The Cast-Off Kids (15 page)

‘You must have been saving that for a while,’ Mike said with a look of admiration.

‘When did you last check it?’ I asked.

‘This morning.’ Daisy got out her notebook. ‘Look. I check it every morning when I first get up. I counted it and it was all still there, so I ticked the page, see?’ She
showed us her neat writing, with the amounts and each day’s date with a tick against it, the last one being that morning’s.

‘Well done, Daisy. That’s very efficient.’

‘Then I put it away again in a secret place,’ she explained.

‘But we got it out to show Dad,’ added Paul.

‘So it was on my desk. Anybody could have seen it.’

We tried to work out what could have happened.

‘It must have been AJ.’ Paul was convinced.

I had to agree that it could have been AJ, who used to steal things every day when he first joined us; but he seemed to have gradually changed his ways over the five years since then. Still, he
had been the first person to come into my mind.

‘I agree. It could be AJ,’ Daisy agreed. ‘None of the others would have stolen our money, would they?’ she said with a sad expression.

‘What about Gilroy?’ suggested Paul. ‘He wouldn’t care. But if it was him, he would probably have broken the piggy-bank too.’

‘That’s true,’ I agreed.

‘Whoever it is, you’ve got to make him pay it back,’ insisted Paul, greatly aggrieved.

‘I know you feel very cross and hurt by what’s happened, but we have to do this in the right way.’

‘Call the police!’ Paul demanded. ‘We’ve got to call the police.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ I suggested. ‘Let Mike and me have a think about it, and we’ll call John, and ask him what he thinks too. If we can’t find out who did
it, Mike and I will put that money in your piggy-bank ourselves. We’ll make sure you don’t lose your savings.’

‘Thank you,’ said Daisy with a smile of relief.

‘Yes, thank you,’ agreed Paul.

‘And don’t tell anybody what’s happened, until we tell you it’s OK,’ I added. ‘Until we’ve decided what to do.’

When all the kids had settled down to sleep, I called John, hoping he might be on late duty. He wasn’t, but the woman who answered the phone said she would pass on the message to him and
ask him to come round first thing in the morning, before the children left for school.

So early Monday morning, John came and we sat down in the kitchen with all the children round the table. He explained to all of them that the money was missing and showed them
Daisy and Paul’s piggy-bank, which of course most of the children recognised.

‘Can any of you tell me anything?’

Nobody spoke. I was watching both AJ and Gilroy closely, without it being too obvious. They both looked as surprised as the rest when John told them and neither of them looked shifty or
uncomfortable, so I felt it was unlikely to have been AJ. Gilroy would probably have had the capability to brazen it out, but I didn’t think he was quite that crafty. After all, he
wouldn’t be afraid to own up, if he felt like it, and damn the lot of us with his foul language, which of course he’d learnt from his mother.

Mike took the older ones to school and my friend Val came to play with our three pre-schoolers – Laurel, Alfie and Mandy. This allowed me some uninterrupted time to talk it all through
with John in the sitting-room.

‘What’s your gut feeling?’ I asked him.

‘Well, I wonder whether it might have been Rocky. He hasn’t been for ages, then he comes yesterday, the children take him up to their bedrooms, they tell him about the piggy-bank, he
stays a short while, then he’s off again.’

‘But why would he steal from his own children?’

‘Why wouldn’t he? He’s always short of money.’

‘But he said he’s working.’

‘Yes, that’s what he said. But are you sure?’

‘Mmm. I hadn’t looked at it that way.’

‘Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. But if Rocky comes back again, do not let him go anywhere in the house without you. Don’t let him out of your sight – even
stay close to the toilet door.

‘What you said then . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘It reminded me – Carl, their cousin, came in and went to the loo while everyone was outside . . . or at least he said that’s where he was going.’ We exchanged
glances.

‘I’m afraid we may never know,’ said John with a shrug.

After John had gone, I searched the children’s bedrooms – every inch in AJ’s and Gilroy’s. But I found nothing more than the odd penny or thruppeny bit.

So I told all the children at teatime that we hadn’t solved the crime, but we would replace the money Daisy and Paul had lost, so that they didn’t lose out.

Just a few days later, when I had almost forgotten about it, I had a call from Carl’s mother. She had found some money in Carl’s bedroom and she knew it
wasn’t his. Could he have acquired it when he came to visit Daisy and Paul? I said yes and explained a bit about it, then thanked her. She promised to send me the amount taken in the form of
a postal order.

‘When do you think Rocky will come again?’ asked Mike that evening when the children were all in bed.

‘I’m not holding my breath!’

‘It’s Daisy and Paul who miss out on having a parent.’

‘They didn’t seem too bothered about him on Sunday, when he showed so little interest in them. I think they’ve lost faith in his promises over the years.’

D
aisy had joined the Brownies the previous year and loved it. She had already gained her booklover and artist badges, and now that she knew how to
knit, she was working towards a badge for that too. She wasn’t a leader, or an instigator, so she probably wouldn’t be a sixer, but she loved making things, and they did a lot of that
at Brownies.

Paul started going to Cubs, which he also loved, but for very different reasons. He was never a child who wanted to sit still and do something studious, like Daisy. He was an action-man, right
from the start, and his main aim in life was to have fun, being as active as possible.

So I wasn’t surprised, when I collected him and Ronnie from Cubs one day, to be met at the door by the cub leader.

‘I’m glad I’ve caught you, Mrs Merry. I wanted to have a word with you about Paul.’

‘Oh yes?’ Looking at his serious face, I could already guess what was coming.

‘Paul is a very lively child, which is fine . . . But the trouble is we can’t get him to sit still for a moment! AJ and Ronnie are restless too, but Paul is incorrigible. We simply
can’t keep him in order.’

‘No, I don’t know how they manage him at school, but probably by the time he gets here, he’s had enough of inactivity, like most boys.’

‘Yes, I can understand that, Mrs Merry. But he’s almost wild by the time he gets here. We’re used to coping with the usual rough and tumble, which both AJ and Ronnie are always
in the middle of, but Paul is completely over the top. He’s a daredevil when he’s here, and tries to get the other boys to join him. We’ve been trying to calm him down enough to
start working on a badge, but maybe he’s too new to take that on. The problem is that all the other boys are working well towards their badges and we help them to do that. Paul has been quite
disruptive during these sessions, which has upset some of the other children, especially when he has trodden on their hand-made models, or splashed all over their writing, or whatever.’ He
paused. ‘But today we had an unfortunate incident.’

‘Oh?’

‘One of our older Cubs is doing his astronomer’s badge, so we borrowed a telescope and set it up in the car park to see what stars and planets this boy could identify. But out came
Paul and started careering around between the cars. My assistant couldn’t stop him. It was just high spirits, I know, but he ran straight into the telescope, knocked it to the ground and
broke it.’

‘Oh no, I am sorry. He can be so reckless sometimes. But I’m sure it would have been an accident. We’ll pay for the damage.’

‘Thank you. But I’m afraid Paul is just too boisterous for us, so we must ask you not to bring him to Cubs any more . . . not until he has calmed down a bit. Maybe next year?
I’m afraid he is just too hyper for us to manage at the moment.’

So there it was – having once been excluded from pre-school, Paul was now expelled from Cubs at not quite seven years old!

Daisy came home from school with a note one day. ‘We’re going to do a play,’ she said. ‘And I’m going to be a Dutch girl.’ Her eyes sparkled
as she told me. I had never seen her this excited. I read the note, explaining that it was going to be a performance by the whole class for an assembly, and asking parents to make or provide the
appropriate clothes.

‘I’ve got to wear a pretty blouse and skirt to be a Dutch girl,’ she enthused. ‘And we all have to wear plaits. Can you make them for me, please?’

‘Yes, of course.’ I laughed. ‘So you will be able to wear long hair at last!’

‘And can I have them blond, so it looks like my hair?’

‘OK, I think I’ve got a ball of yellow wool, so you can help me make them. And I’ll sew you a Dutch-style blouse and skirt outfit as well.’

So that’s what we did over the next few days. She tried everything on when it was finished and it all looked perfect.

‘I love the plaits,’ she said, looking at herself in the mirror. The way she had them, attached to an Alice-band, with just her blond fringe showing, framed her face, so that she
couldn’t see her awful haircut. ‘Thank you,’ she said with a lovely smile and a hug. She was more demonstrative that day than I’d ever known her.

‘Right, take off your outfit and I’ll put it away for Friday.’

‘OK. But can I keep the plaits on?’

So that’s what she did. The performance came and went, and the Dutch girl outfit was put away in her drawer to wear again if she wanted to. But the plaits were always with her. She wore
them at home and she wore them to and from school. She wore them for weeks, turning into months.

Several months later, I went up to the school for parents’ evening. When I reached Daisy’s teacher, we talked about her work and how well she was doing in
everything.

‘Well, that’s all good news,’ I said with a smile. ‘I wish I got that with all my kids!’

‘But there is one thing I wanted to discuss with you, Mrs Merry.’

‘Oh yes? What’s that?’

‘Daisy’s plaits – she keeps them in her desk every day and insists on wearing them at break-times. She’d wear them in the classroom too if we let her.’

‘Really?’ I was surprised that Daisy had become so attached to them at school as well as at home.

‘So, could you please ask her not to bring the plaits to school anymore? This has gone on for too long now, and some of my colleagues are rather concerned about it becoming a bit of an
obsession.’

The next evening, I had a chat with Daisy. ‘I’m so pleased with how well you are doing at school, Daise,’ I began. ‘Your teacher showed me some of your books, and the
marks you’ve been getting. I’m very proud of you for working so hard and doing so well.’

‘Thank you,’ she smiled, her self-esteem quietly boosted.

‘But there is one thing,’ I continued. ‘It’s those plaits I made you. Now, we don’t mind if you want to wear them at home, but the teacher doesn’t want you to
have them at school any more. So just keep them at home and you can wear them here when you want to.’

‘It’s only because I’m not allowed to have long hair,’ she explained.

‘Yes, I know, Daise. But not away from home, OK?’

She gave a big sigh. ‘OK.’

The next time John, her social worker came to the house, a few days later, Daisy had her plaits on.

‘Daisy’s still acting the Dutch girl, is she?’ he asked with a smile.

‘Yes, but only at home now.’ And I told him what her teacher had told me at parents’ evening.

He nodded his agreement. ‘It’s time these plaits were taken away and burnt!’

‘I can’t do that, John. I can’t . . .’

So she carried on wearing them all day, every day at home, until they started to become so tattered that they began to fall apart.

‘Can we mend them?’ she asked me one day, with a forlorn expression.

‘No, I think they’re beyond repair, Daise.’

‘But I want to keep them,’ she pleaded, close to tears.

‘Well, why not put them in your memory box?’ I suggested.

‘Oh yes!’ her face brightened. ‘That way I can still try them on sometimes, to cheer me up.’

I used to give every child a memory box, no matter how short a time they were with us. We used to put photos in them, along with bus and train tickets, certificates from
school, entry tickets to places we’d visited, plus posters, programmes, hair ribbons, masks, letters, badges, small gifts, a favourite comic or book, things they’d won at the fair
(other than fish!) – all sorts.

Sometimes on Sundays, when the weather was bad, I used to ask the children to bring down their memory boxes and we all sat round the kitchen table, sharing their memories and taking out some of
their treasured items to show, as well as adding new ones. Out would come the funny stories and we all enjoyed laughing together. Everyone loved these sessions, apart from Gilroy, who was becoming
gradually more morose and seemed to be listening to his own thoughts more than to anyone else.

Whenever a child left, they took their memory box with them to help them remember the fun times they’d had with us. And for some children, like Daisy and Paul, their memory boxes held all
the memories they could remember, having come to us at such young ages and stayed for so much of their childhood. We hoped they would be able to keep them long after they left us, and continue
adding to them.

E
ver since Gilroy had joined us, his mother had been the bane of my life. But we’d had a welcome lull since the court case, when she had been
convicted and ordered never again to come within 100 yards of our house. She had kept to it, so far, though her frequent abusive phone calls had been almost as bad.

One day, however, there was a persistent knocking on the front door. I peeked out of a window and saw her standing there. So I went to the door and fastened the chain before opening it a crack.
It was awkward trying to talk through that crack, with her on the doorstep. But I knew I couldn’t let her in without permission from Social Services, and anyway, I wanted to make as sure as I
could that she was in a fit state.