The Cast-Off Kids (25 page)

‘His name is Luke and he’s fifteen. He’s been sleeping rough for weeks, he told me. He was so desperately tired that I don’t suppose he’ll be down for
hours.’

‘Well, don’t let him leave the house without checking his pockets first!’ said Mike, with a twinkle in his eye. Then he went off to work, dropping Lulu off at the nursery, and
the others all went to school.

The first thing I had to do was to call Social Services and ask for their advice about what I should do with Luke. I didn’t want to break the law or keep him with us when he was supposed
to be somewhere else. But I didn’t get the response I expected.

‘A fifteen-year-old called Luke?’ asked the voice at the other end of the phone. ‘Do you know his surname and his date of birth?’

‘No, I’m afraid not. I forgot to ask him before he fell asleep. Do you have a missing boy on your list called Luke?’

‘Not that I know of, Mrs Merry,’ she said, snootily. ‘We have more than fifteen hundred children currently in this region. Among those we probably have at least ten or twelve
boys called Luke. As far as I can see, we have no missing Lukes at the moment.’

‘Right.’ I paused. ‘Should I ring the police then?’

‘Well, there wouldn’t be any point, unless you know his surname.’

So that was that. I did think the police might have had a different view, but she was right: I should have asked for his full name. So I decided to wait until he woke up. I spent the rest of the
morning finding a stand-in carer for the sex-film children’s house, and someone to repair their cooker. I didn’t hear a sound from Luke all day.

My friend Val kindly collected Lulu from nursery for me, and Mike took a late lunch-hour to collect all the others and bring them back, so that I could stay at home and ‘protect our
valuables’, as he put it. I went up and woke Luke before the rabble arrived.

‘Come on, sunshine,’ I said to him, gently shaking his shoulder, ‘time to get up.’ I opened the curtains and sat on the end of his bed, while he gradually roused himself
and stretched. He looked around the room with a puzzled expression before he spotted me.

‘Did you wonder where you were?’ I asked him with a warm smile.

‘Yes,’ he answered, rubbing his eyes. ‘I thought I was in a hostel, but the cots confused me.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ I laughed. ‘This is normally the babies’ room, but we don’t have any babies at the moment. We’ll have to dismantle the cots and
bring a proper bed in for you if you want to stay.’

‘Can I?’ he asked.

‘Well, yes,’ I said. ‘As long as you’re sure you’re not meant to be anywhere else?’

‘No.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t think I’m on anybody’s radar now.’

‘And the other condition is that you have a lovely hot bath and wash your hair and then, when you’re all clean and sweet-smelling . . .’ I grinned. ‘. . . you can put on
these clean clothes I’ve borrowed for you. The top is Mike’s – he’s my husband. And the underwear and trousers belong to Kevin, our teenager, who’s about the same size
as you. So off you go.’

‘OK. A bath will be great. I can wash the streets off my skin and out of my hair.’ He gave a half-smile. ‘Thank you for taking me in.’

‘Well, as I remember it, you fell in when I opened the door!’

‘Did I? I’m sorry.’ He looked rueful and I laughed.

I gave him the clean clothes and he started to strip in the room, standing right next to me, stopping only at his tattered underpants. ‘Just come down and join us for a cooked tea when
you’re ready,’ I said, standing up.

‘OK. Thanks.’ He picked up the clean clothes and turned to go out of the room. That’s when the shockwaves hit me. The whole of Luke’s back and shoulders were covered with
marks and scars. There wasn’t even the smallest area that was unscathed. All of his skin was puckered, with rough, raised nicks, tracks and patches, mauve and purple, with some dark red
wheals in between.

As he reached the door, Luke must have suddenly realised. He turned back to look at me and searched my face for a reaction, so I had to keep my expression as normal as I could. I knew that if I
showed my shock and my feelings at what had been done to him, he might think I was judging him, instead of whoever did all that damage.

After about ten seconds, Luke turned again and went off to the bathroom. Now I could react. I blinked away tears. I couldn’t imagine how this damage had been done, and was desperate to
know, but at the same time, I just wanted to hug him and show him that I cared very much, and wanted to protect him from any more harm.

Luke must have been very tired and half-starved, because the next couple of days, he just slept and ate, slept and ate. We hardly talked at all. I thought it would be better to
wait until he felt stronger.

I popped out and bought him some underwear and a couple of tops as well as some trousers and pyjamas. He must have got up while I was out, because someone had left the milk and a cereal packet
out on the worktop, and it could only have been him. Remembering what Mike had said about protecting our valuables, I did pop up and check my jewellery box, but everything was still there. I
breathed a big sigh of relief and I mentally congratulated Luke.

Later that day, I called Social Services again, with Luke’s surname and his date of birth. Of course, I couldn’t be sure he’d given me the right details, but it was worth a
try. They checked their list again and said they didn’t know of him. In fact, they didn’t seem at all interested. I suppose he was only a few months off his sixteenth birthday and there
was no evidence to show that he had come from this area.

‘But don’t you think you should take him onto your list?’ I persevered. ‘He is under sixteen, homeless and has no idea where his mother is. He’s apparently been in
a number of foster placements and children’s homes. He wouldn’t tell me exactly where, but in the southwest.’

‘I see,’ said the snooty voice. ‘I’ll pass on this information to our supervisor. Thank you for letting us know.’

About half an hour later, the phone rang and it was a senior social worker, who said he was too busy to come out that day, but could he speak to Luke on the phone? This was a very unusual
request. It had never happened to us before; but then I’d never found a boy sleeping in our porch before either.

I called Luke and he shambled down the stairs, bleary-eyed.

‘I’ve only just woken up,’ he protested.

‘Can you come to the phone please, sweetheart,’ I said, holding it out towards him. ‘The senior social worker wants a word with you.’

‘I don’t speak to social workers,’ he mumbled.

‘Well, please do it just this once, for my sake.’

He hesitated, then took the receiver from me. He listened and said ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Then he suddenly became more animated. ‘But I don’t want to leave here.
It’s the first time I’ve been in a proper home with a proper family that love each other. Please don’t take me away. If you try, I’ll just run away and come back
here.’ There was a pause while he listened again. ‘Yes, I definitely want you to register me as a foster child at this address . . . until I turn sixteen.’ He handed the receiver
back to me.

‘Mrs Merry. Luke clearly wants to stay with you. How do you feel about him being officially placed in your care?’

‘I would be very happy to keep him on with us.’

‘All right,’ he confirmed. ‘I’ll get the paperwork done and one of our team will come round with it and meet Luke in a couple of days’ time.’

‘S
omebody has drawn a picture in MY sketchbook,’ wailed Daisy when she got home from school on Luke’s second day with us. She
brought it over to show me. ‘I left it on the table this morning, and now look what somebody has done.’

I looked at this creative, fantastical sci-fi image, beautifully drawn, in an almost comic-book style.

‘Wow! That’s very different, isn’t it?’ I tilted it this way and that. ‘I rather like it. What do you think, Daise?’

She looked at it again. ‘Mmm,’ she seemed to be warming to it. ‘It’s OK, I suppose. It’s a good drawing,’ she said, grudgingly, then carefully tore the page
out of her pad and gave it to me.

We showed it to Mike later. ‘You’re the expert,’ I said. ‘What do you think of it?’

‘Well, whoever did it – they’ve certainly got talent.’

The next time I had the chance to talk to Luke on his own, I asked him straight out. ‘Did you do this drawing, Luke?’

He looked at it briefly. ‘Yes.’

‘Mike is a design engineer and he says it’s very good. I like it too. Can I put it up on display in the kitchen?’

‘OK,’ he shrugged. ‘If you want to.’

‘Mike reckons you’ve got talent and he’d like to see more of your drawings. So I’ve brought you some spare drawing paper I found in the playroom cupboard and some
different kinds of pencils and pens.’

His eyes lit up. ‘Thank you.’ It was the first time I’d seen him with a proper smile.

So he now had something of his own to work on when the others weren’t around. But the only real interaction he had with the kids in those first few days was, surprisingly, with Kevin, who
didn’t like being with people. Somehow these two clicked. Perhaps it was their ages, at thirteen and fifteen; but also because they didn’t seem to make any demands on each other, which
suited them both.

‘Why are Kevin and Luke always in their rooms?’ asked Paul one Saturday. ‘Shall I ask them if they want to come and play football with us?’

‘That would be a great idea in a week or two, when Luke feels more settled, but he needs to be able to just do things in his own way at the moment.’

Daisy, who was usually so self-contained, but felt a bit mean that she’d been cross with Luke about drawing in her book, offered to take both Kevin and Luke some drinks and snacks
upstairs, when everyone else was helping themselves in the garden.

‘That’s very thoughtful of you, Daise. But I think Kevin is reading the new book Mike bought for him, and Luke is busy drawing a whole comic strip, so they probably don’t want
to be interrupted. I expect they’ll come down for something when they’re hungry.’

Kevin had been with us for about three or four months by this stage and we had found him a place at a special school for autistic children, where he seemed quite happy, at
last. So he was the first to leave in the mornings, on the bus they provided, and the last to get home after school.

About a week after Luke arrived, when everyone else was in school or nursery, I sat him down with me in the kitchen.

‘I think it’s time we had a chat,’ I began. ‘First of all, I know you said you were sleeping rough, which must have been awful, but what made you come to our
door?’

‘One of my mates told me that the local authority were on the lookout for someone, and I thought it might be me.’

‘I see. So you were worried they would catch you?’

‘Yes. One of the boys had been talking to a man who had been with you – one of your foster-children, years ago, and he said you were the best, and you didn’t judge people. So
you were my last hope.’ He paused. ‘And that guy was right, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes, and I’m pleased he sent you here. But who was this man?’

‘I don’t know his name.’

‘Well I’m glad you managed to find us. We love having you here.’

‘Thanks. But I probably won’t stay long.’

‘No. You’ll be sixteen soon, won’t you?’

‘Yes, just before Christmas.’

‘Well, now that you’ve been with us a week and have settled in, it’s time we got you into a local school or college.’

He gulped, and his face immediately changed from relaxed to tense.

‘I’ve rung the local secondary school and they have a place for you.’

‘I don’t do school,’ he said, as if that was the end of it.

‘I’m afraid the law says you have to attend school or college, at least until you turn sixteen.’

‘B***** the law!’ he exclaimed. ‘They’ve not caught up with me yet.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I’ve hardly ever been to school. My mum never bothered to take me to start with, although some of her boyfriends took me just to get me out of the house, but I always ran away
and hid when I was little. Then I was put in care, so I lived in a lot of different places. Children’s homes are very dodgy – training grounds for criminals and paedos more like. The
foster-homes I went to weren’t much better. None of them cared about me.’

‘It must have been terrible for you.’ I genuinely sympathised with this lad, who seemed harmless enough and just needed to be loved and valued as a person. Not just a number in the
social care system.

‘Where do you come from, originally?’ I asked.

‘Like I told you the first day – the west country,’ he said vaguely. ‘A long way from here.’

I could tell he didn’t want me to know the exact place, so I changed the subject back to his education. ‘Didn’t any of these homes send you to school?’

‘Yes, they all did.’ He paused to push his over-long fringe back out of his eyes. ‘But I never stayed after registration.’

‘Didn’t you like school?’

‘Nope. I didn’t like them and they didn’t like me. I could never learn. I’m just thick.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Teachers, other children, carers, everybody really. Plus I could see it for myself. I’ve always had good ideas. I always wanted to learn, but nobody could find a way to teach me, so
I never bothered after that. What was the point? I always bunked off. So it’s my fault that I can’t read or write.’

‘No, I’m sure it’s not your fault. Maybe you’re dyslexic, like me.’

His expression changed. ‘I’ve never heard of that.’

‘You seem quite bright to me. But your teachers should have tried to find the right way of teaching you – different ways that could help you to learn.’

‘I thought there was only one way, and it was no use to me.’

‘No, there are lots of different things they could have tried.’

He looked surprised. ‘Well, they didn’t.’

I thought for a moment, while I made us a coffee and brought it to the table. ‘I’m going to make a couple of phone calls to see if I can arrange an alternative solution.’