Mummy Told Me Not to Tell: The true story of a troubled boy with a dark secret

‘Don’t know.’

It wasn’t important; I was trying to make conversation more than anything, and it was pretty obvious he wasn’t used to walking and was very unfit. What I was also starting to notice, as I had done previously at home, was that any question about Mum or home was met with ‘Don’t know’. I never question children about their life at home beyond a general enquiry, unless of course they are trying to tell me something about an abuse they have suffered, when I would gently draw it out of them. But what I was finding with Reece was that even the most innocuous enquiry like ‘Did you have your own bedroom at home?’, which I’d asked earlier when I’d shown him his bedroom, was met with ‘Don’t know’. Reece had only been in care six weeks, so it was unlikely he’d forgotten all about home and the seven years he’d spent there, particularly in relation to quite significant details like having his own bedroom or his parents having a car. I was starting to wonder if he’d been warned off saying anything about his home by his parents. He wouldn’t be the first child I’d fostered who’d been threatened into silence. So a question like ‘Which cereal would you like for breakfast?’ was answered without any problem, but ‘Did you have this cereal at home?’ was met with no reply or ‘Don’t know’. The child, rather than trying to sift through what they were allowed to answer and what was a ‘secret’, found it easier to say ‘Don’t know’ to everything.

Fifteen minutes later, with my right arm now a good inch longer than my left from having it continually wrenched by Reece tripping up or pulling, we completed our circuit and headed for home. I swapped sides so that Reece was again away from the roadside, because he was still all over the place and would have happily walked in the gutter and under a car if I’d let him. I was still trying to make conversation, but although Reece could talk in short sentences he didn’t seem able to converse. If I made a statement like ‘It’s cold, isn’t it?’ either he didn’t answer or he supplied an unrelated statement like ‘That car’s got lights.’ If I tried to pick up the thread by saying, ‘Yes, the headlights let the driver see the road in the dark,’ he would say something else unconnected, which was now increasingly about his feet aching, or his legs hurting, and how much further was it?

By the time we reached the house and were going up the path Reece was telling me, ‘I ain’t walking no more. You use the car.’

‘We probably will use the car tomorrow,’ I said, putting my key into the lock and opening the front door.

‘Silly cow, you should have used it now,’ he said. And although his comment was related to his previous comment, which I supposed was progress, it wasn’t a comment I appreciated.

‘Reece don’t say that, please. It’s rude.’

‘Silly cow,’ he said again louder, running off down the hall.

I wasn’t convinced the walk had had the desired effect, for Reece seemed to recharge the moment we entered the house. It took me five minutes to persuade him out of his coat and shoes. Then, abandoning my attempt to get him interested in some of the games and puzzles, I called up to the girls for a volunteer to read Reece a story while I finished cooking the dinner.

‘I’ve got homework,’ Paula called.

‘I’m on the phone,’ Lucy said.

‘Well, put it this way, girls,’ I called up, above the noise of Reece’s imitation Boeing/pterodactyl, ‘if you want to eat then someone needs to read to Reece.’

They immediately appeared from their bedrooms and came down, and I felt guilty for my terseness. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘It’s impossible for me to do anything with him zooming around like this. Reece!’ I said loudly, above the noise of what could have been a plane landing on reverse thrust or a pterodactyl swooping on its prey. ‘Go into the living room and choose a book. Lucy and Paula will read you a story.’

The mention of the words ‘book’ and ‘story’ was like the off switch being pressed again. Reece dived into the living room and on to a sofa, where he sat quietly waiting for the girls with a book open on his lap. I waited as Lucy and Paula sat either side of Reece and began taking it in turns to read the pages of Shirley Hughes’s Alfie’s Feet. Reece sat mesmerized. It seemed that when he was absorbed in something visual his mind and body were able to switch off and relax, but the second the visual stimulus stopped, hyperactivity kicked in, big time. Whether this was the reason for him watching a lot of television while at home, or the result of, I obviously didn’t know, but one thing was for certain: I was going to be reading a lot of books, particularly with him not being in school.

Fifteen minutes later I called through to say that dinner was ready. Reece appeared first. ‘This is your place,’ I said, showing him to his seat at the table. ‘Lucy will sit here’ — I patted the chair beside him — ‘and Paula opposite.’ Reece sat where I had shown him and the girls took their places. I served a chicken casserole, explaining to Reece what it was. He looked at it, and then up at me with a huge appreciative grin.

‘Cor, this looks nice,’ he said.

‘Thank you, love,’ I said. ‘That was polite.’ I took my place at the end of the table and felt that things were looking up.

Reece picked up a piece of chicken with his fingers and popped it into his mouth. ‘Hmm, yummy,’ he said, chewing loudly.

‘Good,’ I said, ‘but try to use your fork. It’s better than fingers for this meal.’ He looked at the fork and then at me and popped another piece of chicken into his mouth with his fingers. I picked up his fork, stabbed a piece of chicken and laid the fork on his plate, ready for him to use. Somewhat clumsily he gripped the fork in the palm of his hand like a spoon and pushed the meat into his mouth. Then he resorted to using his fingers again.

‘Reece, have you never used a knife and fork before?’ I asked lightly. The girls looked up.

‘Don’t know,’ Reece said.

I skewered another piece of chicken on to his fork and left him to take it to his mouth, which he did. Then he attempted to use his fingers for the boiled potatoes.

‘Would you like a spoon?’ I asked, for I could see the peas and gravy were going to cause him a real problem. Reece nodded. I fetched a dessert spoon, which he used quite successfully, so I guessed that that was what he had been used to. ‘That’s better, isn’t it?’ I said, smiling.

He grinned back. ‘I use me fingers for Chicken Dippers and burgers.’

I nodded and thought that here was another child who had never had to master a knife and fork because they had only ever eaten ‘finger food’. I’d recently read a newspaper article which had highlighted the number of ‘well brought up’ children from good homes who didn’t know how to use a knife and fork properly because so much of their diet hadn’t required one.

Reece had a very healthy appetite and wanted seconds. Although he was heavily built, he wasn’t so much fat as solid, and as he was a growing boy I gave him a second helping, and a yoghurt and piece of fruit for pudding. Considering that he obviously wasn’t used to sitting still at the table and using cutlery he had done very well and I praised him. However, as soon as he’d finished the last mouthful of banana he was up and off, zooming around and yelping at the top of his voice. Lucy and Paula read him another story while I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. Then I read him a story before explaining it was time for his bath.

‘Don’t want one,’ he said and was off the sofa and chasing around again. Paula came out of her room and tried to take hold of his arm, narrowly missing a headbutt.

‘Reece, don’t do that,’ I said. Then to Paula: ‘Let me. I’ll call if I need help.’

I waited until he was doing a return lap of the landing and caught hold of him lightly by his arm. I encircled him as I had done before to get him off my bed. He struggled briefly before laughing and relaxing against me. I gave him a cuddle; then, with a mixture of cajoling and promises of a bedtime story, I managed to run the bath and get him into it. Reece wasn’t able to undress himself (another skill I would have to teach him another day) so I did it, and as he sat in the bath pretending to be a shark, I realized that neither had he the first idea about washing himself. It would have been helpful if the previous carers had written down some of this detail so that I could have anticipated and better accommodated Reece’s needs in the first few days. As it was, apart from knowing about his love of burgers and Chicken Dippers, I was working in the dark. I showed him how to lather the soap on to the sponge and then encouraged him to run it over his body. Although I was happy to wash his back and neck it was important to teach him to take care of most of his washing, particularly his private parts. This is another example of giving a child responsibility for his or her own body and nurturing self-respect.

‘Wash your feet and knees,’ I encouraged, ‘and between your legs. Do you have a name for your private parts?’

‘Willy,’ he responded with a laugh. ‘Sharks have willies but no legs.’

‘Well, wash your willy and your legs.’

I waited while he squashed the sponge on various parts of his body, which would be sufficient for now. Then I ran the sponge over his shaved head — there wasn’t enough hair to shampoo. Letting out the water, I wrapped him in the bath towel.

A mixture of more cajoling and repetition saw Reece into his pyjamas, and after another bedtime story, for which he sat on the beanbag with me squatted beside him, I eased him into bed.

‘I want Henry,’ he said, snuggling down and obviously finding comfort in being cocooned beneath the duvet. I guessed Henry was a soft toy he took with him to bed and that he would be in either the rucksacks or the toy boxes, which I hadn’t had a chance to unpack yet.

‘What does Henry look like?’ I asked, as I undid the first rucksack.

‘A hippo,’ Reece said.

I smiled. ‘Henry Hippo, that’s a good name. Did you call him that?’

‘Don’t know.’ So I thought that Henry Hippo was probably an old favourite and had come with all the other ‘Don’t knows’ from home.

I began rummaging through the first rucksack, which contained an entire school uniform, hardly worn, and presumably from one of the schools Reece had been excluded from. At the bottom of the bag my fingers alighted on something soft and furry, and I pulled it out.

‘That’s not it!’ Reece yelled.

‘No.’ It was a soft toy but in the shape of a shark.

I began on the second rucksack, which contained some new books. As I took them out and placed them on the bookshelves in the recess of his bedroom, I saw that they were all about sharks, or ocean creatures including sharks. ‘Who bought you all these?’ I asked.

‘Carers,’ Reece said.

I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to indulge Reece’s love of sharks, given his biting, but doubtless the carers had acted with the best of intentions by giving Reece something he liked. Further down this bag were some large-piece jigsaws, the pictures on the front of the boxes showing underwater scenes with fish and sharks. The boxes were new, so I guessed a well-meaning carer had bought these too. I pulled out a couple of short-sleeved T-shirts emblazoned with pictures of sharks, but there was no sign of Henry Hippo.

‘Do you know where Henry is?’ I asked, dearly hoping that Henry had been packed. I took the lid off the first toy box.

Reece didn’t answer. He was lying in bed, watching me intently. Although the toy box was new, it contained lots of old small toys, many broken, so that I guessed the contents had come from home. As I rummaged through I saw that the theme of sharks dominated here too. There were models and toys of sharks in plastic, rubber and cardboard, in various poses of swimming, all with their mouths open, displaying rows of barbed white teeth. They had clearly been well used, for many had been chewed and had bits missing. One particularly nasty creature, which was a model of a shark’s head about ten inches across, had half its teeth missing but the grin on its face said that it was still capable of doing real damage and enjoying it. When social workers take a child into care they always try to bring as many of the child’s clothes and favourite toys as possible so that the child feels comfortable with what they know around them. Usually these things are loaded into carrier bags, so I assumed one or more of the previous carers must have bought the new toy boxes, rucksacks and suitcase. Reece was still looking at me carefully, not saying a word; clearly these toys were poignant reminders of home.

‘Well, it’s not here,’ I said.

I shuffled over on my knees and took the lid off the second toy box. To my great relief and Reece’s delight, at the top lay a grubby, well-chewed, but clearly much-loved hippopotamus soft toy.

‘Henry!’ Reece cried.