A Stolen Childhood

by Casey Watson

  I nodded. ‘Yes, that’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I just feel there’s more to know, and, since she seems happy to spend a little time with me – well, you know me. I’m determined to find out what it is. You know, something else occurred to me last night as well. She really is a loner, isn’t she? I was just wondering why she’d have been sitting with that group of boys in the first place. Where were her girlfriends? Does she even have a regular group of friends? A lot of her stress might be because she’s feeling isolated, mightn’t it?’

  ‘Like I said, she’s always been a quiet one,’ Julia said. ‘Doesn’t mix much at all. And that’s fine, Casey. Of course it is. I trust your instincts totally. And it’s not like you’re over-run right now. But I’m not sure throwing those two together is going to be a terrifically good idea, are you? I mean, I know they’re in the same tutor group anyway so they’ll be back together for registration and so on in the fullness of time, but in the short term it’s hardly going to make for harmony in the classroom, is it?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘Probably not. But it’s a bridge we can cross when we get to it, isn’t it? Once he’s back in school.’

  ‘He already is,’ she said. ‘I saw him arriving earlier. He’s sitting in your very own breakfast club even as we speak, no doubt. Can’t seem to keep him away!’

  Setting up the breakfast club had been one of the first initiatives I’d thrown myself into when I joined the school. It tended to be a mixture of the proverbial ‘latchkey kids’ and those whose parents left for work too early to get them up for school and make breakfast; some of these kids could just as easily get ready and eat breakfast at home but would rather have the company of friends than be alone in an empty house. I completely got that, and whatever the reasons for them attending, it made me happy to know that at least these kids could start the day after a feast of a meal. This was all thanks to the rather generous budget we had been allocated, as often was the case with new initiatives. It enabled us to provide the kids with cereals, fruit, juices, toast, peanut butter, etc. for a nourishing and balanced breakfast.

  ‘Really?’ I said to Julia now. ‘He’s already back? Wouldn’t the hospital have advised him to stay at home and rest for a few days?’

  Julia shrugged. ‘They could well have. But it clearly hasn’t happened, has it? I think his mum has some sort of temporary job, which means Thomas goes to school. As far as I know, they don’t have anyone local who can support them as yet. My guess is that as he’s been given a clean bill of health down in A and E, it’s more a case of “go in and if you feel ill tell a teacher” than “stay home with me and I’ll mop your fevered brow”, don’t you?’

  I agreed she was probably right. ‘But I’m happy to take him in anyway. No time like the present for the two of them to patch things up, is there? As I say, they’ll both be back in the same tutor group before you know it, after all. And you know me – I’ll find a way to use it to my advantage. Sex ed. Being kind. Name calling and so on. No, it’s fine. So who else do I have as well?’

  Julia quickly ran through the other names and a little bit about them. The girl, Chloe, did turn out to be the one Kelly had told me about, and the other boy was a year seven lad called Jonathan, who had been living with a foster family for the past six months. He was apparently angry and disruptive and on a behaviour-modification programme with his foster mum; having to earn ‘mummy dollars’ for good behaviour, in order to have currency to spend on treats, such as TV and computer time, and having friends round.

  His was a sad case; abandoned by his mother when he was just a toddler, Jonathan had been left in the care of a father who had significant learning difficulties. He’d entered the care system, aged 11, when a neighbour had found him scavenging in their dustbin in search of food.

  ‘This one apparently needs a bit of socialising too, Casey,’ Julia told me. ‘Looks young for his age – a bit like butter wouldn’t melt – but has a very world-weary, angry, unhappy head on his shoulders; the consensus seems to be that, despite the great work his foster mum’s doing with him, his behaviour is steadily getting worse. You’re going to have your hands full with him, by all accounts.’

  I was going to have my hands full, period, I reckoned. But that was fine. That was just the way I liked it.

  The next thing I had to do was telephone Kiara’s mother and let her know her daughter would be spending a few days with me. This was standard practice: it was obviously important to keep parents in the loop and, hopefully, to keep them on side. It wasn’t always possible, because some kids came from difficult, complex backgrounds, but where there was a parent or guardian at home who wanted the best for their child, then it made sense for us to work as a team. And most of the time that was what we achieved. Initial reactions could be varied, however. Some parents were grateful for the extra support, but some were not; either suspicious of our motives, or concerned about their child being labelled, or just plain defensive about the whole thing, and angry that we were trying to ‘interfere’.

  I wasn’t sure whether Kiara would have mentioned the incident the previous day or not, but I decided it was worth mentioning it to her mother, if only because her response might give me a further insight into how things were at home, and perhaps shed light on Kiara’s evident fatigue. This would also provide the reason given for having her with me; not much in itself but, along with the hair-pulling habit, it was reason enough, and I hoped I’d be able to get her on side.

  Before I made the call, however, I would need to clear it with Gary Clark. After grabbing my second caffeine fix of the day, and armed with the usual wodge of mail and memos from my pigeonhole, I set off down the unusually quiet staff corridor to his office, only passing Barry, the caretaker, and a heating engineer. I smiled as I saw the new sign on Gary’s door. It was a smart black placard, embossed in gold with the words Child Protection Officer, and he was as proud of it as he might have been to have a star on Hollywood Boulevard. In a school, the little things were sometimes the big things.

  ‘Very official,’ I said, grinning as I opened the door and nodded to it. ‘Do I need to start calling you sir or something now?’

  ‘Lord Clark will do just fine, Casey,’ Gary said, laughing as he pulled out a chair for me. ‘And I see you’ve already got a coffee. At the very least, we should celebrate with a choccy biscuit, don’t you think?’

  I shook my head. ‘You know what it’s like with addictions, Gary. I try not to start too early in the day. I only need five minutes of your time this morning anyway. Just to let you know what I’m doing with Kiara Bentley.’

  I quickly ran through my thoughts, and let him know I wanted to spend a little time working with her. ‘So I was thinking I’d try to get hold of her mum this morning. Fill her in – assuming Kiara hasn’t already told her, that is – and see if she can enlighten me at all.’

  ‘That would be helpful, certainly,’ Gary said. ‘Though if memory serves, she wasn’t particularly forthcoming last time. And she doesn’t strike me as a terribly maternal mum. Still, it’s obviously important to touch base with her. Let me know how it goes. Now, are you sure you won’t be tempted by a chocolate biscuit?’

  I fled the room before I caved in and changed my mind.

  I went to my own room to make the call to Kiara’s mother. The quiet area of the staff-room would do ordinarily, but at this time of day it was like Piccadilly Circus, filling up with teachers with their own busy agendas; last-minute calls to make, coffees to be gulped down, things to be photocopied, gossip to be shared. I was also keen to be ‘in situ’ when my new kids arrived, as it felt important to be there to welcome them and set them at their ease.

  It’s impossible to get much of a sense of a person via a phone call, but one thing was clear. She was prickly. ‘She’s on her way,’ she snapped immediately when I told her who I was and where I was calling from, and didn’t sound that convinced even when I explained that I wasn’t calling to chastise her for sending Kiara in late,
because I didn’t even know she was going to be.

  Though a glance at my watch confirmed that she would be. ‘I run the behaviour unit,’ I clarified. Which seemed to inflame Kiara’s mother further.

  ‘The what?’ she wanted to know. ‘Why does she have to go in there? There’s nothing wrong with her behaviour. And if you’re calling about that lad she gave what-for to, serve him bloody well right, as well. Little sh …’ She stopped and regrouped. ‘Little sod. And what about her exams and stuff? Won’t it affect her school work if she’s taken out of lessons?’

  I assured Mrs Bentley that any important work would be sent through to me and that I would personally make sure it got done. I also explained that for a few days I’d be working closely with Kiara, getting to know her better and, in doing so, perhaps getting to the root of why she was so apparently tired and stressed in school.

  ‘How is she at home?’ I asked. ‘I’m told there were similar concerns about her last year. How has she been at home? Does she seem stressed to you?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ she said. ‘I mean, she’s not the most relaxed of kids at the best of times, is she?’ She sighed heavily. ‘Look, the school already know the sort of hours I work. I do my best, alright? We’re not all living in fairy land, you know. Life can be hard at times. That’s how it works in the real world. I do my best, like I said.’

  ‘I know, Mrs Bentley. I completely understand that. It must be hard, trying to make ends meet, have to be both mum and dad …’

  A humourless laugh crackled down the line. ‘Oh, pur-lease don’t get me started on him,’ she said. ‘That bloody waster. Turns up out of the blue like a bad penny, and it’s all “daddy” this and “daddy” that. I don’t know why she bothers with him, I really don’t.’

  ‘Her dad?’ I asked, surprised. ‘I hadn’t realised he was still on the scene. So she still sees him then?’

  ‘Is back on the scene. After being AWOL for eight years. She’s seeing him most weekends. He’s flavour of the month, he is, currently.’ She sniffed. ‘Look, it’s not ideal, but it’s not for me to stop her seeing him if she wants to, is it? And with me working nights at the care home twice a week, well, at least I know where she is, don’t I? Idiot that he is. Stupid pillock treats her like a bloody five-year-old.’

  I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that but didn’t know how to frame a question that would provide an answer. I left it.

  ‘So this is through the courts, is it?’ I said instead, remembering what Julia had said about their divorce having been acrimonious.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘we didn’t bother with any of that. He buggered off soon as, and good bloody riddance.’

  ‘So there was no contact?’

  ‘Not for a long time. Not since she was about five. He was just so bloody unreliable that in the end I stopped taking her; it was too upsetting for her. Not till he moved back to the area a couple of months back and wanted to know if he could start seeing her again. And, like I say, it’s not for me to deprive her of her father, is it? Not now she’s the age she is. Typical daughter. Dotes on him. Easy that, though, isn’t it? He’s not the one having to scrape together a living, is he? Or discipline her, or buy her uniform or make her tidy her room or any of that. So it’s all “daddy” this and “daddy” that. Like he can do no bloody wrong …’

  I stepped in while she paused to gather breath.

  ‘Well, that’s all really useful information,’ I said quickly. ‘Perhaps it’s the changes that have led to her feeling a little strung out.’ Not to mention the obvious bad feeling between her parents, I thought, but didn’t say. It was so obvious, too – kids were always badly affected by warring parents – but to say so to this woman I’d not yet even met would be to cross a line I didn’t feel I should cross at this stage. I didn’t have all the facts, after all.

  But I was quite keen to add to the ones I already had. ‘Which was why I thought it might be helpful,’ I added, ‘if I could chat to you together at some point as well.’

  ‘What, drag me up to the school?’ Mrs Bentley seemed affronted at the very thought.

  ‘No, no – at home,’ I explained. ‘We tend to like to do that wherever possible. Feels less formal that way – all the better to help the child open up.’

  All the better to get a different perspective on the relationship between child and carer as well. You could learn so much more when you saw a child on home turf.

  ‘When would this be?’ she wanted to know. ‘I told you. I work long hours.’

  ‘When it works best for you,’ I reassured her. ‘Whenever you feel you can fit it in. After school one day perhaps? Just for an hour or so. No more than that. How about I give you Gary Clark’s number and you get in touch and let him know when will suit you best. You remember him, don’t you?’

  Mrs Bentley said she did, and promised she would call him when she could, and as I ended the call I pondered the reality of their domestic situation: the daily grind of working long hours, for meagre pay, in order to bring in sufficient money to keep a roof over her and her daughter’s head. It was hard; for some families, it was nigh on impossible. She was right. This was the real world, not fairy land.

  The poor kid, I thought, as I began preparing trays for my new charges. Stuck in the middle of adversarial parents and their rows wasn’t a nice place to be. Nor was having to be up all hours and living a peripatetic life, without proper bedtimes, much less a mum there to kiss you goodnight and to wish you sweet dreams. It was no wonder she was tired and on edge.

  It would certainly explain why she was coming to school tired, and why she’d developed the self-soothing habit of pulling out her hair. It would possibly also explain why she kept herself to herself. Yes, I thought, making a mental note to write up my conversation with Mrs Bentley, I probably had my answer right there.

  Well, possibly.

  Chapter 5

  There was a knock on my classroom door a few minutes before the bell went, which I answered to find a trio of children standing outside. The first I recognised immediately as Thomas, the lad who’d had the head injury the previous morning. His hair was longer than I’d realised. Almost past his shoulders, it looked like it was crying out for a good brush, and though his uniform had clearly seen better days, it certainly hadn’t seen a washing machine in a while. Neither, I judged – hazarding a guess – had the tattered but expensive-looking trainers that were on his feet but not the uniform list. Given what I knew of him already, it all figured. As did the faint musty, slightly sweet smell that had arrived in the room with him.

  The boy at Thomas’s side was his polar opposite. Jonathan was slight and be-freckled, with neatly cut blond hair, and was turned out precisely as I’d anticipated he would be, given he was currently living with a foster family. He was bright as a pin, stiff with new clothes and grooming; only the slight edge of wariness in his expression hinted at the complicated background that I knew lay beneath.

  The third child – presumably Chloe – was a beautiful girl. She was somewhat dishevelled, too, a bit like a Disney Cinderella – though presumably not as a result of being on the run around Britain, but simply as a consequence of just being Chloe. Her smile was wide and genuine but her vulnerability was writ large – I wondered how many challenges she had to face just to get productively through the day.

  Chloe’s hair was long and unruly like Thomas’s, though in her case the unruliness took a different form. It was almost white-blonde and stuck out in all sorts of different directions, putting me in mind of candyfloss – the kind given to you on a stick at a fair. On balance, ‘unruly’ was probably too mild a word for it. I found myself drawn to her immediately.

  She was the first to speak. ‘Good morning, Miss Watson,’ she trilled, directing her high-wattage beam at me, then, without waiting for a reply, gripping both boys by the elbows and more or less manhandling them inside, much to their evident surprise. ‘I’m Chloe Jones,’ she added. ‘I’m the eldest out of all of us. And Miss
Vickers has sent us all to do our work with you.’

  I closed the door behind them. ‘Welcome, all of you. It’s very nice to meet you. And first of all, Thomas …’ I noticed him stiffen as I said his name. ‘Are you sure you’re well enough to be in school? That was a nasty bang you had yesterday, even if it didn’t need stitches. I was surprised when Mrs Styles told me you’d come in this morning.’

  Thomas jerked himself free of Chloe’s vice-like grip. ‘It’s alright, miss,’ he said, sweeping a hand up behind his hair, then flipping it up and turning around so I could see the war wound for myself; well, at least a neat square of shaved head around a rectangular dressing. ‘I just gotta make sure I don’t get it wet.’

  ‘And you’re feeling okay?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’m feeling fine,’ he said, puffing his chest out almost imperceptibly, in what seemed an automatic, almost unconscious gesture, as if to face off anyone who might hint at weakness. I wondered how far his family had come and how he felt about his step-dad.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you make sure you let me know if you feel funny in any way, won’t you? Any way at all, Thomas. Tired or dizzy, headache – anything at all.’

  ‘I’m fine, miss,’ he said again. ‘It weren’t nothing much.’

  Well, that was going to be debatable, once Kiara made an appearance, at any rate. In the meantime, I was still conscious that Chloe hadn’t put Jonathan down yet. ‘Chloe, love,’ I said to her, ‘why don’t you come with me. Since you’re the eldest, you can be the first one to choose a tray to keep your things in.’

  I held out a hand and she released Jonathan, reaching readily for it instead, reminding me that her touchy-feely nature extended to all human life, including teachers. ‘Can I, miss?’ she said, as I led her to the cabinet I kept the trays in – the ones where students kept their work and personal belongings, such as pencil cases and whichever card collections were currently the in thing. ‘Here we are,’ I said. ‘Look, there are the pens – can you take them to the table? And the trays have the name tags already inside them, so if you’d like to choose which one you want, then you can go ahead and sit down and write yours, okay?’