The Cast-Off Kids Read Free Page A

wasn’t afraid to
stick up for herself if she had to.
    Paul, on the other hand, was as lively as a bag of monkeys – a happy-go-lucky little boy with an infectious laugh – nothing seemed to faze him.
    Once they were all up, washed, dressed and fed, I put babies Katie and Paul top and tail in the pram, then Brian on the seat, as before. The other five had to hang on – one at each end of
the pram handle, one on each side, holding on to the apron flap, and one in front, holding on to the hood. In this way, I took the lot of them down to the village. It was a slow process, and quite
tricky down the bank at one point, but we made it without losing or injuring anyone – a bit of a nightmare.
    As we reached the flat ground and passed the bus stop, Paul threw his teddy out of the pram, so I put the brake on. Two women, waiting for a bus, glanced at all the children, and the little ones
in the pram, then gave each other a look.
    As we started off again, the snootier of the two turned to her friend.
    ‘These Catholics – they don’t know what contraception is!’
    I had to turn away to suppress my helpless laughter as I bustled us all off down the road. If only they knew!
    The advert went into the village shop window. ‘Do you think anyone will reply?’ I asked Ron, the friendly shopkeeper.
    ‘I know just the person,’ he said with a wink. ‘I’ll give her a ring this afternoon.’
    Next on my list was the chemist. The doorway to the chemist’s shop had an old-fashioned bell contraption that the children loved. If they’d had their way, we’d have been in and
out of that door at least six times.
    There were quite a few people in the chemist’s, including a nun, in black robes down to her feet and a white headdress. I’d never seen a nun in the village before, so goodness knows
where she came from. I checked afterwards, and nobody knew what she was doing there.
    I held on to Brian’s hand as his eyesight was very poor. He used to wear those round, wire-framed National Health glasses, with glass as thick as bottle-bottoms.
    Even with his glasses on, he was always bumping into things. However, he could see solid colours and shapes, as long as they were straight in front of him. The chemist’s wife was giving
all the children a ‘healthy’ sweet each from her special jar, so I started picking the things we needed from the shelves.
    Suddenly, Brian shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Dalek!’ He clutched my long skirt in terror. ‘No, no . . . Dalek! Don’t like Dalek!’ He could hardly breathe, he
was so frightened.
    Meanwhile, the nun had turned round to see what the noise was about, and what she saw was this little toddler staring at her and shouting that unintelligible word. Understandably, she looked
horrified, assuming that ‘Dalek’ might be a swear word. Or maybe she thought we were putting a curse on her!
    I was torn between picking Brian up to comfort him, and calming down the offended nun, so I did both, giving Brian a cuddle, while at the same time apologising to the nun.
    ‘I’m so sorry. He didn’t mean to be rude. He’s almost blind, that’s the trouble. He probably just saw you as a black shape.’ I paused. ‘Do you mind if I
just hold him in front of your face, so that he can see you are a real person?’ I asked her. ‘And then he will stop being frightened of you.’
    ‘All right,’ she agreed.
    ‘Look Brian, here is the nice lady you thought was a dalek. Can you see her smiling?’
    Fortunately, the nun took her cue and gave Brian a weak smile. ‘Hello,’ she said.
    ‘Not dalek?’ asked Brian, still clinging on to my clothes.
    ‘No,’ I reassured him. ‘Not a dalek.’ Brian relaxed his grip.
    ‘What is this word “dalek”?’ asked the nun.
    So I then had to try to explain to someone who had probably never watched television in her life. ‘Well, it’s a kind of metal character on a TV programme. Not a person; more like an
alien . . .’ I was struggling for