Part 2 (1/2)

She was dressed to the nines fur coat, matching hat, her face caked in make-up and holding the gate open for her retinue to pa.s.s through. I stood, open-mouthed, as I watched the tableau before me. I simply couldn't get my head around the quant.i.ty of luggage that seemed to be spewing from the various car boots. I counted them out: four huge suitcases, at least six cardboard boxes and what seemed to be a stack of canvas paintings. I was gobsmacked. Where the h.e.l.l was all this stuff going to go? And more to the point, why had she brought all this with her, when it was going to be such a short placement?

Equally unbelievably, and I could hear it all clearly from the window, was that this 12-year-old seemed to be barking orders at the adults and, more incredibly, they seemed to be listening.

'Careful with that artwork!' I heard her bark at John, as he pa.s.sed her. 'Any tears in those and you're going to have to pay for it!' She then clapped her hands together this was beginning to feel like some bizarre slapstick movie and said, 'Chop chop! I don't have all day!'

Sophia turned then and saw me gaping out of the window. She smiled and waved at me, and then, if my eyes weren't deceiving me, actually clicked her fingers to beckon me to the front door. Upon which I, on some mad autopilot, and in keeping with her other minions, almost fell over my own coffee table in my rush to get to the hall.

'Hi, love,' I said, emerging from the door just as she'd sauntered down the front path. 'Good grief, you have a lot of luggage, don't you? Can I help? Do you need a hand with anything?'

'Hi,' she responded, marching straight past me. 'No thanks. You can just tell them to take everything up to my room. I don't do carrying,' she then finished, sweetly.

Them? Now I recovered at least some of my senses. 'I don't think so,' I said, speaking also to the adults who were now a.s.sembling, partly obscured by the procession of belongings. 'We'll just leave it all in the hall for the moment, I think. We can take it ' and by which, I made a mental note, I meant we ' all up to your room later on.'

Nothing terrible happened. No explosion. No strop. She just shrugged and wandered off into the living room, leaving me, mouth slightly agape again, standing in her wake, while she muttered something to herself about 'the incompetency of idiots'. It honestly beggared belief.

But it was also so absurd as to be hilarious with it, especially as I watched John wrestling with two pink suitcases, which he half hauled, half threw into my hallway. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing, and his withering expression only made it worse. He gave me an old-fas.h.i.+oned look. 'Don't,' he said under his breath. 'Okay? Just don't.'

We all congregated, eventually, in the living room, where I invited everyone to take a seat while I made some hot drinks. The hilarious expression on John's face had really lightened my mood, and I was chuckling to myself as I pulled mugs from the cupboard.

'What's so funny?' asked a voice. Sophia had joined me in the kitchen.

'Oh, nothing,' I said, glad she'd felt able to come and join me, at least. 'It was just seeing John grappling with those cases of yours. You okay, love?' I glanced across at her. 'Feeling all right?'

Her expression changed to one of what I could only describe as condescension. 'Derr,' she said in an exasperated voice. 'You don't have to look at me like that, you know. I'm not dying!'

'I know,' I said nicely, through my slightly gritted teeth. 'I didn't think so for a moment. I just wanted to make sure you're okay. After all the upheaval of moving, that was all.'

Her face back-tracked slightly, even if her voice didn't. 'Hmmph,' she muttered. 'Yes, well, I'm fine.'

And with that she turned and sauntered off back to the living room, leaving me once again staring after her, agape. Right, I thought, making my mind up at that moment. No more Mrs Nice Guy from me. I needed to let this child know who called the shots around here and put an end to all this p.u.s.s.yfooting around. It would do her no favours had been doing her no favours. It made her unpleasant to be around, and that wasn't going to help her. It wouldn't help me to help her either. I finished making the drinks and took the tray into the living room, where the three adults were sitting, Sophia back among them, trying to make small talk among themselves.

'Right,' I said cheerfully to one and all. 'Here you go. Help yourselves to biscuits, by the way.'

Sophia's glance towards Sam was as pointed as she could make it. 'Sophia doesn't like to be around biscuits,' Sam explained nervously. 'It's her Addison's. She has to be really disciplined about sugar, because the steroids she takes give her a really huge appet.i.te, and if she indulges ...' She looked back towards Sophia as if for help. Then I noticed her and Linda exchange glances. 'Well, it's obviously not terribly good for her to get fat.'

I picked up the plate of biscuits and offered it only to the adults, equally pointedly. She clearly needed to learn discipline, period. 'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I clearly have a lot to learn, don't I?'

'Yes, you do,' Sophia answered, folding her arms across her chest.

'Now, Sophia ' began Sam, sounding nervous about even speaking. Jesus, what was the matter with these people?

'Come on, sweetie,' she added, leaping up and putting her arm around her, as if she wasn't standing there smiling but in huge floods of tears. 'D'you want to show me your room? I could help you make a start, carry some things up. Leave the others to sort out the boring paperwork, eh?'

I could have happily slapped Sophia's social worker then. Not only was she undermining me bad enough in itself but she was also disregarding the girl's rude behaviour. Which wasn't very professional of her at all.

As soon as they'd left the room, I rounded on Linda, the supervising social worker, who, right now, seemed to be supervising nothing. 'You know,' I said, 'pandering to her every whim isn't going to help her. She needs boundaries, a bit of discipline ...'

'I agree,' John chipped in. He could see how cross I was and seemed keen to support me. It wasn't too late, I thought, for us to change our minds, and he knew it. But that wasn't his motivation, I decided. He was genuinely trying to second a valid point. 'She does seem to wrap everyone around her little finger,' he continued.

Linda, unsurprisingly, jumped straight to her defence. 'I know it seems that way,' she said. 'But try to look beyond her behaviour, please. Underneath the front, she's feeling lost and abandoned and alone. She'll settle down, I promise. Give it a couple of days. Things will be fine. Honestly they will.'

But her tone belied her words. She knew no such thing. This wouldn't be a team I'd be getting much support from, I decided. Once again, as had been the case with our last child, bar John, we'd probably be on our own. Was that how it worked with our kind of specialist 'extreme' fostering? That Mike and I were considered so able they could throw anything at us, secure in the blind faith that we'd cope?

But before I had a chance to say something regrettable, Mike himself walked in, having come back from work. 'Morning all!' he said cheerily. 'Everything okay here?' The three of us seemed of like mind. End of conversation. We all got our heads down and ran through all the paperwork.

It was only once John and Linda were finis.h.i.+ng up and I cleared the mugs that I could have a word with Mike on our own.

'What's up, love?' he asked, once we were both in the kitchen. 'You could cut the atmosphere in there with a knife!'

'Oh, just more of the same. Our little madam's been busy being one again. And it seems no one in her ”team” has got the confidence to take her on. I just had a bit of a moment, that's all. Nothing to worry about. She'll find things rather different now, starting today. And none too soon, because that lot seem to be creating a monster.'

But once back in the living room I had cause to eat my words. Sophia and Sam had come down from upstairs now, and Sophia was visibly and genuinely distressed as she hugged both the women and said her goodbyes. I felt a pang of guilt. This was a desperate 12-year-old girl, trying to make sense of an appalling situation. Perhaps Linda had been right, and I'd been wrong. I must learn, I decided, that my usual acuity re character wasn't quite as infallible as I thought. I also knew nothing about the emotional toll of being the victim of an incurable disease. Sophia had perhaps been right in that, too. I did have a lot to learn this afternoon. Speaking of which ... 'Look at the time,' I said. 'We really need to get off.'

'Right,' said Sam, disentangling herself from Sophia. 'And we'd better leave you all to it. I'll phone you in a day or so, Sophia, okay? And come to see how you're doing in a week or so.'

I moved closer to Sophia as everyone trooped back out of the door, automatically putting an arm around her waist. She needed affection, I thought. Physical contact. Even though her manner so often seemed to suggest otherwise, the child inside needed love more than anything.

We waved them off, Sophia rubbing at her tear-stained cheeks with her other hand. Then she turned to me. 'Where's your son? Didn't you say you had a teenage son?'

Her voice was completely different now. As light and sunny, suddenly, as the day was dark and cold.

'Kieron?' I said, shocked. 'Yes. He's at college today. You'll meet him tonight. When we get back from your doctor's '

'Okay!' she said brightly. 'Coats on then, is it? As you say, it's a long way. Time to go!'

It was a very, very long three hours, that journey to hospital, as all three occupants of the car Mike, myself and Sophia retreated into their own minds and thoughts. I tried several times to start conversations with Sophia initially, all of which were mildly, but decisively, rebuffed by her lack of interest in giving me more than one-word responses. I then tuned the radio station to one I thought she might like, but this, too, was pointedly rejected. She simply pulled an MP3 player from her pocket and plugged herself into that. 'I think that's you told,' whispered Mike.

She's 12, I kept telling myself, locked alone with my anxieties. (I couldn't talk to Mike, of course, because she wasn't six inches from us.) She's 12. Think back, Casey. That's what 12-year-olds are like, even 12-year-olds with the most benign of families and backgrounds. She's on the cusp of adolescence, too; no, that was wrong. Physically at least, she was well into it. So perhaps I was reading too much into things. She'd also been overindulged and was clearly using her disorder to manipulate the adults around her. She just needed guidance, support and that healthy dose of discipline. That, I decided, would help her immeasurably. And as a virtual orphan in the world, boy, did she need help.

But I couldn't help but wonder at these extreme swings in behaviour: one minute full of herself, the next happy-clappy, and then, out of the blue, appearing really upset. What mood would be on offer when we arrived at the hospital, I wondered? I was beginning to realise that we just couldn't second-guess her.

'Happy', as it turned out, just as soon as we got there. The sullen mask was stashed away along with the earphones for her iPod, to be replaced by what I could only describe as the sweetest, friendliest expression imaginable.

'Follow me,' she commanded, though in the nicest of manners. 'I know this place like the back of my hand! Casey,' she turned to me, 'you are so going to love my doctor. He's called Dr Wyatt, and he's absolutely gorgeous.' She was so excited, she was practically squealing.

'Right behind you, love,' said Mike, as we both hurried along in her wake.

Less inclined to stampede down the corridor than Sophia was, we kept her in sight but still failed to keep up, and by the time we reached the correct clinic's reception she was already charming the receptionist.

'Ah, you must be Mr and Mrs Watson,' the young woman said. 'I'm Wendy, by the way. Me and Sophie go back a long way, don't we, honey? Do take a seat. Dr Wyatt will be with you very shortly.'

Mike and I sat down on the leather sofa we'd been a.s.signed to, leaving our young charge gaily chatting to the receptionist. But we didn't have to wait for very long. After only about thirty seconds a man emerged from behind a door, and promptly bellowed 'Sophie!' as if greeting a dear friend who'd been thought lost at sea and had unexpectedly fetched up. I noted that he, like Wendy, hadn't called her Sophia. They were obviously all very close. Very close.

Sophia's response was equally enthusiastic. 'Oh, it's so nice to see you!' she cried, leaping upon him, and so forcefully that I thought she might topple him over, or, even worse, jump up into his arms and swing her legs round him. Thankfully, neither happened, but most astonis.h.i.+ng to my mind was that the doctor didn't even seem to flinch. 'Nice to see you too!' he said, when she finally put him down. 'I'm Steve Wyatt,' he then said to us, coming to shake our hands. 'Paediatric endocrinologist. Very nice to meet you both as well.'

Mike and I began to rise, but he flapped a hand to indicate we should stay where we were. 'No, no. You can sit a while longer,' he explained. 'Sophia likes to have her consultation in private just myself and her nurse, if that's okay?'