she had managed to find two families who could each foster one child for a while. Mrs Frankish said she was sorry but it was all arranged. We were going tomorrow.
Chapter 4
I followed her out of the room.
‘Tomorrow? Tomorrow! No way!’ I yelled. ‘You can’t do this to us!’
‘I’ve been chasing round half the afternoon trying to find places for you all,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Believe me, we’re lucky to have got what we have.’
‘We? WE! It’s not we, it’s nothing to do with “we”!
You’re
not going to be shoved away with some horrible family or carted off to some manky school where you don’t know anyone and no one knows you.’
She turned and looked at me. ‘There’s no point in making a fuss, Vicky,’ she said with that ‘I’m a caring and concerned social worker’ look slapped across her face. ‘There
is
no other option.’
I could feel the anger boiling up in me. She must haverealised because then she said, ‘I’ll just leave you to have a little time out on your own to calm down a bit, then you’d better start getting your stuff together.’ She started to walk out but stopped at the doorway.
‘Oh,’ she said casually, like this sort of thing happened all the time, ‘I’ve got some bin bags if you haven’t got enough cases.’
Bin bags! That just about summed it up. She was shuffling us around as if we were no more than a few bags of rubbish to be tidied out of her way.
Well, what about what
we
wanted? Didn’t that matter? That stupid woman had so much power over us. It was criminal. And what was worse, she pretended that everything she did was in our best interest or some other rubbish. She didn’t really give a monkey’s. Once she finished her shift and had gone home, as long as we were neatly filed away in her out-tray, I bet she never even gave us a single thought.
I didn’t want to stay with some family twenty miles away, I didn’t want to leave my school and I didn’t want to leave Matt. It wasn’t fair. I’m not going, I thought. And I’m not leaving Rhianna and Jamie either. Jamie was always in trouble; if he was shoved somewhere else he’d really go off the rails and Rhianna was such a baby it would be cruel. She might be a right royal pain in the butt ninety-nine per cent of the time, but she was my sister and she needed me.
But what could I do? I grabbed my mobile and pressed Rosie’s number. I hadn’t known her for long and she was pretty odd sometimes but she was my friend and boy, was I a friend in need. Maybe she could help; after all she wassupposed to have an IQ of three billion or something. The second I heard her voice, I realised I was living in cloud cuckoo land. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have possibly said, ‘Hey Rosie, will your parents put me up for a bit? Oh, and there’s my delinquent little brother and my brain-damaged twin sister too . . .’ So I wittered on about Matt and she promised to lend me a book of seventeenth-century romantic poetry. I didn’t get round to telling her that tomorrow I’d be living somewhere else, without Jamie, without Rhianna and I wouldn’t see her or Matt again for ages. I don’t know how I did it really. Old Mackintosh, my drama teacher, should put me up for the lead role in the school play. Except I won’t be at the same school. I’ll be at yet another new place with no friends because I can’t get into anyone’s stupid little clique and I’ll be spending every break-time head down, walking purposefully round pretending I’m just on my way to meet up with my fantastic gang of super cool mates.
Hopeless. It was all totally hopeless.
Chapter 5
Mrs Frankish cooked us tea because the hospital phoned Paul. He looked really scared and when I asked, he said he had to rush up there to take Sarah a fresh nightie. She’d only been there one day! It must be a really posh hospital and if you spill your dinner or something you have to change your nightie or they shout at you and
Chapter 4
I followed her out of the room.
‘Tomorrow? Tomorrow! No way!’ I yelled. ‘You can’t do this to us!’
‘I’ve been chasing round half the afternoon trying to find places for you all,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Believe me, we’re lucky to have got what we have.’
‘We? WE! It’s not we, it’s nothing to do with “we”!
You’re
not going to be shoved away with some horrible family or carted off to some manky school where you don’t know anyone and no one knows you.’
She turned and looked at me. ‘There’s no point in making a fuss, Vicky,’ she said with that ‘I’m a caring and concerned social worker’ look slapped across her face. ‘There
is
no other option.’
I could feel the anger boiling up in me. She must haverealised because then she said, ‘I’ll just leave you to have a little time out on your own to calm down a bit, then you’d better start getting your stuff together.’ She started to walk out but stopped at the doorway.
‘Oh,’ she said casually, like this sort of thing happened all the time, ‘I’ve got some bin bags if you haven’t got enough cases.’
Bin bags! That just about summed it up. She was shuffling us around as if we were no more than a few bags of rubbish to be tidied out of her way.
Well, what about what
we
wanted? Didn’t that matter? That stupid woman had so much power over us. It was criminal. And what was worse, she pretended that everything she did was in our best interest or some other rubbish. She didn’t really give a monkey’s. Once she finished her shift and had gone home, as long as we were neatly filed away in her out-tray, I bet she never even gave us a single thought.
I didn’t want to stay with some family twenty miles away, I didn’t want to leave my school and I didn’t want to leave Matt. It wasn’t fair. I’m not going, I thought. And I’m not leaving Rhianna and Jamie either. Jamie was always in trouble; if he was shoved somewhere else he’d really go off the rails and Rhianna was such a baby it would be cruel. She might be a right royal pain in the butt ninety-nine per cent of the time, but she was my sister and she needed me.
But what could I do? I grabbed my mobile and pressed Rosie’s number. I hadn’t known her for long and she was pretty odd sometimes but she was my friend and boy, was I a friend in need. Maybe she could help; after all she wassupposed to have an IQ of three billion or something. The second I heard her voice, I realised I was living in cloud cuckoo land. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have possibly said, ‘Hey Rosie, will your parents put me up for a bit? Oh, and there’s my delinquent little brother and my brain-damaged twin sister too . . .’ So I wittered on about Matt and she promised to lend me a book of seventeenth-century romantic poetry. I didn’t get round to telling her that tomorrow I’d be living somewhere else, without Jamie, without Rhianna and I wouldn’t see her or Matt again for ages. I don’t know how I did it really. Old Mackintosh, my drama teacher, should put me up for the lead role in the school play. Except I won’t be at the same school. I’ll be at yet another new place with no friends because I can’t get into anyone’s stupid little clique and I’ll be spending every break-time head down, walking purposefully round pretending I’m just on my way to meet up with my fantastic gang of super cool mates.
Hopeless. It was all totally hopeless.
Chapter 5
Mrs Frankish cooked us tea because the hospital phoned Paul. He looked really scared and when I asked, he said he had to rush up there to take Sarah a fresh nightie. She’d only been there one day! It must be a really posh hospital and if you spill your dinner or something you have to change your nightie or they shout at you and
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