Read Online The Saddest Girl in the World by Cathy Glass - Free Book Online

teeth and have awash, which she did without comment, while I cleared away her breakfast things.
    If I had thought it was hard work the previous evening, it got steadily worse during the day, and not wishing to be unkind, it was like having a zombie in the house. Her downcast face, her stooped shoulders, her slowly lumbering gait would have suggested depression had she been an adult, and I thought that if she didn't improve over the weekend I would phone Jill and Edna first thing on Monday and suggest I take her to the doctor.
    After Donna had finished in the bathroom I told her we would unpack her things. I had already carried up all the bags and boxes and stacked them on the landing. I now pulled the large suitcase into her bedroom and, setting it on the bed, opened it. ‘We'll hang up these clothes in the wardrobe,’ I said, and I began unfolding her jeans and joggers and draping them on to the hangers. Then I took the jumpers and T-shirts and laid them in neat piles in the drawers of the wardrobe. Donna stood by in silence, her head slightly lowered and her arms loosely folded in front of her, watching me but not helping, although I encouraged her often.
    It was obvious which clothes Mary and Ray had bought — they were new — and which had come with her from home — a selection of worn and faded joggers and T-shirts which not even a jumble sale would have taken. I stacked the old clothes at the bottom of the wardrobe, although clearly she would be wearing the new ones, and those I bought for her. There is a great temptation for foster carers to throw out all the rough stuff children bring with them when they come into care, but these are familiar things for the child in an otherwise unfamiliar and strangeenvironment, and it is important they are kept until the child feels comfortable about letting them go; which was why Mary had packed them and sent them with Donna.
    There were two pairs of plastic trainers with the toes out and the laces missing, which I placed at the bottom of the wardrobe, leaving the new trainers and sandals beside her bed. There were a few pieces of very old school uniform — a bobbled sweatshirt and a torn T-shirt, both with the school's logo, and a badly stained skirt. Donna had come into care right at the end of the summer term, so Mary and Ray hadn't replaced her school uniform; I would do so at the start of the next term. There were half a dozen pairs of new pants and socks, and a few pairs of white faded grey, which I packed at the bottom of the wardrobe. There was a badly stained and ripped anorak, which I assumed had been Donna's coat before coming into care, and also a new lightweight summer jacket, which I hung in the wardrobe. As I worked, separating and sorting the clothes, Donna continued to stand a little way from me, either shaking her head or nodding if I asked her something that required a yes or no answer, or shrugging if my question needed a choice.
    I talked as I worked, and continually sought her opinion and advice on where things should go, in the hope of getting her to join in. ‘Shall we put this in here? This is a pretty top — where did you get it from? We'll make this the drawer for your underwear,’ and so on, but there was absolutely no response. Once the suitcase was empty, I heaved it on to the top of the wardrobe out of the way and asked Donna to bring in the last of the bags and boxes from the landing, which she did. These appeared tocontain her personal things — two worn books, a torn magazine, a bare and grubby doll, a new story CD, and a crayoning book with felt-tip pens. I told Donna I would leave her to put those things away, and I opened the empty drawers, and also pulled out a store-away box from under the bed.
    One of the carrier bags which I had looked in and put to one side seemed to contain an assortment of what looked like old rags. I now picked it up, and I felt Donna watching me from under her lowered eyes as I pulled it open for a closer look.