Free Mummy's Little Helper by Casey Watson Page A

Hayley (I made a mental note: not one for the party list, then), had got everyone to gang up on her and how it was just
horrible
.
    ‘But I couldn’t help it!’ she said again, distress morphing into indignation. ‘I have to go to the post office on Monday!’ she sobbed. ‘To get mummy’s money. And they don’t open till nearly school time and if there’s a queue I have to wait!’
    ‘You do this every week?’ I asked her.
    She looked surprised at the question. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Monday is money day. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t have anything to eat, would we?’
    Which was a valid enough point. And there was no point in my asking if the teachers knew about this, because I already knew the answer to that one.
    ‘And I just get so
tired
,’ she said, her shoulders slumping. She began turning the half-empty chocolate mug around in her hands. Round and round it went, in slow, precise circles. ‘That’s why I forget things,’ she explained. ‘I didn’t mean to forget. I just get so tired when I’m in school.’
    ‘I’m not surprised,’ I said. ‘What with all the things you do for Mummy. I’d be tired too.
And
forgetful. But that’s one of the reasons I needed to speak to Mr Elliot,’ I added slowly, keeping an eye on her expression, in case something I said unleashed another flood. ‘Because if they know, they can help you better, and make sure the other children –’
    ‘How can
they
help me?’ she wanted to know. ‘I shouldn’t be made to
go
to school, even. Least, not that much. I have too many more important things to do at home. And what if Mummy falls over? She falls over and she can’t get back up again. What if
that
happens when I’m at school? An’ she can’t get to the toilet, or anything?’
    There was something about the way she said this that made me prick up my ears. ‘
Has
that happened, Abby?’
    I could see her chin dimpling and her eyes filling up again. She didn’t answer. Which I took to mean yes. On
both
counts. What an image. How on earth did she deal with something like that? She was so slight, for one thing, so, physically, it would be a struggle. And what about psychologically? And there being no one to tell. No one to share it with. How could any mother consider that an acceptable state of affairs? I got out of my seat and squatted down beside Abby’s. Unlike many of the kids I dealt with, she didn’t seem to have any attachment issues, at least; as before, she seemed happy enough to let me pull her into my arms. I could feel her sobs against my chest. ‘I just want Mummy back,’ she mumbled brokenly into my sweatshirt. ‘I just want my
mummy
back. I want to go
home
.
Please
. When can I
go HOME
?’
    ‘I know, my love.’ I said, rubbing her back and hugging her. ‘I know.’
    I just didn’t know when I could give her an answer.

Chapter 7
    ‘Listen, winter,’ declared Riley, peering miserably out of the kitchen window. ‘We’ve had enough of you now. Go AWAY!’
    It was Saturday lunchtime and the rain was coming down in stair rods, bouncing off the garden furniture that sat huddled on the patio, and turning the whole of our pretty new back garden into a bog. Right now there was such a big pond on the sagging trampoline that I wouldn’t have been surprised to find ducks sitting on it. Not to mention frogspawn and a pair of koi carp.
    I didn’t mind the rain myself – it was what made Britain so green and pleasant, after all – but if there were two things that were often incompatible as bedfellows it was rain and stressed mothers with under-fives to keep entertained.
    ‘It’ll stop,’ I reassured my scowling daughter, as I joined her at the window. ‘You wait. Look. That’s a patch of blue up there, isn’t it?’
    Riley snorted. ‘Mother, what are you like?
Blue
? Come on – that’s just a very slightly different shade of grey. Even your positive mental attitude doesn’t have the power to change that.’ She turned around. ‘So,