Please Don’t Take My Baby

1. Stranger at the Door (#)

2. New Arrival (#)

3. Awkward (#)

4. First Evening (#)

5. Jade’s Story (#)

6. Jackie (#)

7. Testing Boundaries (#)

8. Silly, Silly Girl (#)

9. Hurt by Dishonesty (#)

10. ‘Like You See on the Telly’ (#)

11. ‘Smelly Baby’ (#)

12. Worth It (#)

13. Assessment (#)

14. Error of Judgement (#)

15. Not an Ogre (#)

16. A Police Matter (#)

17. Shaken to the Core (#)

18. Too Late (#)

19. ‘Please Don’t Take My Baby’ (#)

20. Prolonging the Agony (#)

21. Tuesday (#)

22. Last Chance (#)

23. Broken Rules and Promises (#)

24. Moving On (#)

Epilogue (#)

Suggested Topics for Reading-Group Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#)

Sample Chapter (#)

Cathy Glass (#litres_trial_promo)

Moving Memoirs eNewsletter (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Note (#)

England has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the developed world. Last year nearly 40,000 teenage girls gave birth and nearly 60,000 terminated a pregnancy. These figures are truly shocking. And while some of the girls’ stories have happy endings, many do not.

Chapter One (#)

Stranger at the Door (#)

We’d just sat down to our evening meal when the doorbell rang. I sighed. Why did salespeople always manage to time their calls with dinner? Double glazing, cavity-wall insulation, religion, new driveway, landscape the garden or fresh fish from Grimsby: whatever they were selling, 6.00 p.m. seemed to be the time they called, I supposed because most people are home from work by then and it isn’t so late that people won’t answer their front doors.

‘Aren’t you going to see who it is, Mum?’ Paula, my eight-year-old daughter, asked, as I didn’t immediately leave the table.

‘Yes,’ I said as the bell rang for a second time.

Standing, I swallowed my mouthful of cottage pie and went down the hall to the front door, ready to despatch the salesperson as quickly as possible.

‘And don’t be rude!’ Adrian called after me.

As if I would! Although it was true I usually sent away cold callers efficiently and effectively, which to Adrian, aged twelve, could be seen as rude and certainly embarrassing.

‘Don’t be cheeky,’ I returned, as I arrived at the front door.

It was dark outside at six o’clock in January and, as usual, before answering the door at night, I checked the security spyhole, which allowed me to see who was in the porch. The porch was illuminated by a carriage lamp and gave enough light for me to see a lady in her early thirties, dressed smartly in a light-grey winter coat, and whom I vaguely recognized from seeing in the street. I guessed she was collecting either money for a charity or signatures for a petition on a local issue: traffic calming, crossing patrol, noisy pub in the high road, etc.

‘Hello,’ I said with a smile as I opened the door. The cold night air rushed in.

‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ she began. ‘You’re Cathy Glass, aren’t you?’ I saw she wasn’t carrying a charity-collection tin or a clipboard with a petition to sign.

‘Yes,’ I said, surprised she knew my name. I certainly didn’t know hers.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you. My name’s Meryl Dennis. I work at Beachcroft School. I’m the games mistress – I teach PE. I expect you’ve seen me around? I live at number 122.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. Number 122 was at the very bottom of the street.

I smiled politely and wondered why she was telling me who she was and about her school, which was on the other side of the county. Adrian, who’d started secondary school the previous September, attended a local school and Paula was still at our local primary school. I smiled again and waited, aware that the cold air was chilling the house and my half-eaten dinner was on the table going cold.

‘You foster, don’t you?’ Meryl asked a little nervously.