The Cast-Off Kids Read Free Page B

words to describe it.
    ‘I don’t really understand,’ she interrupted my confusion, with a smile that said she was humouring me. ‘But it’s all right. No harm done.’
    Phew
, I thought. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry we upset you.’
    ‘Please don’t worry.’ She bowed her head and turned, her robes swishing past us as she walked out of the shop.
    As soon as the door closed after her, everyone in the shop burst into laughter.
    ‘Well,’ chortled the chemist. ‘That was a first on both counts. The first nun in my shop and the first dalek as well!’
    I think we made his day.
    After that, we carried on down the lane to register Daisy and Paul at the doctor’s surgery, then back home again.
    By the time we arrived back at the house, and I set to getting the children’s tea ready, I was full of hope about the advert in the shop window. I remembered the shopkeeper’s
confidence that he knew just the person. What a difference it would make to have a helper, even if it was only an hour or two at tea, bath and bedtime. I wondered who this paragon might be.
    Mike had the Tuesday afternoon off, so he took all the children out into the garden, including baby Katie, who was now six months old. She was still suffering the effects of
her burn injuries, when her father had poured boiling water on her chest and arm a week after her birth. So Mike made sure she was protected from bright sunlight on her skin. Only the day before,
we had heard that Katie’s father would be tried the following week, and would probably be sent to prison for two or three years. That might sound long enough to some, but Katie would suffer
the scars all her life.
    So there she lay in my pram, under the shady apple trees, while all the other children played with the assortment of ride-on and pull-along toys that Mike had got out of the shed for them. It
was good to see three-year-old Ronnie pushing little Paul, laughing like mad, on a toddler-trike, while four-year-old Chrissy and three-year-old Sheena encouraged Daisy to join them, rolling small
logs to make a ‘camp’.
    As I was unloading the washing machine, the doorbell went. It was Fay, baby Katie’s social worker, popping in as she passed by. We went out to look at Katie, fast asleep in her pram, under
the trees.
    As if on cue, Katie woke up and looked straight at us, then set off with her hungry cry, trying to eat her little fist.
    ‘She looks well,’ said Fay as I lifted her out of her pram and we turned to go back inside.
    At the kitchen door, we met three little girls – four-year-old Chrissy leading Sheena and Daisy.
    ‘What are you three up to?’ I asked with a chuckle.
    ‘We showed Daisy where we wash our muddy hands,’ said Chrissy, holding hers up to show how clean they now were.
    ‘Well done.’
    ‘Come on,’ Chrissy said to the other two, with a giggle. ‘Let’s go outside again.’ They scampered down the steps, with Daisy, the smallest, bringing up the
rear.
    ‘That little one’s a poppet.’ Fay smiled.
    ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘That’s Daisy. She only arrived a couple of days ago, with her little brother.’
    ‘Well, it looks as if she’s made some new friends already.’
    ‘Have you got time to stay for a cup of tea?’
    ‘Not today, I’m afraid.’
    I put Katie’s bottle to warm, while I comforted her at my shoulder and set all the food out on the table for the children’s tea – one-handed.
    I knocked on the window for Mike to bring the children in and it was all go for the pair of us, washing hands, sitting everyone at the table or in their high-chairs with their bibs on, making
sure they all had the right food and drinks in front of them. By now, Katie was reduced to a pitiful whimpering, desperate to be fed.
    ‘You look like you could do with a hand,’ Mike offered, as he took Katie and her bottle and sat down at the table to feed her.
    ‘Quite a few hands,’ I agreed. ‘That’s why I put an ad in the village shop yesterday. Now that