The Girl with the Suitcase by Angela Hart

Author:Angela Hart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

13

‘She’s a harum-scarum kid’

Around five weeks after Grace moved in with us we had another placement meeting. I had received a letter in the post a few weeks earlier, informing us of the date, time and venue of the meeting, which Social Services had decided to hold in our house. As it happened that was fine by us, though I must admit I did use to feel it would be nice to be asked if this was convenient, rather than being told when we were hosting the meeting in our own lounge!

This particular meeting had been arranged to fit in with Colette, who had agreed to come to our house to meet with the social workers, and then take Grace back to the family home for the weekend. This would be Grace’s first visit home since moving in with us, and she said she was looking forward to staying with her mum, ‘but not Lily and Lee’. There had been very little contact with home in the previous few weeks, as Colette had made no effort to call us and had often not been available when Grace tried to call her.

The school holidays were coming to an end and Grace was starting school the following week, which she was excited about. We’d been on a visit to her new classroom and the head teacher had shown her around. Grace’s eyes were everywhere, drinking it all in. Afterwards she talked non-stop about what her classmates would be like, whether the other girls were into disco dancing and Take That and the Spice Girls, and whether the school dinners would be as nice as the head teacher said they were.

When the two social workers arrived for the placement meeting, Barry had a word with Grace in private before she went up to her bedroom to wait for her mum’s arrival. This was normal procedure, to give Grace the opportunity to discuss anything she felt uneasy about mentioning in front of Jonathan and me, or our support social worker Jess, or indeed her mum.

I prepared a tray of tea and biscuits and then Jonathan and I settled in the lounge with Barry and Jess. The four of us discussed all the various issues I’d flagged up in my notes in the preceding weeks, and I found myself feeling quite surprised by how much there was to talk about, considering Grace had only been living with us for a relatively short time.

I told the social workers Grace still hadn’t unpacked and explained that she was still taking food to her room from time to time and trying to hide it. This hadn’t happened very often, but I’d found more biscuit wrappers and the packaging from some cheese triangles just a couple of days before. I’d spoken calmly to Grace each time, reiterating there was no need to do this and that she could ask me for treats or food if and when she needed anything. Grace’s response each time was to politely say sorry and that she wouldn’t do it again, but she always did.

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