Mummy Told Me Not to Tell Read Online Free Page A

caution, continued jumping up and down, still shouting: ‘Beat you! Beat you, slag!’ Then he tried to head-butt her. I flinched as he narrowly missed her nose.
    I began towards the front door, making a mental note that when Reece was in my car I would have the central locking down, rather than just the child locks, until he learned to stay in his seat until I opened his door. I also made a mental note to keep my head up as I greeted Reece, for clearly head-butting was another of his accomplishments.
    ‘Hello,’ I said, smiling, as I opened the front door and they came down the path. ‘I’m Cathy, and you must be Reece?’
    The social worker was holding Reece’s wrist to stop him from running off — he clearly didn’t want to hold her hand. As they came into the hall she transferred his arm to me and sighed.
    ‘Hello, Reece,’ I said, not bending to his height. He didn’t look at me but stared and then lunged down the hall. I kept hold of his arm and he pulled against me.
    ‘Leggo! Leggo of me,’ he yelled.
    Placing my free hand on his shoulder, I tried to turn him round to face me so that I could make eye contact with him and gain his attention. ‘Reece, listen,’ I said, kindly but firmly. ‘Listen to me.’ He was still pulling and refusing to look in my direction. I didn’t want to bend forward to make eye contact, as that would leave me in exactly the right position for a well-aimed headbutt. ‘Reece, we are going down the hall now and into the back room. There are some toys there already set out for you.’
    ‘Leggo! Leggo of me!’ His voice was rasping, guttural, like an old man’s, and so loud it filled the air and obliterated any other sound.
    ‘OK. Let’s go down the hall together,’ I said calmly but firmly. I knew if I let go of him now in his heightened state of alert he would be off like a free radical, charging around the house, doing damage to himself and anything that got in his way. Later I’d show him round, but for now I just needed to get him calmer and establish some form of control.
    With Reece still pulling against me — and he was very strong with his weight behind him — I began steadily, if not a little jerkily, down the hall and towards the back room, which is our living room.
    ‘I’m Veronica,’ the social worker called from behind me, closing the front door.
    ‘Nice to meet you,’ I returned over my shoulder.
    ‘Slag!’ Reece shouted.
    Once we were in the living room I let go of Recce’s hand and closed the door. As I’d hoped he would, hewent straight to the selection of games I’d arranged in the centre of the room; the rest of the toys were in cupboards in the conservatory that acts as a playroom.
    Veronica sank gratefully on to the sofa, happy to transfer the responsibility for Reece to me, while I remained casually standing in front of the door. It wasn’t obvious to Reece, but I was blocking his exit in case his interest in the toys vanished and he made a dash for it.
    ‘Sorry we’re late,’ Veronica said. ‘Imran was supposed to bring Reece but it became impossible.’
    I glanced at her questioningly as Reece continued overturning the toys, tipping them from their boxes but not actually playing with them. ‘Imran is Asian,’ she said, and then nodding at Reece, mouthed: ‘He’s racist.’ She looked anxiously from me to the framed photographs of my children on the walls, where there were some of my adopted daughter Lucy, who is part Thai.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll deal with it.’ For while some carers would refuse to look after a child who is deemed racist, I had found that children of Reece’s age will have learned such behaviour from home, and it can be unlearned pretty quickly. I was more concerned about Reece’s apparent ADHD (Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder), which hadn’t been mentioned by Jill or Karen but was very obvious now. His continual agitated and jerky movements, his short quick breaths as though he