A Boy Without Hope

‘No thank you,’ she said. ‘I need to rush off as soon as I can, actually. I have to get across the county to pick my husband up, and I’m already late.’

I heard the front door go. ‘Okay, well let’s hope Mike can manage to get your car keys off Miller, then. And we’re happy to settle him in ourselves if you need to get off. I’ll have a read-through of what you’ve brought and hopefully you can dig up some more information for us tomorrow. I understand he’s excluded from mainstream education. Any news on an alternative yet?’

Again, the poor woman shook her head. ‘As far as I know, they’ve exhausted all the usual routes and there’s nothing on the horizon at the moment. However, I do know the ELAC team are on the case.’ (ELAC was education of looked-after children.) She turned back to the window. ‘I do hope Mike can get him inside. Maybe I should go out, too, and just try to get my car keys? I could jump in and drive off then, couldn’t I? I’m just thinking you’d have more of a chance of settling him if I weren’t here. Like I said, I don’t think he likes me.’

I had no answer to that, and I really didn’t know what to think. But she was right about one thing: I did think she was better off hopping into her car the first chance she got and just leaving us to it. If control and attention were the driving forces behind Miller, then the fewer people there were around to witness his provocative behaviour, the better.

After telling Tyler to stay put, I followed Libby out of the front door. Miller was continuing his bizarre behaviour and was also making squealing noises, presumably for added effect. I raised my eyebrows at Mike, who’d as yet to make a move, though he’d obviously been talking to him. ‘Come on, just chuck us those car keys, will you, mate,’ he said, ‘so that Libby can get her other bag out of her boot. It’s stuff she’s brought over for Casey and we need it. Our Tyler is waiting to show you his new PlayStation games as well. I think he’s got a dinosaur one, come to think of it.’

Miller stopped his pacing and regarded us all suspiciously. Then, bizarrely, like something out of a comedy movie, he stomped up and roared at me. Right at my face. I could almost taste the warm sweetness of his breath. He then placed the car keys on the window ledge by the front door, and returned to making exaggerated steps across the lawn.

Libby had clearly spotted her moment. Quick as a flash, she snatched up her keys and darted to the car – there really was no other word for it. Not until she was inside it, and had locked it, did she lower the window. And then, I noted, by no more than an inch.

The engine sprang to life. ‘I’ll give you a call in the morning, Casey,’ she shouted through the gap. ‘And, Miller, you be good, okay? I’ll see you soon.’

If we were aghast – which we were – Miller was galvanised. ‘Noooooo!’ he yelled, running full pelt towards the car, even kicking it as it moved out into the road. ‘Get back here, you lying bitch!’ he yelled. ‘You fucking liar! Get back here!’ He then bent down and snatched up a handful of gravel, and threw it hard at the car as it drove away. ‘Get back here! I’m not staying!’ he screamed up the street.

Everything became clear in an instant. I didn’t know what had been said between them, but between Miller’s fury, and the social worker’s hasty escape, I suspected no firm agreement had been reached about him actually staying with us tonight. If so, why on earth hadn’t she warned us?

Mike walked up to Miller’s side, making the most of the disparity in their sizes. Mike was a big man – six foot three – and Miller was short and skinny. ‘Come on, lad,’ he said, standing close but being careful not to touch him. ‘Forget social workers for tonight, hey? Let’s go in and meet Tyler. Then you can have a look at your room before settling in for the night. How does that sound?’

Some kind of switch must have flipped because Miller then turned to look up at Mike. For a moment, I thought he was going to kick him as well, for good measure, but he didn’t. He just inspected him, looking him up and down, calmly and minutely. Then he nodded, as if decided. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Can I have a drink?’

Then he swivelled and trotted back down the front path towards me.

Miller was definitely on the small side for twelve. He looked more like ten, in fact, an impression already heightened by his strange, child-like antics and apparent lack of self-consciousness. And he had strange darting eyes that never quite looked directly into mine. His hair was dirty and matted, and in need of a good trim, and his clothes were far too small for him. Not for the first time – and I’d seen a lot of kids, from all sorts of backgrounds – I wondered how a child who had been in care for so many years could look so urchin-like and dishevelled.

‘So, do I come in?’ he asked me. There was a note of challenge in his voice.

‘Of course,’ I said, smiling, but still wary. I stood aside to let him pass.

‘Up here, then?’ he asked. Then headed straight up the stairs as if he owned the place. And was now, at least, in it. Mike shut the door firmly behind him.

***

The bedroom we had hastily prepared for Miller was the one opposite Tyler’s. There was a double bed, the usual furniture of wardrobe, drawers and bedside table, and, as I’d promised, we had added a new television and a borrowed PlayStation, as well as a selection of books, and a bright green rug and matching cushions. I’d normally have chosen and bought a new duvet cover in a theme I thought the new child would like, as well as posters and a matching lightshade, but having had no time, I’d had to plump for something plain and pastel from the pile in the airing cupboard, and just hope it suited. Apparently it did.

‘Yeah, I really like it,’ Miller said, surprisingly brightly, once we’d trooped up the stairs after him, so he could make his inspection. I wondered how many homes he’d done this exact same thing in. ‘So is it okay if I set up the PlayStation?’ he asked me. ‘And can I please have the code for the internet, too? I usually play online.’

I noted the ‘please’. But looked quizzically at Tyler. Play online? I had no idea what that meant.

‘It’s just so he can join other players, Mum,’ Tyler explained. ‘Then you’re not just playing alone, and you can get into tournaments and stuff.’

‘Ah, I see,’ I said. ‘Fine. But first, love, find yourself some pyjamas out of your suitcase, then, once you’re ready for bed, come down for your tablets and a drink, and I’ll give you the password. You can’t be on it for too long, though. It’s already late. So just an hour then it goes off until tomorrow. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ Miller said, smiling up at me. ‘Deal.’ Then he sank down to his knees and began unzipping his case, humming to himself as if he didn’t have a care in the world. A very different child to the one who’d screamed abuse and thrown gravel. Different too, to the Shakespearean-level dinosaur impersonator.

I wondered what other characters would emerge from beneath his shell.

Chapter 5 (#u6dcccb14-42e2-5a8b-93a4-a0734658d271)

I woke up the following morning in an irritable, scratchy mood. Which is par for the course when you’ve barely slept a wink, obviously, but still unexpected, since the child currently residing in the spare room was apparently medicated to ensure that he did sleep.

But he hadn’t. Though that likelihood wasn’t obvious initially. In fact, after the fun and games in the front garden when he’d arrived, Miller had appeared to have accepted his new reality. I wasn’t naïve about first impressions. I was too long in the tooth for that. But, for the moment, it seemed he was happy to play ball. He’d come down in his pyjamas (Lego Batman ones, which, unlike the clothes he’d had on, fitted), eaten his supper without complaint and taken his pills. Upon which, I had kept my promise, and given him the WiFi password, so he could spend an hour playing his game before going to sleep – something I had a hunch had no small bearing on his cheerful demeanour.

He was also happy for Tyler to accompany him back upstairs to set everything up. Though it was only a matter of some ten or fifteen minutes before Ty reappeared in the kitchen, arms spread wide in wonderment, shaking his head.

‘I tell you what, Mum,’ he said, ‘that kid is some kind of computer genius. I mean, seriously. I have absolutely no idea what he’s just done, but it’s, like, something I’ve never seen before. He’s opened up all kinds of new levels – levels I never knew even existed. It’s like he’s a hacker or something, I swear!’

I had several good reasons to be wary of what kids could get up to on computers these days, not least the teenager we’d most recently cared for, Keeley. It still concerned me that she’d been able to run a whole cottage industry – and of a kind that still made me blanche when I thought of it – out of nothing more than the smartphone in her bedroom.

Smartphones, generally, were becoming the bane of our working lives. As foster carers, we had always had a plethora of ‘training’ documents, one of which was obviously about online safety. But in recent years, recognising that a document produced a decade ago no longer applied in the fast-moving virtual world, we’d been expected to attend regular sessions to make good the lack. In truth, however, we had little hope of keeping up. The advice was sound enough: to teach children about how to stay safe online, to not give out personal information, to only accept ‘friends’ that they knew in the real world and to put parental controls on any device used by younger children. But modern kids are extremely savvy, and Miller was obviously no exception. They had ways and means to counteract many of the filters we put in place.

But by far the biggest problem today is that most kids of around the age of twelve, and often younger, already have their own smartphones when they come to us. Which they naturally keep private, even if they have nothing to hide, and if the phone belongs to them we have no legal right to remove them. So, both legally and practically, we have our hands tied. It’s a growing problem, and one social services are still struggling to cope with.

So I understood exactly what Tyler meant. You were a fool if you didn’t understand just how many streets children were ahead of you when it came to the virtual world these days. Whereas even being ‘online’ was an alien concept for those of us who grew up in the last century (and a science we had to learn, and keep learning), kids nowadays were around computers and tablets almost from birth; what was often extremely taxing for fifty-somethings like me and Mike was as natural to modern kids as breathing. It truly was a whole new world, and a changing one too – that this kid was twelve and apparently already knew more than a sixteen-year-old said it all.

I patted Tyler reassuringly. ‘Well at least we’ve discovered two things that he appears to like,’ I pointed out. ‘Gaming and dinosaurs. So that’s a positive, isn’t it? And who knows – perhaps him being able to teach you a thing or two about computers will be a great way to break the ice between you.’

‘Hmm,’ he said, looking decidedly unconvinced. ‘I mean, I know he’s clever and that, but I’m not sure we’re going to have much in common. Mum, he freaks me out a bit to be honest. He’s weird.’

‘Early days, love,’ I said, patting him again. ‘Early days.’

But clearly not early nights. Not without a battle of wills. When I popped back upstairs to let Miller know his hour was over, he didn’t even seem to hear me. He certainly didn’t take his eyes off the screen, or stop his thumbs flying across the control pad. ‘Ten more minutes,’ he said finally, when I asked him a second time. ‘I need to get these guys out of this warehouse first.’

I digested this, dithered briefly, but then shook my head. Yes this was his first night, but, knowing what I knew about his control issues, I felt it best that we start as we meant to go on. ‘No, Miller, I’m afraid you’ll have to pause it, or whatever it is you need to do, and finish it off in the morning. I told you we had a cut-off time, and this is it.’

Miller dragged his eyes from the screen long enough to look at me in astonishment and, if I wasn’t mistaken, contempt. ‘You can’t just pause it!’ he said, still tapping furiously on the control pad. ‘That’s not how it works. I need notice. If you didn’t want me to have ten minutes at the end, then you should have given me ten minutes’ notice. Don’t you know anything?’

I hadn’t noticed Mike follow me up, but he now appeared in the bedroom doorway. ‘Okay, lad,’ he said, before I could. ‘I’m sure you’ve lived in enough houses to realise that each family has their own rules. In the morning we can go over our house rules with you, but for now the one that matters is that electronics go off at bedtime.’ A short pause. ‘So go on, do as Casey says. Switch it off, please.’

Miller continued to tap away, and this time he didn’t look up. ‘And I suppose bedtime is just whenever you say it is, right? And that’s because you’re a grown-up and I’m a kid. Nothing to do with it being correct or anything. Anyway, I only need five minutes now, so it’s not like the end of the world, is it?’

There was no aggression in his tone. Just an invitation to keep the discussion going. Where no discussion should be happening in the first place. I knew a stalling tactic when I saw one.

But Mike wasn’t in the mood to play games, so he didn’t answer. Simply took two strides and switched the TV off at the plug socket.

‘Why did you do that?’ Miller yelled. ‘You complete idiot! Now I’ve lost everything!’

‘Rule two,’ Mike added mildly, ‘is that we do not speak to each other like that in this house. We don’t scream and yell and we certainly don’t call people idiots. Now I strongly suggest you get yourself into bed. I will then put the television back on for you – quietly – but not the console. And you will try to get some sleep. And then we will start afresh in the morning.’

Which seemed to be the end of it, even if he was cross about it, which he was – throwing the controller down, jumping into bed and burrowing under the duvet, huffing noisily as he rolled himself across the bed to face the wall. Which we took to be a signal for us to leave, so we did.

And silence reigned then, and continued to, when we went to bed ourselves, both agreeing that first nights were, more often than not, difficult. That we’d all sleep on it. Regroup. That tomorrow was another day.

But a day that would be a very long time coming.

It was just before two when I was awoken by the sound of banging. And as I sluggishly dragged myself from sleep into alert mode I soon worked out it was coming from Miller’s room. I lifted the duvet back and padded across the landing to investigate, only to find he was bouncing up and down on his bed, fully upright, as if practising for a trampoline tournament. He giggled like a toddler when he saw me.