheepish. ‘I know it’s a bit irregular, but you’re to spend it as you see fit. You know – get anything you think the children need. We’re well aware how much stuff you’re going to need to get for them, even if it is for a very short while.’

Very
irregular, I thought as I pushed back the flap. And it was. The normal procedure was that we’d buy anything our foster children needed, then put in the receipts and justify – very robustly – why we’d needed to spend the money. It would invariably be weeks and sometimes months before we saw it back in our bank account. Yes, this was odd indeed. And it made us both wonder. Why exactly where they trying to butter us up so much? Were they that worried we’d change our minds and reject them?

They needn’t have worried. While the social workers said their goodbyes to the children, I took a quick peek at the sorry pile of belongings in the hall. Anna had been right. In the case there were indeed two pairs of manky, torn pyjamas, jumbled up with a couple of T-shirts, the colour of
dirty washing-up water, and a couple of broken photo frames, containing pictures of, presumably, their mum, dad and what looked like all five siblings together. In the bin bag there was very little more. A couple more items of clothing that I wouldn’t even have used as rags to clean my kitchen floor, an empty baby’s feeding bottle and a large undressed doll. It looked like it should have belonged to the bad boy in the
Toy Story
movie; faintly sinister, with half-shorn, matted hair, missing eyeballs and scribbles of ballpoint pen all over its face and body.

‘That’s Olivia’s,’ Robert whispered, as he emerged from the living room. ‘Loves that doll, apparently. Dad got it for her when she was four. Only toy she has. The other one has nothing.’

‘Literally?’

‘Yes,’ he said, frowning at me. ‘
Literally
.’

I put the dolly carefully back in the dusty bag. There could hardly have been a more apt metaphor, I thought. And in every sense, as we were soon to find out.

Chapter 3

When Mike and I returned to the living room the children were exactly where we’d left them, but one thing
had
changed – it was the smell. The room reeked now, and I went across to open some windows. These poor kids. It broke my heart to think they could be left to get into such a state.

‘Now, then, you two,’ I said brightly. ‘What would you like to do first? I bet you’d like to see your rooms, wouldn’t you? Yes?’

Olivia, her arm looped tightly through Ashton’s, looked immediately up at her big brother. Ashton nodded. ‘Do we both sleep together?’ he asked, shyly. ‘Cos we do at Mummy’s.’

Mike shook his head. ‘No, Ashton,’ he said. While you’re here you will have a nice big boy’s room, and Olivia will have a nice small room all to herself.’

Olivia jumped up so suddenly she startled me. I could see tears springing in her eyes. She looked horrified. ‘No,
mister!’ she said. ‘I sleeps wiv my bruvver! I already lost my little bruv and sisters!’ Her voice was plaintive. ‘An’ I need to be looked after!’ she finished, sniffing back tears.

I was struck again by how much younger than her six years she looked. I bent down and scooped her straight up into my arms. She was as light as a feather; it felt like I was holding a baby, all the more so when she wrapped both her arms and legs around me, then buried her face in my neck and began sobbing. ‘Shhh, sweetie,’ I soothed. ‘You will love your room, I promise. It’s a princess’s room, specially for beautiful little girls like you.’

‘But, miss,’ she sniffled. ‘I always piss the bed when I get scareded, an’ I
will
be scared, I really, really will!’

‘She will, miss,’ Ashton added. ‘’s why we need to sleep together.’

I kissed Olivia’s forehead, trying my utmost to keep her wild infested hair from my own, before settling her back down onto the sofa. ‘Now, listen, kids,’ I said gently. ‘First off, you’re making me feel like I’m back at school again. It’s Mike and Casey, isn’t it, Mike?’ Mike grinned at them and nodded. ‘No Mr and Miss stuff round here. And second, the bedrooms have already been arranged for you.’ I turned to Ashton. ‘Ashton,’ I said, ‘At nine, you are practically a grown-up – far too old to be sharing a room with your little sister. She’ll be absolutely fine, and we can keep your doors open, and with the landing light on too, so she won’t be scared. You don’t want to be in a room cluttered with toys and dolls, do you?’

I could have bitten my tongue as soon as heard myself say that. What was I thinking? These kids had never
had
any toys. It must have gone over Ashton’s head, though, because he looked thoughtful before saying, ‘Yeah, Olivia. I’m fed up with sharing with girls anyway. I wanna proper grown-up boy’s room so I can do boy’s stuff, okay?’

‘Yeah, well!’ shouted Olivia, her tears gone, her voice indignant. ‘I’m sleeping in a princess room, so there! An’ I don’t want no smelly boys in it, okay?’

‘Well, that’s that, then!’ laughed Mike. ‘Come on, then, kids. What are we waiting for? Let’s go and show you round the house!’

But I stopped him. ‘Hmm, Mike,’ I said. ‘I tell you what. Why don’t I show them around while you pop down to the chemist’s and get some of that special shampoo we used to use on our kids when they were little?’ It took a few seconds, but, with the help of my scratching my head somewhat emphatically, it eventually dawned on him what I meant. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Good idea! Anything else I need to get while I’m there?’

I was just about to open my mouth, when Olivia piped up. ‘Could you get us some stuff for our nits, Mike?’ she asked him. ‘Anna said you’d get rid of ’em for us.’

While Mike set off to get the head-lice shampoo, I thought it would be a good idea to take the children to meet Kieron and Bob. They were both chilling in the sunshine, Kieron asleep on my sun lounger and the dog, more practically, given his fur, stretched out in the shade under a bush. The
children whooped, and immediately ran to pet him, which woke up Kieron, who sat up, still sleepy. He rubbed his eyes for a bit before fixing his gaze on the two little ones and exclaiming, ‘What the …? Oh my
God
, Mum!’

‘Hush!’ I chided. ‘They’re not deaf, Kieron, for goodness’ sake. And besides, it’s just dirt. We’ll soon have them cleaned up. Oh, and they have head lice, just to warn you, so not too close, eh?’

He wrinkled his nose in distaste. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I
won’t
be.’ But then he jumped up from the sun lounger. ‘Hey, you two!’ he called. ‘How about you come and tell me who you both are, then?’

Ashton shyly introduced himself, once again adopting that rather stiff, formal expression he had when he’d arrived. It was rather endearing, I thought. It was as if he knew he had a responsibility to set a good example for his little sister, by giving a good account of himself. A responsibility he clearly took very seriously.

‘An’ this is my little sister. She’s called Olivia,’ he explained. ‘But you can probably call her Livs, can’t he, Livs?’

He turned to his sister, who was blushing now, under Kieron’s smiling scrutiny.

‘Can I?’ asked Kieron. ‘Would that be okay with you?’

Olivia stood and thought for some time before answering. ‘Maybe,’ she said eventually.

Kieron nodded seriously. ‘Well, you just let me know when,’ he said. ‘Okay?’ It was difficult for me to keep a straight face.

Olivia it was, then. For the moment at least. But so far, so good. As they had clearly warmed to Kieron – he was such a sunny personality, it was difficult for anyone not to – I suggested that it was he who led the tour of their new bedrooms, while I went off to phone his sister, Riley. There was no way I was going to put the kids in any of the things that had come with them – they were fit for nowhere but an incinerator – so I needed some clothes for them urgently. And, bless her, Riley said she’d head straight into town and get them two sets of T-shirt and shorts, plus flip-flops, and some underwear to see us through the night. Once they were respectable, of course, I could take them in myself, to choose their own clothes and nightwear, but for now that would do. Thank goodness it was summer.

I joined the party upstairs just as Mike returned with the bug-zapping lotion. It was almost lunchtime but I had a higher priority. To see the lice gone before they infested the whole family. They might not be able to jump but they were very efficient crawlers, and anxious young children needed lots of hugs and cuddles. Not a very practical combination if we wanted to stay nit-free.