Breaking the Silence Read Online Free PDF

carer.’
    ‘And?’ I asked.
    ‘And nothing terribly much, I’m afraid,’ she told me. ‘Still not tracked their mum down, but apparently Carley has confirmed that she is definitely away for a fortnight.’
    ‘So that mean’s we’ve definitely got Jenson till the end of next week then?’
    ‘It would seem so,’ Marie agreed. ‘Unless Mum shows up any time sooner. But I can’t see that happening, can you? And even if she does, she won’t be getting the children back, in all likelihood, till she’s at least been seen and interviewed.’
    ‘And what about all the children’s stuff – clothes and school uniform and toys and so on? Will anyone be going back to the house to collect some more for them?’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ Marie said. ‘I don’t think there
was
much more, really. I mean, I could organise someone to go if you want me to, but we did ask Jenson to pack everything he thought he might want to have with him, and from what I saw I’m pretty sure he did.’
    So that settled it. Definitely time to break out the plastic. Because I’d made the drive home from school in a very reflective mood. First impressions mattered. Always had, and always would. That was basic human nature. Pride mattered too. As did self-respect. Stuff like that. Perhaps if Jenson could be kitted out to look the part then he’d find it a bit easier to
behave
the part as well. And this wasn’t just whimsical thinking on my part. I’d seen it happen on countless occasions in my last job in the comprehensive school. If you treated children with respect, then they tended to behave respectfully. And if a child could feel self-respect, that was a step on the right road.
    Besides, I couldn’t possibly bear to send
any
child to school in such a tatty uniform. I just couldn’t. I said my goodbyes to Marie – her having promised to keep me posted – and left the house again to go and hit the shops.
    I shouldn’t have really – not without getting John Fulshaw’s approval for it anyway. That was the usual protocol, particularly with such a short-term child. You weren’t expected to need to run up lots of expenses in such a case. But equally, I could just throw caution to the wind and hope for the best when I put my monthly receipts in.
    I decided to opt for the latter, which didn’t take much deciding, because my clean gene prevailed, just as it always did. And I wasn’t gone long, either. Within a couple of hours I was back home with my purchases: a new set of school uniform, some trainers and a couple of plain T-shirts, as well as a pack each of much-needed socks and pants. I’d also been a little bit naughty. Struck by Marie’s words about just how little he seemed to have, I also went and trawled my usual charity and second-hand shops to see what I could pick up for Jenson there.
    Like any mother, I well knew the value of money, and these days, as a foster mother, even more so. So many of the kids we looked after came with hardly anything in the way of possessions, and while we couldn’t afford to kit them out with lots of new stuff – we had a budget for such things and we invariably went over it – it was good to be able to give them the sort of clothes and playthings that might have been nothing out of the ordinary for most kids, but was more than these kids had ever dreamed of owning.
    And some kids really did come with almost nothing. In one memorable case, a pair of young siblings who’d come from a truly wretched background the previous year had really opened our eyes (eyes that had already been opened) to the extent of the poverty of some children’s lives. Ashton and Olivia – who looked a bit like Victorian orphans – had arrived on our doorstep with nothing in the way of possessions between them bar a ripped bin bag, containing just a few scraps of filthy, smelly clothing, and Olivia’s grime-encrusted, bald and naked dolly. Polly, she was called, and Olivia loved her very much. Every bit as much as