Skin Deep. Casey Watson

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СКАЧАТЬ we nearly came without her, didn’t we?’ the social worker added. ‘As John no doubt told you. Still, we’re here now. All present and correct. Well, such as we can be.’ She too raised a hand holding a bag; in this case a ‘for life’ one, supplied by a well-known supermarket. ‘This is pretty much it.’

      ‘And I’m pretty, too,’ Flip reminded her. ‘Mummy said so.’

      We went back in the kitchen to find that John had filled the kettle and put it on, and was busy pulling mugs from one of the cupboards.

      ‘You must have read my mind,’ I said, pulling out a third chair. ‘How about you, Ellie – coffee? And what about you, Flip?’ I added, as the social worker nodded an affirmative. ‘Would you like some juice?’

      Flip turned to her Barbie – clearly now a very precious possession, even though she had managed to forget her temporarily along the way. ‘Yes, please,’ she said, having put the doll to her ear. ‘And Pink Barbie says do you have any teeny-weeny cups, Mummy?’

      ‘I’m sure we can find something just right for her,’ I assured her. Mummy. And three or four times now, I mused, as I rummaged in my ‘teeny-weeny cups’ drawer for something Barbie-sized the doll could sip from. What an unusual prospect this sweet little girl looked like being.

      Unusual, interesting and definitely bordering on the profoundly challenging. Or so I was about to find out. First, though, there was the usual raft of paperwork, and, of course, the formal introductions. Ellie turned out to be called Ellie Markham, and had only just been assigned to Flip, as a consequence of her having been transferred from out of our local authority area. Though, thankfully, they’d been prompt in transferring all her notes, I felt for Ellie; guessing at her age, my hunch was that she’d not long been qualified, so she was probably diving straight into the deep end while still a little wet behind the ears.

      As she wasn’t in a position to give us much in the way of background, I suggested she and I take Flip outside to meet Tyler and Denver, and that perhaps Tyler could take them on a little tour of the house and garden. It was a job that usually fell to Mike while John and I and the attending social worker dealt with all the forms, but with it having been too short notice for Mike to get away from work, we were having to improvise on that front anyway.

      Which was fine; I also thought it would be nice for Tyler to meet Flip with his role in the family clearly evident, i.e. that she could see he was very much one of the family, and would naturally assume a big-brother role while she was with us, for however long that looked like being. We’d already primed him a while back, and with the respite work we’d done since we’d had him I was confident he’d adjust to a new child pretty quickly, just as long as he didn’t feel insecure.

      Indeed, he seemed puffed up with pride at being given the responsibility, and it was only Ellie’s insistence that she stay by Flip’s side that meant she wasn’t back with John and me herself. ‘Crossing the Ts and dotting the Is,’ John explained when I returned to the kitchen so we could make as short work as possible of the formalities. ‘She has a tendency to wander, I’m told. No sense of stranger danger either – one of the features of her FAS.’ He patted a pile of papers in a slip case. ‘There’s plenty for you to get your teeth into here.’

      ‘And this is it, is it?’ I asked him as I retook my place at the table. ‘She’s in the care system now? No likelihood of her being reunited with her mum?’

      John shook his head. ‘That’s not the plan. She’s been on the “at risk” register for quite a while now, apparently; there have been repeated attempts to get Mum into alcohol abuse programmes, parenting classes and so on, so this fire’s really just been a line drawn in the sand. It was probably only a matter of time in any case. There’s no home for either of them to go back to now, anyway. They’ve apparently lost everything.’ He pointed to the bag Ellie had parked by the table. ‘That’s all she has; the bits and pieces the respite carers pulled together for her. So she’ll need kitting out …’

      ‘That’s no problem,’ I said. ‘Well, in terms of stuff to run around in, anyway. I have a boxful. Not that any of it’s pink. Poor mite. She must be reeling inside, even if she’s not showing it. Probably too dazed by it all … When did it happen?’

      ‘Friday evening,’ John said. And we were now into Wednesday.

      ‘She must be in shock still,’ I said, as I took the forms he was handing me. Copies of the care plan, the risk assessment, the moving forms and so on, all to be signed three times. Nothing in social services ever happened except in triplicate.

      John shook his head. ‘Apparently not,’ he said. ‘Ellie tells me what you see is what you get. One of the main problems Flip has is a lack of empathy, which I’m told is quite common. I’m sure you’ll be Googling it all later, and, as I say, there’s more about her background in the file here, but she’s a tricky one; she’s already been dealing with the legacy of being born the way she is, and it’s been compounded by the rackety way she and her mother have been living. Oh, and she’s on Ritalin for her ADHD, so that needs managing too. And probably hasn’t been, not properly …’ He grimaced as he tailed off. ‘You know how it goes.’

      ‘Indeed I do,’ I said, mentally ticking off another checklist. Of all the things we’d need to get put in place as a priority; of all the things we’d need to establish in terms of ground rules and routines and behaviours. Of how many ways in which my first impression had already begun changing about this outwardly sweet, biddable, idiosyncratic little girl.

      ‘Oh and one other thing –’ John began, but once again we were interrupted. By Tyler, who blew into the kitchen like an EF5 tornado, with Denver close behind.

      ‘OMG, Casey!’ he panted. ‘OMG! Yeuch! You gotta come!’

      ‘Come where?’ I wanted to know. ‘And what are those faces for, the pair of you?’

      ‘Casey, it’s like, soooo gross,’ Denver supplied. ‘You won’t believe it, honest.’

      ‘Like, so gross,’ Tyler added, grabbing my hand and tugging on it. ‘And that social worker lady, she says can you bring, like, a plastic bag and stuff? That girl –’ he gestured behind him. ‘She’s only gone and done a poo on the grass!’

      I looked at John. ‘That the one other thing, by any chance?’

      He nodded. ‘Yup.’

Chapter 3

      Mike and I have dealt with our fair share of ‘accidents’ with children over the years, so while Tyler and Denver continued to express their horror via the medium of extreme face-pulling, I simply reached for a pack of baby wipes, my disinfectant and my heavy-gauge rubber gloves, while John, following my instructions, pulled a plastic bag from the roll in the utensil drawer.

      ‘Boys, hush,’ I told them as we all trooped in a crocodile out to the garden. ‘It’s just a poo, not the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!’

      Ellie and Flip were in the far corner by our trio of plucky rose bushes – which seemed appropriate; roses loved a mulch of manure, didn’t they? Ellie was squatting on her haunches, talking quietly to Flip, as she carefully helped her step out of the pants she’d had on and had presumably pulled down before squatting on the grass herself.

      I strode across to them, aware of the boys keeping a wary distance, СКАЧАТЬ