The Cast-Off Kids (6 page)

Luckily, it was a Saturday and Mike was home, so he took all the kids for a chaotic walk, while I cleared away the breakfast things and dashed upstairs to prepare a bed for this boy. I decided
to put him in with three-and-a-half-year-old Paul and Ronnie, who was now nearly five, so the closest in age. I wondered whether the new boy would think it beneath him to have a cuddly by his
pillow, but I guessed he would bring nothing of his own with him, so I chose him a stocky dog with a black patch around one eye.

As I stood on the front doorstep to welcome our new arrival, I was shocked to see how pale and thin he was. His eyes looked dull in their hollow sockets and his hair looked matted.

‘This is AJ,’ said the friendly looking social worker. ‘He’s five years old.’

‘Hello AJ,’ I said in my warmest voice. ‘Come in and I’ll find our special biscuit-tin. Do you like chocolate biscuits?’

‘Yes,’ said AJ with a nod and a wary expression, like a hurt animal. I noticed that somebody had found him a warm jumper, though it was a couple of sizes too big for him and the
cuffs had been rolled over at least twice.

I took them into the kitchen first, to let the boy acclimatise, and made him a drink to have with his biscuit. ‘Is AJ actually his name?’ I asked.

‘Sort of,’ said Mark, the social worker. ‘It’s what he answers to. I checked and his full name is Anthony John, but he says nobody calls him Anthony – only
AJ.’

‘Would you like to go down to the playroom, AJ, and meet some of the other children?’ I asked him.

‘Yes, OK,’ he said with a shrug of his bony shoulders. Even with his clothes on I could see how thin and puny he was. I hoped his carers last night had given him a good hot meal and
a long night’s sleep.

‘I’m afraid we don’t have any of his things, any clothes or anything,’ explained Mark as we followed the hubbub coming from the children in the playroom.

‘That’s all right,’ I assured him. ‘We’ve got plenty of spares in AJ’s size.’

Mark left us once he’d watched AJ settle down to playing with Ronnie and given us the rudimentary paperwork – mostly empty spaces.

The day seemed to pass well for AJ, who ate ravenously at lunchtime before Ronnie and Paul roped him into building a garage and lining up the cars. Then it was teatime and he demolished a big
portion of sausages, mash and baked beans.

After tea, while the others ‘helped’ Mike and Lizzie to clear up the tea-things, I took AJ up to see his room.

‘This is your bed,’ I showed him.

He immediately picked up the dog. ‘Is this mine?’ he asked, with his first proper smile of the day, then threw the dog in the air and it landed in the middle of his eiderdown.

‘Yes, you can give him a name if you like.’

‘Buster,’ he said. ‘I always wanted a dog called Buster.’

‘I’m going to get you some clothes of your own, too,’ I said, as I showed him his side of the wardrobe and the two bottom drawers that would be his.

‘Thank you.’ He looked at me with a solemn gaze. ‘Will I be staying here?’

‘Yes, sweetheart. I hope you can stay here for quite a while.’

‘Good,’ he said, trying to hold back the tears. ‘I like this bed.’

After bathtime I tucked him up in his cosy bed, clutching Buster. ‘Sleep well.’ I gave him a peck on the forehead, dimmed the nightlight and half-closed the door, so that I could
listen.

‘You’ll like it here,’ said Ronnie. ‘We’re going to be mates, you and me.’

‘And me,’ added Paul.

‘OK,’ agreed AJ. Then silence. He must have fallen straight off to sleep.

‘Our new little lad, AJ, looks very underfed, doesn’t he?’ asked Mike later that evening.

‘Yes, but he’s already started to make up for that. He ate three fat sausages for his tea, so I’m sure he’ll soon start filling out,’ I said. ‘I’m more
concerned about his emotional neglect. I gave him a kiss on his forehead as I tucked him into bed tonight, and he seemed to flinch. I don’t know whether he was surprised or dismayed. It was
as if nobody had ever kissed him before. It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? A mother not kissing her own child.’

‘Yes. No wonder he looks so miserable.’

‘The other thing . . .’

‘What . . . ?’

‘Have you noticed his movements? How uncoordinated he seems to be? Almost as if he has a mild case of cerebral palsy.’

‘I noticed that he was a bit clumsy today with the building bricks, and there’s something odd about his walk,’ agreed Mike.

‘He seems to get on well with Ronnie, doesn’t he? I hope they’ll be good friends for each other.’

‘As long as Paul doesn’t mind the competition.’

‘Paul’s not like that,’ I said. ‘He likes a rough and tumble with the boys and they’re the only three at the moment.’

‘AJ seems a good lad.’

‘Never speak too soon,’ I warned with a smile. ‘He may turn out to have a lot of problems!’

‘I don’t think so. We’ll get some love into him and he’ll be fine.’

I hoped Mike would be right, but I wasn’t so sure.

O
n Monday morning, I trundled the pram and all the children down to the village school as usual. I dropped Chrissy off at her classroom door, then
the rest of us all went along to the school office to register AJ, so that he could be transferred to this school as well. A junior teacher came to take him down to Chrissy’s class. I
wondered how she would react, given her recent moodiness. No doubt we would soon find out.

At home time, we all returned to the school to collect them both. AJ came out first, with his distinctive walk, his knees almost knocking. In fact, seeing him in his school shorts, that’s
when it suddenly occurred to me . . . his legs weren’t quite straight like the other children’s. Could it be rickets? No, surely not . . . but maybe a mild form of it? That made some
sense, knowing how underfed he had been.

As I waited for Chrissy to appear, their teacher came out to find me.

‘Hello, Mrs Merry. I just wanted to come and tell you that AJ has settled in reasonably well today.’ She paused, as if planning her words. ‘He made an enthusiastic start. In
fact, he reminds me of a puppy – all legs and eagerness!’

I laughed. ‘That’s a good description.’

‘I put him at Chrissy’s table at first, to help him feel at ease. But that didn’t work at all, so I moved him across the room and he was much happier there. It’s early
days, but I think he’s begun to make friends.’

It was a different story when he came out of school the next day.

‘I’ll come to the point, Mrs Merry,’ said the teacher, with a stern yet also sympathetic face. ‘We noticed a couple of things go missing yesterday, in the
classroom,’ she began. ‘But they were only minor things that belonged to the school – a box of blackboard chalk and the ruler from my desk drawer. I assumed somebody had borrowed
them and not put them back, which may still be the case of course.’

‘Oh, right . . .’ I said. I could sense there was more to come.

‘But today, I found one of the other children crying at lunchtime, because her lunch-box had been raided and nearly everything was missing.’

‘Maybe this child’s parents left things out by accident,’ I pointed out, with my fingers crossed.

‘We thought of that,’ she said. ‘So we rang the child’s mum at home and she said that nothing had been left behind. She was sure that she had packed everything in the box
herself, and she listed what should have been there, but most of those things had gone.’

‘Are you suggesting AJ was to blame?’

‘I know AJ was to blame,’ she replied. ‘I checked his coat pockets and I found the crisp and chocolate bar wrappers in there. When I asked him about them, he said at first they
were his. But when I asked him again in front of the other child, he seemed to crumble. He started to cry and then he apologised to her.’

‘Did you ask him why he had taken her things?’

‘Yes. He just said he was hungry. But then he added another thing, which I thought was quite strange. He said his dad made him do it.’

‘Really? We’ll have to look into this at home. I’m really sorry about his classmate’s lunch. Did she have enough to eat?’

‘Yes, we found her some replacements in the staff room,’ said the teacher. ‘But I’d appreciate it if you could please have a word with AJ tonight and see if you can get
to the bottom of this. We don’t want it happening again.’

‘I will,’ I assured her, then gathered my flock from off the climbing frame and left for home.

After tea, when Lizzie had taken the children off to the playroom and Mike was clearing away, I took AJ into the sitting room for a quiet chat. He seemed surprised to be singled out . . . and a
little apprehensive.

‘Your teacher, Mrs Hughes, told me about the missing lunch,’ I began, and paused to see his reaction.

He said nothing, but shifted his bottom round on the sofa, looking away from me.

‘What do you know about it?’ I asked him directly, turning him gently back towards me. He wriggled a bit, but looked lost for what to say.

‘And Mrs Hughes said that she found the other girl’s crisp and chocolate bar wrappers in your pocket.’

‘Yes,’ he said, hanging his head. ‘But I don’t know how they got there. Somebody must have put them there.’

‘We could talk about this for a long time,’ I said. ‘But I don’t want to take up all your playtime with the others, so why don’t you just tell me the truth? Did you
take those things out of the girl’s lunch box?’

‘No,’ he insisted, turning his head away. ‘I told you . . .’

‘Yes, you did.’

Silence . . . and I let it last before saying anything.

‘Why did you take them, AJ?’

‘I was hungry.’

‘You had lots of food in your lunchbox.’

‘Everyone takes things,’ he said, changing his tack.

‘You told Mrs Hughes that your dad made you do it.’

‘Yes,’ was his sullen answer.

‘What did you mean?’

‘Well . . . my dad and my mum steal things . . .’

‘OK.’

‘And my dad makes me steal things too.’

‘Really?’

‘He said I have to steal something every day, so they can buy me food to eat.’ AJ paused. ‘I’m not very good at it.’ He crumpled up and burst into tears, then
wracking sobs, his bony shoulders heaving.

I put my arm round him and held him close for a while, stroking his straggly hair. Gradually his sobbing subsided as he sat in a limp heap, cuddled up to me. I thought we’d said enough for
now. But there was one thing I was puzzled about.

‘I heard that someone found you in a skip on Friday. Is that true?’

‘Yes.’ He sniffed and I passed him a tissue to blow his nose.

‘Tell me how that happened.’

‘It was my dad. When he came home he wanted to see what I stole that day. But I couldn’t, so he got angry. He took me outside and threw me in the skip.’

‘Oh dear,’ I sympathised. ‘Was it empty or were there things in it?

‘Nearly empty. Just some bits of wood and old carpet at the bottom. I tried to climb out, but I couldn’t reach.’

‘Did you call for help?’

‘No. My dad beats me if I make a noise. It was dark and I was cold, so I made a little bed out of the bits of carpet and tried to sleep.’

I gave him another cuddle. ‘You must have been very cold.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well you’re here now.’ I gave him a hug and sent him off to join the others for a short playtime before bed.

Later that evening, I told Mike what the teacher had said at school about AJ stealing, and what he himself had told me about his father and the skip.

‘So has he stolen anything from us or the other children?’ he asked.

‘Not as far as I know. Not yet anyway.’

‘Do you think he will?’

‘Probably, yes.’ I nodded. ‘I think it’s become the norm for him – something he has had to achieve every day, poor mite. It’s turned most people’s set
of values entirely on its head. We can’t expect him to suddenly shun everything he’s known as being right and make his mind think of it as wrong. We may have a lengthy process ahead of
us . . . if he stays that long.’

‘Oh, that sounds too psychological for me.’ Mike paused. ‘I guess you’re right. We’ll have to watch him and help him understand . . . And maybe hide our valuables
away where he can’t find them.’

We sat in silence for a minute or two, neither of us wanting to voice how uncomfortable we felt about the way this situation was making us think.

‘It’s going to be an uphill climb,’ Mike admitted. Do you think we’re up to it?’

‘I hope so.’ I sighed. ‘He needs us. We have to help him.’

The term ended without much further trouble, apart from AJ bringing home some of the decorations off the class Christmas tree, pinching a chocolate roll from another lunch-box
and taking a Superman figure from a coat pocket in the cloakroom. We had to have words about those. There may have been other things too of course, but in all the end-of-term excitement I suppose
they didn’t come to light.

The run-up to Christmas at our house, from the beginning of December, was always a very busy time, with our huge tree to decorate in the hall, the paper chains to make and put up and the
puddings to mix, with everyone having a stir and a wish.

‘I wish I can have a red car to ride in,’ said Paul.

‘I wish someone would give me a Sindy doll,’ added Sheena, with her stir.

‘You don’t just have to wish for presents,’ I suggested.

Daisy took the wooden spoon, her face solemn with thought. As she began to stir, she looked at me and said: ‘I want to learn to knit.’

‘But you’re not even five yet,’ said Chrissy.

‘I don’t need to be five. I can learn,’ replied Daisy, pouting stubbornly.

‘Does anyone else want to make a wish?’

Chrissy shot her hand in the air. ‘Yes, me please.’

They all took a turn and then finally AJ stepped forward. He looked down into the bowl as he began to stir. ‘I wish I could stay here,’ he said. The room was silent.

I stepped forward and put my arm round him. ‘That’s a lovely wish, AJ. I hope you can stay as long as you want.’

On Christmas Eve, all the children were hyper with excitement.