‘Will Mama come and get me tomorrow?’ I asked. ‘And will the door be fixed? She will be very cross if the door is broken.’ I remembered her sitting on the floor crying and suddenly I felt very sad even though I’d just had fish fingers and a doughnut. If the door was still broken when she got back she would probably cry again.
‘The door has already been made secure … I mean, made so that no one can get in, and will be fixed properly very soon, hopefully tomorrow. And we’re trying hard to find your mummy. You’re sure you don’t have a granny or grandpa? Or aunties or uncles maybe? Cousins?’
‘No. Granny is in heaven. There’s only Mama.’
‘And no daddy?’
‘He lives a long way away, Mama said.’
‘You don’t see him? Or know where he lives?’
I shook my head.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘Well, we’ll do our best to find your mummy.’
‘But what if you can’t? There’s no food at home and the door is broken so I can’t go to the shops.’ Suddenly I felt scared again.
‘You go to the shops by yourself?’ Anna asked.
‘No. Me and Mama go. But this time I wanted to go because there was no food.’
She nodded. ‘OK. Well hopefully we will have found your mummy by the time you wake up but if not, you’ll go and stay with a nice family until we can find her. There might be other children there for you to play with too. Does that sound OK? You won’t be left on your own with no food again either way, I promise.’
‘Can I take Teddy if I go to the nice family?’
‘Of course. He will be very welcome.’
‘OK then. But only until you find Mama.’
I’d never been in an actual house before. I’d seen them on TV and I’d walked past them on the way to the shops with Mama, but I’d never been inside a real house. Our house wasn’t called a house, it was called a flat because it was flat – someone else lived on top and someone else lived underneath. Sometimes we could hear music or someone shouting from the other flats. I liked it when we could hear the other people because it felt like they were keeping me company but Mama didn’t like it when there were noises and sometimes she would put her hands over her ears and shout shut up shut up shut up so that her shouting was even louder than the noise and then I would go into a different room and sing with Teddy.
Anna brought me to the house because they still hadn’t found Mama and she told me I was going to stay there while they looked for Mama. A lady and a man lived there and Anna said they looked after children like me whose mummy and daddy couldn’t look after them for a bit but not to keep them forever. She said it would be just like being at home and I could do all the things I usually did at home, but I could see straight away that it would be nothing like being at home. It was like the houses on the TV where there was a mummy and a daddy and other children, the curtains were open and there was even a bowl of fruit on the table.
Anna crouched down next to me so her face was level with mine and said, ‘Now, if you’re feeling OK, I’m going to leave you here with Rhonda and Nick to show you your new room and let you get settled in. You or Rhonda can call me at any time if you have any worries or questions.’
‘And when will I see Mama?’ I asked. ‘If she goes back home and I’m not there she won’t know where I am.’
‘Don’t you worry about that – as soon as we find her we’ll let her know that you’re safe.’
‘And bring me home?’
Anna paused. ‘Um – yes. Once we’re sure that she’s not too … tired to look after you properly, we’ll bring you home.’
‘But until then you’re going to have lots of fun here!’ Rhonda chirped. ‘Why don’t I show you your room and then you can meet your new brothers and sisters?’
‘I have brothers and sisters?’ I asked. I was so excited. I wasn’t sure I if wanted a brother but I’d always wanted a sister. Someone else like me to play with.
‘Well, that’s what we call you all here,’ Rhonda said. ‘While you’re here, you’re all family.’
I couldn’t believe I had my very own room. It was so pretty with pink flowery curtains and a big bed with a fluffy duvet with fairies on it. The bed was a real one which was there all the time, not the kind that could be folded up like my one at home.
There was a wardrobe and a chest of drawers but I hadn’t brought anything with me apart from Teddy. I wasn’t sure what I was going to wear tomorrow so I asked Rhonda and she said that it was OK because she could lend me a few things, but Anna was going to go to my house and get some of my clothes so that I could have my own things to help me feel at home, which seemed like a weird thing to say because I wasn’t at home. I didn’t have many clothes but I did want my bubble nightie and my favourite owl T-shirt. Most of my other clothes were too small and Mama always said that I grew very quickly and money didn’t grow on trees so sometimes I had to wait for new clothes, and I wondered if the ones that Rhonda might give me would be nicer and fit me better.
We went back downstairs and there were some other children in the kitchen. Rhonda said: ‘Would you like to sit down and have some crumpets?’
I said, ‘Yes, please!’ I didn’t know what crumpets were, but it was always nice to have something to eat.
‘This is Ben, Ryan, and Layla – your new brothers and sisters.’ Layla was very big, almost like a grown-up and the boys were a little bit older than me. ‘And there’s William,’ she added, pointing at a baby sitting in a bouncy chair on the floor.
‘Where’s your mum?’ Ben asked, his mouth full of chocolatey crumpet.
‘Ben!’ Rhonda cried, louder than I’d heard her speak so far. ‘You know we don’t ask questions like that in this house. If and when your new sister wants to talk about her family, then she will. In her own time. If not, it’s none of our business.’
‘My mum’s in prison,’ Ben said proudly.
‘I don’t know where my mama is,’ I said. ‘But she will be back soon.’
‘Course she will,’ muttered the big girl, ‘they all say that.’ and Rhonda said, ‘Layla! Please!’ and I didn’t know why because she wasn’t asking for anything.
I lived with Rhonda and Nick for almost two years the first time. It was nice there. I was there the longest – other children – or brothers and sisters, as they insisted I called them, came and went. There were always other children around to play with and, once I got used to it, I liked that. I started school and I had friends there too. It was tricky at first as I didn’t know how to count or my letters or a lot of things that most other children my age already knew, but it got easier and I got special certificates to show how well I was doing all the time.
It took them two weeks to find Mama. They found her sleeping in the street. But I didn’t go straight home with her because she didn’t go home herself to start with. Anna explained it all to me. Mama was in a special hospital and Anna would take me to see her every week. I tried to like the visits because she was still my mama, but usually they were a bit scary. Sometimes Mama would just sit in her room and not really say anything and Anna would tell her stuff about me and how I was doing at school and what I’d been doing at home, and then she’d say ‘Well, isn’t this nice?’ every few minutes when it wasn’t nice at all and I couldn’t wait to leave because it seemed like Mama wasn’t even listening.