Mummy Told Me Not to Tell by Cathy Glass Read Free Book Online Page A

‘Don’t know’. Reece had only been in care six weeks, so it was unlikely he’d forgotten all about home and the seven years he’d spent there, particularly in relation to quite significant details like having his own bedroom or his parents having a car. I was starting to wonder if he’d been warned off saying anything about his home by his parents. He wouldn’t be the first child I’d fostered who’d been threatened into silence. So a question like ‘Which cereal would you like for breakfast?’ was answered without any problem, but ‘Did you have thiscereal at home?’ was met with no reply or ‘Don’t know’. The child, rather than trying to sift through what they were allowed to answer and what was a ‘secret’, found it easier to say ‘Don’t know’ to everything.
    Fifteen minutes later, with my right arm now a good inch longer than my left from having it continually wrenched by Reece tripping up or pulling, we completed our circuit and headed for home. I swapped sides so that Reece was again away from the roadside, because he was still all over the place and would have happily walked in the gutter and under a car if I’d let him. I was still trying to make conversation, but although Reece could talk in short sentences he didn’t seem able to converse. If I made a statement like ‘It’s cold, isn’t it?’ either he didn’t answer or he supplied an unrelated statement like ‘That car’s got lights.’ If I tried to pick up the thread by saying, ‘Yes, the headlights let the driver see the road in the dark,’ he would say something else unconnected, which was now increasingly about his feet aching, or his legs hurting, and how much further was it?
    By the time we reached the house and were going up the path Reece was telling me, ‘I ain’t walking no more. You use the car.’
    ‘We probably will use the car tomorrow,’ I said, putting my key into the lock and opening the front door.
    ‘Silly cow, you should have used it now,’ he said. And although his comment was related to his previous comment, which I supposed was progress, it wasn’t a comment I appreciated.
    ‘Reece don’t say that, please. It’s rude.’
    ‘Silly cow,’ he said again louder, running off down the hall.
    I wasn’t convinced the walk had had the desired effect, for Reece seemed to recharge the moment we entered the house. It took me five minutes to persuade him out of his coat and shoes. Then, abandoning my attempt to get him interested in some of the games and puzzles, I called up to the girls for a volunteer to read Reece a story while I finished cooking the dinner.
    ‘I’ve got homework,’ Paula called.
    ‘I’m on the phone,’ Lucy said.
    ‘Well, put it this way, girls,’ I called up, above the noise of Reece’s imitation Boeing/pterodactyl, ‘if you want to eat then someone needs to read to Reece.’
    They immediately appeared from their bedrooms and came down, and I felt guilty for my terseness. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘It’s impossible for me to do anything with him zooming around like this. Reece!’ I said loudly, above the noise of what could have been a plane landing on reverse thrust or a pterodactyl swooping on its prey. ‘Go into the living room and choose a book. Lucy and Paula will read you a story.’
    The mention of the words ‘book’ and ‘story’ was like the off switch being pressed again. Reece dived into the living room and on to a sofa, where he sat quietly waiting for the girls with a book open on his lap. I waited as Lucy and Paula sat either side of Reece and began taking it in turns to read the pages of Shirley Hughes’s
Alfie’s Feet.
Reece sat mesmerized. It seemed that when he was absorbed in something visual his mind andbody were able to switch off and relax, but the second the visual stimulus stopped, hyperactivity kicked in, big time. Whether this was the reason for him watching a lot of television while at home, or the result of, I obviously didn’t know, but