The Cast-Off Kids

by Trisha Merry

  One weekend we were all sat around the breakfast table, wondering where to take the children for their Sunday outing.

  ‘Where would you like to go today, kids?’ asked Mike.

  They were not short of ideas: ‘The park . . .’, ‘the conker-tree woods . . .’, ‘the library’ (Daisy’s suggestion), ‘a boxing match’ (Gilroy’s), ‘the cinema . . .’.

  ‘I like animals,’ said Sheena.

  ‘So do I,’ shouted Paul. ‘I love animals.’

  ‘Now that’s a good idea!’ Mike grinned. ‘We could all go to the zoo.’ He turned to look at one child in particular. ‘What about you, Alfie? Would you like to go and see some real elephants?’

  Alfie looked confused. He looked down at Ellie, his cuddly elephant that he still took everywhere with him, tucked under his arm.

  ‘Are real elephants like Ellie?’ he asked, stroking her grey body and cream tusks.

  ‘Yes, but bigger. We could go and visit her relations in the zoo. Would you like that?’

  Alfie whispered to Ellie. ‘Do you want to see your ’lations?’ Then he listened. ‘Ellie says yes. And I want to go too.’

  He got up and did a little stamping sort of a dance. ‘I can’t wait!’ and everyone laughed to see how thrilled he was.

  So we cleared away the breakfast things and off we went to squeeze everyone into our big estate car, and Ellie as well, of course.

  We were all in high spirits, especially Alfie, and the others hyped him up even further. Mike was the worst.

  ‘Oh, you’re going to see the elephants,’ he sang in his deep voice, watching his driving mirror to see Alfie’s face light up.

  As we all piled out of the car, Alfie clutched Ellie to his chest and took hold of Mike’s hand as we paid to go in – very expensive, but it was worth it for Alfie alone. I’m not keen on zoos myself – never have been – but I was looking forward to seeing this great encounter. Real elephants at last. Alfie would be so thrilled.

  I was pushing the big pram with the toddlers in, while the older ones forged ahead with Mike. We followed the signposts and soon we approached the entrance to the elephant enclosure. Mike and the children waited outside, with Alfie jumping up and down in anticipation, while I caught up with them and we all went through together. When we reached the end of the path, we stood alongside the enclosure and looked.

  ‘Where are they?’ shrieked Alfie in his high-pitched voice, looking straight ahead. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘They’re here,’ said Mike, pointing forwards.

  Alfie looked confused. ‘Where?’

  ‘There they are.’ Mike pointed again, gradually taking his finger upwards.

  Alfie followed Mike’s finger as he gazed up and up and up . . . He gasped, then stiffened, as if struck by lightning, and then he ran. He was gone – disappeared. He was petrified, poor boy. Somebody must have been opening the gate and he just ran straight through and as far away as he could.

  ‘You’ll have to go after him,’ I said in panic. ‘I’ll keep the kids here. You go and find him.’

  So Mike went off in pursuit of the boy who loved elephants . . . as long as they weren’t real. Finally he tracked him down, at the ticket office, cuddling Ellie as the tears poured down his face.

  On the way back in the car, everyone was rather subdued, Alfie most of all.

  ‘Were the real elephants too big, Alfie?’ asked Daisy, in her kindest voice. She was always good with children in distress, whatever their ages.

  ‘Yes,’ he gulped.

  ‘But we told you they were big,’ said Mike.

  ‘And I showed you pictures of how big they are,’ I added. ‘Do you remember, in that book? There was a boy in one of the pictures and they were much taller than the boy.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I liked them in the pictures . . .’

  We could tell he was on the verge of more tears, so none of us said anything else. But we all remembered that day. Especially Alfie, who never looked at the elephant book again, although his love for Ellie remained as strong as ever.

  11

  Gone Missing

  The day came and we moved into our new house. The children went out to explore the garden, while we started unpacking the boxes.

  I remember saying to Mike: ‘I’m not speaking to the neighbours. I am NOT going to speak to the neighbours.’ That was my one big worry.

  Just as we finished unpacking in the kitchen, the doorbell went. I wondered who it could be as I walked with trepidation around the pile of boxes in the hall. I opened the door . . . and there stood a smiling couple, probably in their sixties.

  ‘Hello,’ said the woman, with a warm voice. ‘I’m Edie . . .’

  ‘And I’m Frank. We’re your next-door neighbours.’

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I smiled back. ‘It’s good to meet you both.’ They seemed genuine, but I couldn’t help being wary. They obviously hadn’t seen the children yet.

  ‘We’ve made you a pot of tea,’ continued Edie. ‘And some biscuits.’

  ‘We’ll pop it through the hedge at the back,’ added Frank.

  ‘Oh right. Thank you.’ I must have looked confused.

  ‘We used to do that with the people before you,’ explained Frank. ‘We made a gap to pass things through.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ I smiled. ‘What a good idea.’ Well, I hoped it was.

  ‘And we can hear the children . . .’

  Oh no, I thought. Here we go!

  ‘Yes, we’ve made them all a drink too, and we’ll pass all the drinks and biscuits through the gap for you.’

  ‘That’s very kind,’ I said, breathing a sigh of relief. They seemed like a lovely couple. I just hoped they would still be smiling after a day or two of our kids’ noise in the garden!

  So I went right through the house and out of the back door, onto the crazy paving, and over to the boundary with our adjoining house. It looked as if the hedge had been trimmed down low for the first three or four feet away from the house. So that made the gap.

  Mike came out to see what was going on.

  ‘Call the kids,’ I said to him, just as Edie came out with a tea-tray for us and handed it through to me. Then Frank passed through a huge jug of lemonade for the kids, a motley collection of plastic cups and a full tin of biscuits.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ I said. ‘What a lovely welcome.’

  ‘Come on, kids!’ yelled Mike. ‘Drinks and biscuits.’

  They all came running over, the bigger ones dishevelled from climbing the trees and everyone excited to be somewhere new. Daisy brought up the rear, walking sedately, holding little Laurel’s hand.

  ‘Don’t forget to say thank you,’ I said to the kids.

  ‘Thank you,’ they all chorused as they stuffed the biscuits into their mouths.

  ‘There are plenty left,’ said Edie. ‘Keep the tin and finish them if you like.’

  ‘That’s very kind. Thank you.’ In fact, I could hardly believe it, after the last neighbours we’d had. Especially that woman with the doves! I just hoped this neighbourliness would last.

  All went well to begin with. Then one afternoon, when the kids had been having a lovely time in the garden, making new camps and playing with the garden toys, I went out to call them in. ‘Tea in five minutes,’ I called out. ‘Tidy all the toys away in the shed.’

  ‘OK.’ They knew that all the toys had to go in there before they could come in, so I left them to it.

  Two minutes later I went out again. Brilliant, I thought. Everything was tidy. ‘That was quick,’ I told them. ‘Well done. Now come in and wash your hands.’

  They rushed in and had a quick hand-wash, then sat down round the kitchen table to have their tea.

  Just then, the doorbell rang. I opened it.

  ‘Trisha,’ said Edie, standing on the doorstep with an anxious expression. ‘Now there’s nothing to worry about – no problem, and I don’t want you shouting at the children or anything . . .’

  My brain went into over
drive. I thought: God, what could they possibly have done?

  ‘It’s just that they’ve thrown all the toys over . . .’

  ‘Oh, no!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘. . . onto Frank’s vegetable patch.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I gasped. ‘I told them to put the toys away in the shed!’

  ‘Yes, I heard you.’ She gave me a wry smile. ‘But they must have decided it would be quicker if they just threw them over the hedge!’

  ‘Oh dear . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ She seemed quite amused about it all.

  What a relief that she wasn’t angry. But maybe Frank would be. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring the kids round straight away to apologise and collect the toys.’

  I went back to the kitchen and made them all come with me, all ten of them, from eight-year-old Chrissy, right down to two-year-old Laurel, who had to run to keep up with us. ‘Now you’ve all got to pick the toys up and say you’re sorry,’ I instructed them sternly.

  As I rang Edie’s doorbell, they all stood there, heads down, chins on chests. They knew I was cross with them for upsetting our lovely neighbours like that. They knew they were in the wrong.

  Just like our house, Edie and Frank’s went back a long way, so when Edie let us in, we all trooped through the hall, through the dining room, through the kitchen, through the glazed conservatory that had once been a wash-house and out into the garden. As we went out I could see Frank standing among the neat rows of his flourishing vegetable garden, right next to our hedge. I could also see our garden toys strewn all over the vegetables, any old how. A broken bean pole hung at a crooked angle, with a skipping rope dangling among the beans. One of the trikes had landed precariously on top of a water butt, and everything else was scattered across the plot. I felt awful.

  ‘Oh no,’ I said to Edie. ‘I hope they haven’t ruined Frank’s cabbages or knocked over his tomato plants, or—’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she reassured me. ‘Frank will be able to sort them all out.’

  We stood in the open doorway as the children picked up the toys, some more carefully than others. ‘Sorry, Frank . . . sorry, Frank,’ they each said in turn. ‘Sorry, Frank . . .’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Just then I heard a giggle from Edie, standing next to me. We looked at each other and both broke into fits of laughter. What a lovely couple they were.

  They continued to put up with everything our kids threw at them, almost literally. Frank was always throwing balls back, or cardboard tubes, or arrows with rubber suckers on the ends, or even stray shoes that flew off when the children kicked.

  But Edie and Frank were never ruffled by anything our kids did. They were the best neighbours ever, and the kids loved them as much as we did.

  We felt we’d really landed on our feet . . . for now, anyway.

  At about this time, there was a bit of trouble in Daisy’s class at school. I can’t remember what it was about, but I found out later that Daisy had been in the wrong place when it had happened, and was one of the suspects who’d had to go and see the headteacher and be questioned about it.

  I remember that coming out of school that afternoon she had her head down and didn’t say a word. When we got home, the children ran upstairs to change into their play clothes and went down to the playroom while I started to make their tea. It wasn’t until I called them all to wash their hands and come to the table that I realised Daisy was missing.

  ‘Does anybody know where Daisy is?’ I asked.

  But no one had seen her since we’d all arrived home. So, I put everything to keep warm while the kids and I searched the house. ‘Daisy, Daisy, where are you?’ they yelled.

  I began to feel quite anxious. She wasn’t in her bedroom, nor in the upstairs bathroom. We looked everywhere, inside and out, but we couldn’t find her.

  I felt the panic rising inside me. What if she had run away . . . or someone had taken her? I was horrified as I started to imagine things. I had no idea how long she’d been gone. But I knew I had to be practical, so I tried to think back. Was I sure she had come into the house with the rest of us? Yes, I thought, but then I began to doubt myself.

  I knew what I had to do.

  ‘Hello, John,’ I said to Daisy’s social worker on the phone. ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but we can’t find Daisy. I’m pretty sure she came in with us when we got back from school. But the kids and I have searched the whole house and we can’t find her anywhere.’

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ he said. ‘Better give the police a call, just to alert them, in case something has happened.’

  So I dialled 999 and explained the situation, giving a description of Daisy, just in case.

  As soon as John arrived, followed by a policewoman a couple of minutes later, we started a new and more methodical search of the whole house. First downstairs and then on the first floor and finally the attic rooms. As we worked our way along the corridor where most of the children’s bedrooms were, John stopped.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, that’s just the airing cupboard,’ I said.

  ‘Have you looked in here?’

  ‘No. But it’s tiny inside.’

  John opened the door, and there was Daisy, blinking her eyes in the brightness of the light, standing in front of the linen-stacked shelves. She must have been in there on her own, in the dark, for at least three hours by then.

  ‘What are you doing in there, Daise?’ I asked her.

  ‘Hiding,’ she said with a sniffle.

  Then I saw the tear-stains down her cheeks. She must have been crying silently and we hadn’t known. I felt dreadful. I stepped forward and gave her a long hug. She didn’t hug me back – just hung her arms limply by her sides. But I knew she needed this. ‘I don’t know what you’re hiding from, sweetheart, but you don’t need to hide from me, from any of us. Nothing can be so bad that you need to hide from me.’ I stroked her short, blond hair.

  She caught sight of the policewoman and started crying afresh.

  ‘It’s OK, Daisy,’ said John. The policewoman has come to help us find you and to see that you’re all right. But you’re not in any trouble with the police, or anyone at all.’

  She stopped sobbing and said, ‘Thank you,’ in a weak voice.

  John and the policewoman left, and I shooed all the others off to the playroom for a few minutes, so that I could talk to Daisy.

  ‘So why were you hiding, sweetheart?’ I asked her.

  ‘I had to go and see the headteacher,’ she said, the tears streaming down her face again. ‘But I didn’t do it.’ She looked so anxious, as if afraid I would think badly of her. Just the fact that she’d even been suspected of something was enough for her.

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t, Daise. You’re always so good at doing the right things. So there’s no need to worry about it.’ I hugged her again, and this time she half-hugged me back.

  ‘You must be hungry,’ I said. ‘Go and wash your hands and I’ll call the others to come back to the kitchen. Then you can all have your tea. Afterwards, Mike will look after everyone else and you can come and sit with me in the sitting room and tell me all about it. Will that be all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But you won’t be cross with me?’

  ‘No, sweetheart. I promise I won’t be cross with you. I’m sure that whatever it was, it must have been a misunderstanding . . . and we can put that right.’

  Poor Daisy. She was so eager to please, so conscientious, that I knew she couldn’t have been the one who had done whatever it was. And when I went up to the school the next day with her, I was right. To her great relief, the culprit had been found out and owned up, so it all turned out fine in the end.

  As foster parents, we had some flexibility about the children, especially if it was a full care order, but the one and only stipulation that had been made when Daisy and Paul came into our care was how Daisy wore her hair. Nothing about their
education, their accommodation, food, religion or any other major concerns; just that we were not to change Daisy’s hair.

  When she first arrived, her thick blond hair had been cut in a short, angular style – so severe it was almost geometric and, in my opinion, not at all suitable for a young child.

  ‘Why can’t I have pretty hair?’ she asked me one day. ‘Can I grow it longer, like Sheena’s?’

  ‘I wish I could say yes, Daisy. But when you first came here, your mummy sent a message to say that you must always keep the same hairstyle you had when you arrived.’

  ‘I don’t have a mummy,’ she said, with a sad face.

  ‘You did have a mummy, but you don’t remember her. She left when you were one.’

  ‘She’s never been to see me, so she won’t know if I grow it longer,’ she reasoned, pleading with me.

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Please.’ She saw I was wavering. ‘Just a bit longer?’

  Who would ever know? I thought. So we allowed it to grow down to her shoulders. She loved being able to swing her head and make her hair move through the air.

  But the next time John, their social worker, came, he noticed the difference.

  ‘You are aware that Daisy’s mother wanted her hair to be kept the same?’

  ‘Yes, I know, but Daisy was so desperate to grow it a bit, like the other girls at school; so I thought it wouldn’t do any harm. She’s so thrilled with it.’

  ‘I’m afraid it will have to be cut,’ he insisted.

  So I had to take her to the hairdressers and cut it back to how it was. She was distraught, and I was livid – exasperated that a mother who never visited or took any interest in her child, not even one birthday card, should exert such control over her, presumably until she became an adult. The poor child only wanted to be like her friends.