by Angela Hart
Jonathan had been quietly reading the paper in the corner of the room, but he intervened at this point.
‘Please don’t be rude to Angela,’ he said. ‘She is not making things up for the sake of it, Keeley, she is trying her very best to look after you and you need to listen to her. Everybody needs to have a shower, every day if possible. If you didn’t have one yesterday, there is no argument at all. You have to have a shower today. Why are you so against it? I’m sure you’ll feel better afterwards.’
Keeley pointedly ignored Jonathan, refusing to even look in his direction.
‘Keeley,’ I said. ‘Please don’t be rude to Jonathan, he’s talking to you.’
‘Who is talking to me?’
‘You know who is talking to you!’ I said, exasperated. ‘Jonathan asked you a question, so kindly answer him.’
‘I don’t know who you are talking about. If you mean him I’m not talking to him and I’m not doing what he says.’
‘Right, Keeley, I’ve had enough of this. I’m going to have to take something away from you if you don’t behave.’
‘Like what?’
The first thing that came to my mind was the theatre group. I’d made contact with Mrs Crowther by now and she had told me Keeley was very welcome to go along the following week, which she was looking forward to. I knew she’d have been very upset if this was cancelled and it would really teach her a lesson, but I’d also learned over the years that you never take away a positive activity from a child. The theatre group would be an opportunity for Keeley to meet other children and to feel part of the community, and it might provide a very good outlet for her. She needed it, and pulling the plug before she even got started could backfire badly on us.
I bit my tongue and thought again.
‘Our next cinema trip,’ I said hastily, remembering we’d promised to take her to see a new film that was coming out. ‘You won’t be going to the cinema if you can’t be civil to Jonathan or do basic things we ask, like taking a shower.’
Keeley thought about this for a moment and then suddenly decided she was going to have a shower after all.
‘It’s no big deal!’ she shouted as stomped upstairs. ‘I was going to have a shower anyway. There was no need to threaten me! That’s bullying!’
‘Cup of tea?’ Jonathan grinned when she left the room.
‘I think I could do with a double brandy, but tea would be lovely, thank you!’
Keeley had been in the shower for about ten minutes when the boys came home. Phillip was covered in mud from playing football and asked how much longer Keeley would be in the bathroom.
‘I expect she’ll be finished shortly,’ I reassured. ‘Just give her a few more minutes.’
Having been so reluctant to shower, I imagined Keeley would have the quickest wash she could get away with, but this didn’t appear to be the case. Ten more minutes passed and Keeley was still in the shower. Phillip had gone upstairs and waited patiently in his bedroom at first, but then he started calling to Keeley to hurry up, with no response.
I went upstairs to investigate, as I could hear Phillip was starting to get aggravated, and so I shouted through the bathroom door to Keeley.
‘Are you OK in there, Keeley? Are you nearly finished? Phillip’s waiting to go in next and he’s covered in mud!’
I could hear the water running but there was no reply at all, and so I tapped on the door. Still I got no answer. I was getting a little bit concerned by this point and so I knocked again, probably a little bit harder than I intended to, rapping my knuckles quite sharply on the door several times and calling, ‘Keeley, are you all right in there, sweetheart?’
To my surprise the door fell open as I knocked, and a cloud of steam enveloped me. I blinked and then stared in surprise at the sight before me. Unbelievably, Keeley was sitting on the toilet seat; still in the same set of clothes she’d had on earlier, and playing with her dolls. She clearly hadn’t been anywhere near the water, but the shower was switched on to full power, blasting hot water down the plughole.
‘Keeley! What is happening here?’
Her face was an absolute picture. For once she had been caught completely red-handed, and yet Keeley still had the nerve to try to fib her way out of trouble.
‘I’ve been having a shower. You aren’t supposed to come in here like this! What are you doing?’
‘I knocked on the door and it opened by accident. Didn’t you hear me knocking?’
‘No, because I am having a shower, obviously.’
‘But you weren’t, were you? It looks to me like you switched on the water but didn’t get in, because you are sitting there on the toilet instead, fully clothed and playing with your dolls.’
‘Well I’m doing that now, but I had a shower before.’
‘Then why is your hair dry?’
‘Because I dried it.’
‘What did you dry it with?’
‘God, you really are thick sometimes, Angela! I dried it with a towel. What else would I use?’
‘There is no need to be rude, Keeley. And why is the shower still running?’
‘I must have forgotten to switch it off, obviously.’
‘And did you remember that the boys were waiting to use the shower after you?’
‘I forgot. I can’t remember everything, you know. I’m only eight years old. You and Jonathan are bullying me. I’m going to tell Joan, when I tell her about everything else you do, like calling me smelly. You’re nasty old people and you are bullying an eight-year-old girl!’
Keeley then marched out of the bathroom. Phillip had heard the commotion and he now came out of his bedroom, with his towel under his arm. He and Carl had started to keep their towels, toothbrushes and any personal toiletries in their bedroom for fear of what Keeley might do. There had been rows on several occasions about the fact she’d used the wrong towel, and the boys had accused her of putting hair gel on the toilet seat and taps, and spraying deodorant on the mirror and window. One time Carl said he caught her scrubbing pen off the legs of one of her dolls, using his new toothbrush, but she always denied everything.
‘At last!’ Phillip grumbled, shooting a dirty look towards Keeley as she headed to her bedroom. He was clearly in a very bad mood and looked thoroughly fed up.
‘Well, some of us like to get washed properly,’ she retorted, flicking him a defiant look over her shoulder, which made my jaw drop.
I could see I wasn’t going to get her to shower tonight and so I decided to cut my losses and try again in the morning, before school. Unfortunately, the next day she was even more belligerent.
‘You are always telling me not to be late and to hurry up and get ready, and now you want me to have a shower and wash my hair, and all before school when I’m in a rush anyhow. I don’t understand you, Angela. Do you want me to be late or something? Do you want me to get told off by the poxy teacher again? I’ll do my hair but I haven’t got time for a shower.’
With that she slammed the bathroom door and then spent twenty minutes locked inside, forcing the boys to use my bathroom or they would have been late for school. When Keeley finally emerged she had wet hair but it wasn’t soaked through, and I imagined she’d simply wet it and brushed it through.
‘Why haven’t you washed your hair properly?’ I asked, trying to contain my exasperation.
Keeley just looked at me, with her hands on her hips, rolling her eyes.
‘I asked you a question, Keeley. Why have you just wet and brushed your hair?’
‘Because I hate my hair, all right? Is that good enough for you, Angela? I’m trying to get rid of the curls, if you must know. I don’t want curly hair. I want nice straight hair.’
‘But you were supposed to be washing it, weren’t you? Couldn’t you wash it and then brush it, or better still, ask me to dry it straight?’
‘I told you, I didn’t have time. Did you want me to be late? I think you did, so you could bully me and tell me off all over again. I know your tricks
!’
When I got back from the school run I discovered the toilet was completely filled to the brim with reams and reams of toilet roll. I put on a pair of rubber gloves and fished it out, and then I saw two pairs of knickers floating in the water. I could have cried. I felt tired out and incredibly irritated as this behaviour was so unnecessary.
When I went to check Keeley’s room and fetch her dirty washing, I then found that she’d gone to school in the same pair of trousers she’d had on the day before, even though I’d specifically told her to wear clean ones that smelled fresh.
‘Do you know, I could write the script for what she says about the toilet roll when she gets home from school,’ I said to Jonathan when we were in the shop together later that morning.
‘So could I,’ he said.
Then, at exactly the same time, we both said: ‘It wasn’t me! I don’t know what you are talking about!’
We burst out laughing, which released a bit of tension, but of course it really wasn’t funny. Keeley was testing us to the limit, and if we didn’t laugh I think we would have cried.
19
‘You don’t know the half of it, Angela!’
At lunchtime the phone rang.
‘Hello, Mrs Hart?’
I recognised the voice immediately. It was Mrs Stone, the school secretary, and I felt a lump form in my throat.
‘Yes, it is. Hello, Mrs Stone, is everything all right?’
‘Not really. Have you got a moment?’
She asked me if I could call into the office when I collected Keeley that afternoon, explaining that Keeley had kicked, punched and threatened a group of children because they had called her ‘fishy pants’.
‘I see. I’ll come in later, of course.’
Unbelievably, about an hour after that conversation the phone rang again. This time it was the head of year from Phillip’s school, informing me that he had been involved in quite a serious fight, in which he had punched another boy in the face and given him a bloody nose. To make matters worse, Phillip had been extremely abusive towards the teacher who intervened. He had been given a warning and told that if there were any repeat of such behaviour he would be excluded from school for a period of time, most probably a week.
I felt mentally and physically exhausted, and Jonathan and I had a hard job keeping our spirits up in the shop for the rest of that afternoon. Customers came in chatting happily about the sunny weather we were having, or a special occasion they had to buy for and, of course, we were as polite and upbeat as possible. It wasn’t easy though. As Jonathan commented dryly after one particularly chatty customer left the shop clutching a pretty bouquet: ‘Being a foster carer is no bed of roses, is it?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You can say that again.’
‘Being a foster carer is no bed of roses, is it?’
I smiled. It was a very lame joke, if you could even call it a joke. We were standing behind the counter, surrounded not only by roses, but also by all sorts of beautiful flowers and colours and glorious smells, and I found myself giggling. Even raising a smile on my lips in the circumstances was no mean feat, but once again Jonathan had managed it. Being able to share a bit of humour and have a laugh is undoubtedly one of the reasons I’ve been able to carry on fostering, even when things have got this tough. Without a smile and the occasional unexpected giggle I might have buckled under the strain on many occasions, but Jonathan has kept me going.
When I arrived at Keeley’s school I had a couple of minutes to chat to her before the teacher came to see me, and Keeley predictably blamed everybody but herself for her behaviour.
‘Those kids were rude and nasty! They were bullying me!’
‘I’m sure the teacher will talk to the children responsible for calling you rude names, but you have to take responsibility for what you have done, Keeley.’
‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘Yes, you did. You kicked, punched and threatened a group of children. You cannot do that, Keeley, no matter what they say to you.’
‘So I just let them get away with it?’
‘No, that’s not what I’m saying.’
‘It is! It so is! You don’t care about me! You just want me to take all this shit and shut up.’
‘No, Keeley, I most certainly do not want that to happen. What you should have done was to tell a teacher that you were being called a rude name, and not got involved in fighting with the children who were taunting you.’
‘They deserved it. They all deserve to go to hell! I’ll kill them if they do it again.’
The teacher appeared and, after reiterating that Keeley had to focus on what she had done wrong, not what the other children had said or done, she told Keeley she would miss some of her play time the next day. The teacher explained that she would be talking to all the children involved individually too, and disciplining them accordingly. Then we were allowed to leave, by which time Keeley appeared to have calmed down considerably, and she even smiled very sweetly at the teacher as we left. She looked her in the eye and said that she was sorry, which appeared genuine.
‘I’m glad we’ve got all that straightened out,’ the teacher said, giving me a relieved and satisfied look as she picked up a pile of books and prepared to move on to her next task.
‘So am I,’ I replied, though I was thinking to myself that the teacher didn’t know Keeley the way I did, and she hadn’t heard her say she would kill the other children if they did it again. I didn’t for one minute think Keeley was serious about committing a violent act, but I knew she was capable of switching very quickly from being all sweetness and light to being manipulative and mean. The teacher may have dealt with this one little battle, but she certainly hadn’t won the war.
‘How would you like to go shopping?’ I asked Keeley when we got in the car.
I’d thought about this on the drive to school. Keeley’s hygiene was the crux of the problem, and telling her off for blocking up the toilet with tissue and knickers, or harking on about what she had done at school was not going to help her shower more regularly, or wear clean clothes. If she didn’t clean up her act, quite literally, she was going to risk being called ‘fishy pants’ all over again, so I needed a positive plan.
‘Shopping? What for?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Some smellies and nice things for the bathroom.’
I wanted to buy Keeley some bubble bath of her choice and some battery-operated candles, in the hope that creating a pampering experience in the bathroom might encourage her to have a soak in the bath, as we were clearly on a hiding to nothing with the shower. This was something I’d heard another foster carer had done successfully, and I’d actually been planning on suggesting this before the phone call from the school. Now things had reached a head I decided we had no time to lose.
‘Why do you want to do that for me?’ Keeley said. ‘I’m bad. I’ve been naughty.’
‘You’re not bad, you’ve got yourself into trouble, as all children do, but you’ve apologised now. You’re going to miss some playtime and then hopefully it will all be forgotten.’
‘So you want to buy me nice things? Why aren’t you cross? Why aren’t you telling me off or taking away treats?’
‘The teacher has already taken away some of your playtime. You’re a clever girl, Keeley, and I think you have learned a lesson. I think you understand that next time something like this happens you need to tell a teacher instead of fighting back, so that you don’t end up in trouble again. Am I right?’
She nodded.
‘Good. So, let’s go shopping, shall we?’
‘Fine, if we have to!’ she said rather cheekily, but I let that pass. For some reason she seemed to be looking for some more conflict, but I wasn’t going to give it to her.
Before I started fostering I wouldn’t have thought it was very sensible to treat a badly behaved child to a shopping trip and a few luxuries immediately after being called up to the school, but experience had taught me that working with Keel
ey instead of battling against her had a much greater chance of creating a positive outcome.
Having been born in the fifties, I’d been raised with traditional post-war values and strict but fair discipline. If I stepped out of line I had my sweets or my pocket money docked, or I was sent to bed early without any cocoa. There was no arguing about this; my parents’ word was final and defying them was simply not an option. Good manners and absolute respect for adults was the order of the day, and treats had to be earned with hard work and excellent behaviour.
Times had inevitably changed, and parenting techniques in general had become less stringent. As a foster carer I’d had to take giant strides in my way of thinking and, whenever possible, with all the children I fostered I much preferred to encourage good behaviour than to punish bad behaviour. Over the years I’ve become programmed to constantly remind myself that when you are dealing with a child who has suffered trauma as Keeley had, it is not the child’s fault that they are behaving badly, and they need praise more than they need criticising.
Keeley’s disclosure about her grandfather making her do ‘rude things’ had given me a very sharp reminder of this fact. She was not a typical eight-year-old girl, and she needed to be cut an awful lot of slack.
I took Keeley shopping, feeling optimistic about my bath plan and, thankfully, my efforts paid off. She was in a really good mood by the time we got home, and was looking forward to having a lovely, relaxing soak in the bath later that night.
‘Thank you, Angela,’ she said thoughtfully, looking out of the window. ‘I don’t deserve this.’
‘You do,’ I said. ‘Everybody deserves to feel good about themselves. I think you’ll feel really good after a bath. I always do.’
Dealing with Phillip’s problem that day was trickier, even though it was handled in a phone call and I didn’t have to go up to the school and speak to his teachers. He too had some issues from his past that impacted on the way he behaved at times, and I was always careful to factor this in whenever he stepped out of line.