The Cast-Off Kids (19 page)

I took Gilroy back towards our caravan and we started going down the rows. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said, and my own fears. Surely she couldn’t have fallen
off the cliff? What if someone had taken her, kidnapped her?
Oh no
. . . I was panicking again – running around like a headless chicken.

Meanwhile, Mike had gone to the reception office and had a call put out on the Tannoy, to anyone who had seen a lost four-year-old called Mandy.

Just as the announcement stopped, I heard Mandy’s voice. Was I imagining it? I was sure it was her. But where was it coming from? I looked all around, but I couldn’t see her. Was my
mind playing tricks? No, there it was again, coming from the open doorway of a stranger’s caravan. I rushed to go up the step, ready to save her . . . only to find her sitting down with a
drink in one hand and a chocolate biscuit in the other, making herself at home, having a chat with a kindly looking elderly couple.

‘Mandy, we thought we’d lost you,’ I said with surge of relief.

‘We thought you were dead!’ added Gilroy, looking disappointed. ‘We thought you had fallen off the cliff and drowned in the sea.’

Paul and Ronnie arrived behind us at that moment.

‘Oh good,’ said Paul. ‘She’s not dead.’

‘Your little girl just came in through the door, explained the woman. ‘She was so sweet. She just said she was thirsty. So I gave her some lemonade.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘That was very kind of you, but . . .’

‘We were having a lovely chat, weren’t we, Mandy?’ said the man, smiling.

Mandy gave me a look as if to say, what’s all the fuss about?

I was just so relieved and delighted to have found her that I didn’t have the heart to tell her off for going into a different caravan or for talking to strangers. Not at that moment,
anyway. That would have to come later. I just picked her up and gave her a big hug. Phew! She had been safe all the time, and we didn’t have to answer to Social Services after all.

On the last day of the holiday, as promised, we took all the kids to the fair. All week I’d been telling them that if they didn’t spend all their pennies on ice
creams or sweets, and saved up this much money, they could maybe have five goes at the fair.

They chose their goes carefully. Some went on the merry-go-round while others did games like hook-a-duck, or the older ones went on the dodgem cars, but we wouldn’t let them do the
shooting, which particularly upset the boys.

‘Spoilsport,’ accused Gilroy.

‘Why can’t we do the shooting? It’s not a proper rifle anyway,’ moaned Ronnie.

‘I wanted to knock down some ducks,’ added Paul.

‘Come on, kids,’ said Mike, coming to my rescue. ‘I’m going to have a go at the huge hammer to see if I can make the thing go up to ring the bell.’

So we all went over to watch him roll his sleeves up and flex his biceps, building up the tension.

‘Come on, Dad,’ shouted Ronnie.

‘Hit the bell,’ chorused Gilroy and Paul, at the tops of their voices.

‘Careful you don’t hit your foot,’ I warned, much to the children’s amusement.

‘Ohhh,’ said Daisy, disappointed that Mike hadn’t managed to make the bell ring.

‘Have another go,’ yelled five-year-old Laurel, jumping up and down with excitement.

I don’t think Mike ever did make the bell ring, but everybody enjoyed watching him try. I’ve never liked fairgrounds, so I didn’t go on anything. But Mike was very good, going
on all the rides with the kids, to keep them company. I think he enjoyed himself as much as they did, being a big kid at heart.

I just held things and tried to watch them all, though it was a nightmare trying to keep track of them all among the crowds. They kept darting off to look at different stalls. ‘Oh my
God!’ I kept saying to myself. I was so relieved when we finally got out of there, with everyone safe and sound.

But then, disaster! Well, it was to four-year-old Alfie. ‘I’ve lost my Ellie!’ he wailed.

‘Where did you last have it?’ asked Mike.

‘I can’t remember,’ he whimpered, the tears falling down his cheeks.

‘He had his elephant on the cup-and-saucer ride with me,’ said Ronnie.

So we all went back to that ride and asked the man who was operating it. As soon as it stopped he put the brake on and switched it off.

‘Go and have a look,’ he said. So we did.

‘Here it is!’ yelled Paul, triumphantly holding up Alfie’s rather bedraggled cuddly elephant. He brought it over and put it into the younger boy’s hands.

‘Thank you, Paul,’ said Alfie, smiling through his tears. He held Ellie tight and off we went again.

Next morning, we packed everything up and started out on the long journey back home, with the kids playing and singing in the back of the van.

We laughed about that holiday for years: ‘Do you remember when you had to sleep in that broom cupboard?’

When we arrived back home again, at five o’clock on the Saturday afternoon, Max’s mother Vanda was in her car outside, waiting for us.

‘What’s he been like?’ she asked in a tentative voice, as the children tumbled out of the back of our van. She leant towards Max for a hug, but he took one look at her, turned
and scrambled over the seats into the front, then climbed out on the far side.

She turned back to face me, close to tears.

‘Honestly, he has been very good company and has played well with everyone. He’s eaten everything I gave him and he hasn’t been a problem at all.’

‘What about the caravans?’ she asked.

‘He didn’t do any damage this time,’ I said.

‘Really?’ She looked crestfallen.

‘I expect he was just too busy playing with the others.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ she sighed. ‘I cannot believe it.’

‘He obviously likes having other children around him, and he was the youngest, so they all spoiled him.’

I felt really sorry for her. It must have been heart-rending to learn that he was well behaved throughout for us, when he was always so horrendous when he was with her. And his rejection of her
greeting, after a whole week apart from her, must have been devastating, but she tried not to show it.

‘It looks like he doesn’t want to come home!’ she tried to smile. ‘How am I going to get him out of the house now?’

I knew that was a throwaway remark, to reduce the tension, but I’m sure she really did want to take him home with her that evening.

‘We’ll go and extricate him for you,’ I reassured her. ‘He’s had a lovely week. I expect he’ll tell you about it himself.’

‘I very much doubt it,’ she sighed. ‘I’ve never had a normal conversation with him. He’s like a wild animal in our house. I can’t believe that he was so good
for you, but I’m very glad.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘You’re right. Maybe that’s what he needs – other children.’

‘Let’s go and find him,’ I suggested. ‘Unless you don’t mind him staying the night here first – we’d be happy to have him if you want. I’m sure
they’ll all sleep well tonight. You could fetch him tomorrow morning, when we’ve sorted out all his things to take home.’

Her face lit up. ‘Oh, really? Are you sure you don’t mind?’

‘Yes, that would be fine.’

So Max stayed the night and left with his mother in the morning, a little more subdued than usual, until he got in her car. As she drove off, I had sensible eight-year-old Daisy standing with me
and we could hear him shouting and bawling half-way down the road.

‘That boy needs to realise how lucky he is to have a mother,’ she said.

A
couple of weeks after we came back from our holiday, we received a letter informing us that Laurel’s adoption had now gone through and that
her adoptive parents would like to come the next day to take her home with them for good.

As always, my first response was a contradiction of feelings – sad that, after five years, we would be losing our lovely Laurel, who had had no family at all, except for us. We would
probably never see her again. But delighted for Laurel as this was a real family for her at last, and her adoptive parents were lovely people – she had really scooped the jackpot with
them.

First I told Laurel, who already knew it would probably happen soon. I could see she had mixed feelings too, but I encouraged her to look forward to having a proper mum and dad of her own. Her
eyes brimmed with tears, but we both wiped them away.

‘Just think,’ I teased her. ‘You won’t have to fight for space in the bath, or for the biggest slice of cake . . . you won’t even have to sleep in a
broom-cupboard!’

She grinned. ‘But I’ll miss you,’ she said. ‘And all the fun.’ I will always remember her dimples, as clearly defined as when she first came to us, at two or three
days old.

We had a breakfast ‘goodbye’ party and all lined up outside the house to wave her off with her new parents. It was a bitter-sweet morning for children like Gilroy, AJ, Paul and
Daisy, who had known little if any love from their parents and rarely saw them.

Not long after the holiday, Max’s parents decided to move house, to a new area, so Max stopped coming. Vanda stayed in touch for a while, and they had another child, a
baby girl this time. Apparently, he began to settle down better after they moved.

‘I expect he’s growing out of his terrible tantrums now,’ I said.

‘Yes, thank goodness. But you were our saviour during that horrendous time. A true fairy godmother.’

‘You obviously don’t know me well enough!’ I laughed.

‘Well, whatever he grows up to be,’ she said, ‘it will be at least partly because he had all that wonderful time with you and Mike. I’m sure he learnt a lot from
you.’

Many years later, I met someone who knew Max’s family. She told me that he had grown up very well. He was very intelligent and had an executive job in a major company. I smiled as I
thought back to that charming two-year-old who’d been such a devil with his mum.

The weeks passed by. Christmas and New Year came and went, with great frivolity. But as the new year began, Gilroy was giving us more and more grief. His whole personality
seemed to be disintegrating as he became suspicious of everyone’s motives.

‘You’re all ganging up on me,’ he would say. ‘I don’t care if you all hate me. I hate you even more.’ He paused. ‘You wait and see . . . I’ll get
my own back on the lot of you.’ He was angry as a silverback gorilla, and took it out on everyone. He didn’t seem to care.

Not a day went by when he didn’t hurt one or other of the children. They were all fair game to him, even the older ones. He was the bane of poor Daisy’s life. Being the quiet,
conscientious one, who liked to be left alone to do her homework, to read or draw, or to write her stories, Gilroy plagued her at every opportunity. He scribbled on her school-books, tore up her
artwork, took pages out of the book she was reading, even if it was a library book, and trashed the neat bedroom she shared with Sheena.

But Daisy wasn’t the only one who suffered from his wrath. We all did. He attacked every one of the children, even Alfie, who used to shout out in a terrified voice whenever Gilroy
approached him, which of course stoked him up even further. We had to make sure that one of us was always there to protect Alfie, Mandy and all the others from Gilroy’s vicious pinches or
sudden shocks. He even tormented Mike and me whenever he could. One day he took my basket of newly washed and ironed clothes down the garden and threw them into a muddy puddle. Another day, while I
was out of the room for a minute or two, he strung a length of wire quite low across the kitchen doorway. I’m sure I would have tripped over that wire and fallen heavily on the tiled floor,
if I hadn’t seen the dog jumping it in front of me. Later that same day, Gilroy used a piece of jagged metal he’d found to make a long scratch all the way down one side of our van.

It was getting so bad that I had to call in his social worker, Des, for a serious chat. I told him some of the latest things Gilroy had done – the hole he’d made in the arm of the
sitting room sofa, the smashed television set and his setting Ronnie’s shoes on fire.

‘I have to check his room and all his pockets for matches every day,’ I explained. ‘And it’s not just us. He even plastered Mike’s boss’s car windscreen with
mud when he called round the other day, then did a moony at him as well. Mike had a lot of apologising to do for that.

‘Luckily the man has kids, and a sense of humour!’ I paused. ‘But the worst thing is the way he deliberately hurts the other children, or gets them into trouble. Poor Ronnie
doesn’t realise he’s being had. Gilroy apparently bet Ronnie a couple of days ago that he wouldn’t be strong enough to kick his bedroom door off its hinges. He goaded him into it,
so Ronnie, who’s a big, well-built boy, gathered all his strength and did it. He kicked the door so hard that the bottom hinge burst and the door was hanging off at an angle. Ronnie was so
ashamed when he came and owned up.’

‘What about Gilroy?’

‘When I confronted Gilroy, he just smirked and said he didn’t do anything.’

‘Yes, we have a big problem here,’ agreed Des. ‘What sets him off, do you think?’

‘Nothing that I can see. That’s just it. His attacks are totally unprovoked . . . and sometimes dangerous.’ I paused. ‘Do you remember the time I had to take Laurel to
the hospital after he’d pushed her down the stairs?’

‘Yes, and that was a couple of years ago, wasn’t it?’

‘Well, he tried to burn down the shed the other day, but it was too wet to burn more than a corner of it. Mike’s patched that up now. If one of us doesn’t sit on the landing,
he creeps into the little ones’ room and tells them lurid horror stories and they come down to us, screaming or crying their eyes out, needing cuddles and reassurance.’ Des was taking
notes as I spoke, so I paused to let him get it all down. ‘Up till now, he’s not been too bad at school, but one day last week, he threatened his teacher with a knife. I don’t
know where he could have got that from, because I always check through his bag before he leaves for school. Another day, he bunked out of school and ran all the way down to the police station. He
told them that I was keeping him prisoner in his bedroom, but he’d managed to escape. That led to the police visiting his school as well as us, but they quickly discounted his story, thank
goodness.’