Abandoned: The true story of a little girl who didn’t belong

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 1 (#ulink_e7a9203d-2110-5232-9fbe-3fcea2587926)

It’s after an argument. Mummy stands at the kitchen table counting out plates. It’s roast chicken, which means it’s a Sunday. And I know it’s after an argument because she calls Daddy ‘him’.

She runs through us all in her head, tapping out numbers against her palm, then slides that number of plates along the counter from the stack she has taken from the shelf.

‘Wait … who have I missed?’

I look up, nervous that it’s me. My two eldest sisters, Marie and Sandra, aren’t there that day so there should be seven.

‘Him, Michael, Liam, Stella, Jennifer, you, me,’ she says, counting us out again by name.

She always counts the plates out like that, in that order: almost by ages, except she puts the girls before me, and herself at the end. I like the way she puts me with her at the end, the way she says, ‘… you, me …’ Always like that.

Mummy never leaves me out; she treats us all the same, but every mealtime I’m waiting for the same thing, for there to be one plate short, or not enough of something to go around. And for my uncle, or even one of the others imitating him, to look around at me and say, ‘She can do without. She doesn’t belong here anyway.’

It’s what Daddy is always saying, screaming it out week after week in drunken arguments.

‘She’s not wanted here, right! She doesn’t belong here. I want her out.’

I feel my brothers and sisters stiffen on the settee beside me, rolling their eyes at each other. I know they’re all thinking the same thing: thinking that I’m the troublemaker; wishing I wasn’t there; that Daddy wouldn’t shout and argue half as much if I wasn’t, that they could watch TV in peace.

‘She’s not wanted. They dumped her over here with you because they didn’t want her over there and she’s not wanted here either. I want her out,’ he says, snapping open another beer, ‘she doesn’t belong here.’

I hold my nose to stop the tears, trying to lean back behind the others on the settee so he can’t see me, staring hard at the wires at the back of the TV, not daring to watch the screen in case something on it triggers my tears. He’ll hit me harder if he sees me crying. He always does.