Read Online Mummy's Little Helper by Casey Watson - Free Book Online Page A

there I thought you’d be having me up in the loft looking for fairy lights.’
    I passed him his coffee. ‘Just couldn’t sleep, that’s all,’ I told him. ‘You know what it’s like when you wake up and straight away your brain reminds you about all the things you need to do? So I thought I’d take a leaf out of Abby’s book and make a list.’
    Mike frowned as he sipped his drink. ‘You’re not stressed, are you love?’ he asked, nodding towards the ceiling. ‘About Abby? I mean, compared to Spencer … in fact, compared to
all
the other kids we’ve had …’
    ‘No, not at all,’ I reassured him, shaking my head. ‘I’m just on a mission to find out what’s going on there. You know, the more I know about this the harder it is for me to understand how the two of them could have become so isolated. You’d have thought
someone
would have known what was happening at home, wouldn’t you? What about the GP? I mean, he or she must be prescribing drugs for her, mustn’t they? Or the neighbours? Or, come to that, Abby’s school. Surely they’d have noticed something? It almost beggars belief.’
    Mike rolled his eyes. ‘Love, you’re asking
me
that? You’re asking
yourself
that? Look at Ashton and Olivia. There’s your answer, right there. Just remember the sort of things that went on in
that
household. Compared to that, let’s be honest, this is
nothing
.’
    Mike was right, of course. The siblings he’d mentioned – both now thriving in new permanent foster-families, thankfully – had come to us looking like a pair of Dickensian urchins: underweight, covered in scabs, eye-poppingly filthy and feral, yet still living with their parents in the sort of conditions that would have the RSPCA throwing their hands up in horror, let alone the NSPCC. And that was before you took the sexual abuse into account … No, in comparison, this wasn’t a big social scandal. Just a woman who, for whatever reason – blind optimism, maybe? – had seemed to have turned ‘muddling through without troubling the outside world’ into something of an art form.
    This was confirmed when I rang Abby’s school, after she’d left for it in the taxi, in the hopes that I’d be able to have a few words with her teacher. Knowing how school timetables tended to work was always a bonus, and I was spot on in being able to grab five minutes with the man, who was a youngish-sounding teacher called Mr Elliot.
    ‘I’m completely gobsmacked,’ he admitted, when I introduced myself to him. He had no idea that Abby had even been taken into care.
    ‘I mean, I knew her mum had had to go into hospital,’ he said. ‘But nothing about her going to stay with a foster family or anything. I just assumed she was with other family members. Is this long term?’
    I told him I didn’t know. ‘So no one’s been in touch?’ I asked, confused myself now about how this fairly important information had failed to get to him. Not that it didn’t happen from time to time. It had only been a few days, after all, and perhaps Bridget hadn’t yet got around to it.
    ‘Not to my knowledge,’ he said. ‘Though that doesn’t mean they haven’t. The head teacher was away on a course all day yesterday, so it’s possible that the news just hasn’t trickled through yet … This is a big school, and I wasn’t in myself on Tuesday. These things happen, I suppose … Anyway, thanks for letting me know now.’
    ‘I’m sure social services will be in touch with you as well,’ I reassured him. ‘Oh, and just so you know, she’ll be coming by taxi each day for the time being, and picked up by taxi as well. I was just phoning myself so we could have a chat about Abby. Under the circumstances, she has a number of issues, as you can imagine …’
    ‘Circumstances? Forgive me, but as I say, I’m not up to speed.’
    ‘As a result of her mother’s MS,’ I began.
    ‘Really? She’s been diagnosed with MS? The poor woman.’
    ‘Yes, but not