Torn: A terrified girl. A shocking secret. A terrible choice.

He frowned, concentrating. ‘Which part of America is she from? Near Disneyland?’

‘You mean, which state. Hmm, I’m not sure. Sounds to me as if she’s from the South. I’ll ask her next time, if you like.’

Jamie slapped his knee. ‘Sure thang, Mom!’

I laughed absent-mindedly, my thoughts drifting back to the mystery contact between Taylor and her mum. Apart from going to school, Taylor hadn’t been out of my sight since the day she had arrived. How on earth had she got a message to her mum?

Chapter Six (#u52406829-edbd-548c-b3fb-bca8b82c2d57)

Five o’clock came and went, and then five-thirty, but still Taylor wouldn’t budge. Sitting on one of the desks with her legs dangling ungainly over the side, she had assumed her default couldn’t care less pose, her every pore emitting the insouciant message that however much I reasoned or even begged, she was not going to be moved. Hovering at the brink of losing my patience, I moved across the room, distancing myself from her.

Through the open window I took a few deep breaths and watched a lone cleaner sweeping the deserted playground, clearing away the detritus of the school day. Jamie, his chest still whistling slightly but with much more colour in his cheeks, leaned against the wall at the far end of the year six classroom, legs crossed in front of him. With a puzzle on the rug between them, Reece lay on his side opposite Jamie, head propped on his elbow and legs twitching in that restless, nervous way of his.

‘What’s the time now, Rosie?’ Reece whined, strumming two fingers on his chunky thigh.

‘Four minutes later than when you last asked,’ I said with an apologetic glance towards Miss Cooper, Taylor’s class teacher. It was well past her clocking off time but she kindly waved my apologies away. Every now and again Jamie dropped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, exhausted after his sleepless night. As he did so, fresh bubbles of irritation rose in my chest. I had planned to prepare an early dinner so that he could get to bed and rest but there was small chance of that now. The secretary at Emily’s school had helpfully added her to the after-school chess club, even though, strictly speaking, it was full. The club ended at 6 o’clock and after that, I simply didn’t know what I would do. Of all the juggling required of a busy mum, I always found that the logistical challenge of having to be in two places at once was one of the most stressful. As each minute passed, I felt the pressure building.

Needless to say, Taylor was showing no sign of weakness. Sliding from the desk, she flopped into a chair and rested her elbows on the desk in front of her, head propped in her upturned hands. What gives you the right to hold all of us to ransom like this? I thought, quietly seething. But then, as I watched her sigh lazily, I got the sense that she was play acting again. Stretching out her legs, it was as if she was working hard to give the impression that she was set to stay for the next few hours. And yet, her momentary pained expression told a different story.

Trying my hardest to appear untouched by her antics, I paced the classroom and pretended to study text messages on my mobile phone, clinging onto the faint hope that if I refused to play my part in the stand-off, she might get bored and surrender. I had already left two messages with Maisie and was hoping she hadn’t already left the office for the day.

A few minutes later, Taylor stretched her arms above her head and shuffled around on her chair. I held my breath, willing her to give in. I could hardly believe it when, with a backward scrape of her chair, she leaned her hands flat on the desk and made to move. The boys scrambled to their feet. ‘Oh, finally,’ Jamie huffed, noisily blowing air from his cheeks. Taylor hesitated in a half-crouch and then sank back down, arms folded tightly across her chest.

A disjointed moment followed, none of us quite sure what had passed. When it became clear that she was in for the long haul, my heart sank.

‘Oh no-o-o –’ Jamie groaned, looking at me in mute appeal. It was as if he couldn’t quite believe my powerlessness, my inability to take control.

Edging close to losing it I closed my eyes, summoning every last vestige of serenity I could muster. Behaving badly is an effective way of finding out whether she’s safe, I told myself, remembering something I’d learned in training. When children were testing their limits, it often helped to see past the behaviour and think about the cause instead. Unfortunately, even that wasn’t really helping. Generally I considered myself a patient person but Taylor’s stubbornness really went beyond the pale. What I found most irritating was her total control and our utter helplessness. She knew there was nothing we could do to make her move and I feared the power would go to her head so that she would become even more difficult to handle.

‘Taylor,’ Miss Cooper said pleadingly, with a note of desperation in her voice. The ten-year-old, chewing her cheeks as if rolling a piece of gum around her mouth, lifted her head and looked at her teacher nonchalantly.

‘We’re all getting very tired now. I really think it’s time we stopped this, don’t you, darling?’

Taylor gave a derisory snort and ran her fingers through her hair, the golden tresses glinting amber in the low afternoon sun. Personally I felt the endearment was over-generous and I was also pretty certain that appealing to her better nature simply wasn’t going to work.

I walked over to the window again, my phone vibrating in the pocket of my jeans. I pulled it out, half-aware of Miss Cooper’s continued cajoling. It was Maisie. I breathed a sigh of relief and then, in hushed tones, filled her in.

‘Oh dear,’ she said in low, sluggish tone. ‘I know she was unhappy about the sit-u-a-tion with the TV. Did your supervising social worker speak to you about that?’

My stomach contracted. ‘Yes, she mentioned it,’ I said slowly. ‘But I don’t think it’s that at all.’

‘Have you resolved the issue then? I made the sug-ges-tion that you buy a portable and leave it on somewhere in the house.’

‘Oh right. No, Karron didn’t say anything about that.’ I felt a flare of gratitude to Karron for dismissing the idea without even troubling me. Forcing myself to fight my own corner, I took a breath (that’s another thing they don’t mention when you register as a foster carer – if you dislike confrontation, you’d better get over it, and quickly.) ‘To be honest, Maisie, I don’t like that idea,’ I said, trying to keep a congenial tone. ‘Taylor gets to watch quite a bit of TV and it really isn’t anything we can’t negotiate between us. What concerns me more is how she spoke to her mum without me knowing. There’s been no contact between them as far as I know.’

‘Ah yes, I meant to talk to you about that. Taylor has her own mobile but her calls should be lim-i-ted to twice a week and arranged for a particular time of day. You are aware, I presume, that foster carers are supposed to supervise all contact with parents when they’re at home?’

‘I had no idea she even had a phone,’ I said in hushed tones, running my fingers through my hair. I paced the length of the window and back again, trying to keep my cool. ‘Now I’m aware, of course I’ll be supervising the calls.’

One of the difficulties inherent in fostering is that so many everyday issues lie outside of the foster carers’ control. It is natural for children to test their limits, to rail against the boundaries set for them and those in care often play their foster carers off against social workers. It was in Taylor’s best interests for the adults taking care of her to form a united front, but unfortunately that seemed unlikely in this case.

Maisie’s tone softened a little. ‘Good, thank you. I’m trying to organise a contact session for tomorrow so that the children can see their parents. Nick and Claire have been told that they’ll have to complete a parenting course before the children are returned, but they’re resisting that at the moment. We’re thinking two contacts a week initially, on Tuesdays and Fridays, so phone calls home should be scheduled for Mondays and Thursdays, that way the children’s weekends are free. I haven’t got a concrete time yet so I’ll give you a call in the morning if that’s OK?’

‘Yes, fine.’

‘So, I hope things resolve themselves quickly.’

I gave a short laugh. ‘Hmm, well, she’ll move when she gets hungry enough I suppose.’

There was a short pause. ‘Oh, has she not eaten?’ Maisie asked, sounding concerned.

‘No, I told you. She’s not moved from her desk since the bell went at three-fifteen.’

Another silence and then Maisie said: ‘Oh, that’s not good.’ She then went on to suggest, in all seriousness, that I aid and abet the sit-in by offering Taylor some refreshments in case she became dehydrated. Lost for words, I merely snorted.

‘The local authority will come under fire if one of their carers withholds food and drink from a child,’ Maisie droned, her tone frosting over again.

I was silent, overwhelmed by a sudden anger. In the background I could hear a door slamming and people talking. It sounded as if Maisie was walking down a corridor, probably leaving the office for the day. You come and sit here and wait for her to move then, I wanted to bite back. Her lack of support was galling.

‘Offer plenty of positive praise when she does show willing to come home,’ she continued over a loud clunk, presumably the closing of a car door and a rumble as she turned the ignition of her car. I pictured an embroidered bag full of empty Red Bull cans on the front passenger seat and Maisie behind the wheel, eager to end the call so that she could head off to the comfort of home.

After shoving the handset back into my pocket I stared out of the window, trying to gather some composure. It wasn’t easy, with Maisie’s disapproving tone reverberating in my ears and Taylor’s eyes fixed on my back.

‘Who was that?’ the ten-year-old demanded a few moments later.

I half-turned and opened my mouth to speak but then stilled, thinking.

‘Well, who was it?’

Slowly, I turned around. The words that came out of my mouth floated from the past, a well-worn phrase used by my mother when I was a child and one I had never repeated, until now. ‘Never you mind.’

She glowered. ‘It was Maisie, weren’t it?’

‘It may have been,’ I said vaguely, in a deliberate show of nonchalance. I strolled back to the window, linked my hands behind my back and pretended to study the newly swept playground.

‘What did she say?’

‘I’d rather not go into it, Taylor,’ I said calmly, keeping my back towards her.

Sensing an ensuing battle, Reece sat up sharply, his head darting back and forth between us as if watching a tennis match. Twitching, his eyes crumpled and he jabbed his fists into them, trying to rub it away.

‘You gotta tell me,’ she said, bestowing me with a violent stare. ‘I wanna know how my mum is. And Bailey. And Jimmy.’

The ‘when and then’ technique suddenly floated into my mind, something else I had learnt in training. I turned around to face her and levelled my gaze. ‘When you’re ready to come home, then I’ll tell you all about it.’

‘It ain’t my home,’ she retorted, but scraped her chair back noisily and got to her feet. I stiffened, hardly daring to hope that it had worked. Miss Cooper’s jaw tensed, her hands clenched into fists.

‘Yes!’ Jamie cheered as Taylor reached for her rucksack and sloped off towards the door. I closed my eyes, savouring the blissful moment of relief. Reece charged after Taylor and Jamie, pale with tiredness, rested his head on my upper arm. Miss Cooper and I exchanged a significant glance as we followed the siblings along the empty corridor, our footsteps echoing off the walls. We were both uncomfortably aware, I think, that in two weeks’ time, after the Easter holidays, we were likely to go through the whole experience all over again.