The Cast-Off Kids

by Trisha Merry

  ‘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.’

  15

  Expelled

  Daisy 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.

  16

  Revenge

  Ever 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.

  ‘I’ve come to take Gilroy to the fair.’

  ‘Now, come on, Kathleen. You know there’s a court order—’

  ‘F*** the bleeding court order! It’s time up now.’

  ‘Really? I thought it was continuous.’

  ‘You don’t know nothing. You’re as f****** bad as they are.’

  ‘Well, I can’t let you in without a permission letter from Social Services . . .’

  ‘Blow that for a f****** lark! I’m not bloody well going down there.’

  ‘Well, I was about to suggest that I bring you the phone and you can call them from here if you like.’

  ‘What bleeding good would that do? And what business is it of theirs anyway? A load of stuck-up cows! They don’t know f****** nothing about kids.’

  I focussed on her first question. ‘Well, I know you’re supposed to have a letter, but if they can give me permission on the phone, I’m willing to let you in.’

  ‘Huh!’ She obviously didn’t think much of that.

  ‘But I can’t let you take Gilroy out without written permission.’

  She finally paused to think that through. ‘But I could come in and see him?’ She realised that, if she played ball, she could get some of what she came for.

  ‘Yes, we can get some toys out and you could sit and play with him.’

  She looked doubtful. ‘But I’m not a bloody child!’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I just meant you could help him play.’

  ‘He don’t need no help from me,’ she snorted. ‘But still . . .’

  ‘I’ll just close the door while I get the phone,’ I said. I had once before stretched the phone cord to the door, when Rocky turned up drunk, so I knew it would reach. ‘Here’s the phone and here’s the number,’ I said, taking the chain off and handing it all to her.

  She called Social Services and asked if she could visit and they said yes, as long as I agreed. They then spoke to me and said I could let her in if I felt it was safe, and that was it. I just hoped I was doing the right thing.

  I don’t know what it is with some parents when they come to see their children. They’re often nervous, as if they’re going to be watched and judged, though I was always pleased to see them together. I think a lot of them have had a drink before they come, thinking it would steady their nerves, not realising it would make them worse. And of course, I’d had first-hand experience of Kathleen and her drink problem. I could smell it now, but her eyes looked to be in focus and she was standing unaided, so I decided to let her in. I thought it might help Gilroy, whose mental health was causing me some concerns at that time. Perhaps seeing his mum would relax him, I thought, but I should have known better.


  We had a big, family kitchen, so I could go and busy myself at one end of it while they sat at the other. I made her a coffee and handed it to her.

  As I rolled out pastry and made some tarts for tea, I watched Gilroy sullenly settle himself on the cushions by the toy box, next to his mother’s chair. Not a word, or even a look passed between them – in fact they barely interacted at all, except when Kathleen gave her son a packet of sweets and he snatched them from her, guzzling them all in one sitting.

  I saw Kathleen getting a packet of cigarettes out of her bag.

  ‘Sorry Kathleen, but we have a no-smoking rule in the house, to protect the children’s health,’ I said

  ‘F****** health,’ she moaned, then took a small mirror out of her bag and began to refresh her make-up. Meanwhile, Gilroy built a tall tower on the floor with some wooden bricks, then stood up, drew back his leg and gave them an almighty kick, so that they went everywhere. The noise and sudden disarray made him smile. But one brick hit his mother and she immediately slapped his head. She swore at him and he made a face. They were the first words between them in fifteen minutes.

  Once I’d put the tarts in the oven, I went over to join them. ‘Why don’t you tell your mum about the model ship your class are making at school, Gilroy?’

  ‘We’re making a pirate ship,’ he said, grudgingly. ‘When it’s finished . . .’ he paused, looking at his mother, who was looking at her watch. ‘We’re going to smash it to pieces,’ he shouted, acting out an explosion, with all the sound effects.

  I felt for Gilroy. Why did his mother bother to come, if she wasn’t even going to take any interest in him? But it was probably Gilroy’s best visit from his mum. They had nearly half an hour together in the same room. Nobody got into a temper, there wasn’t much swearing and no one was hurt. Sadly, there was hardly any affection at all – only the sweets. As I showed Kathleen out of the door, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Gilroy’s mum did try once more to visit, but she shouted and swore at me and called me names as loudly as she could. I could smell the alcohol much more strongly this time, just through the crack of the door with the chain on.