Broken: A traumatised girl. Her troubled brother. Their shocking secret.. Rosie Lewis
and Meggie time.’ She didn’t look entirely convinced on the merits of just having me to play with, but she acquiesced. We read Felicity Wishes, one of her favourite books of the moment, and then we read it again.
Just as I was about to embark on a third reading, there was a thump overhead. Mungo’s ears pricked up. Megan was off the sofa and at the bottom of the stairs within a few seconds. As I followed her up the sound of arguing reached me, followed by another loud clunk.
Megan stopped short at Archie and Bobbi’s bedroom door. At first I thought she was respecting the house rules and was about to congratulate her for being so vigilant, when I caught a glimpse of the room. All of the clothes that I had folded neatly away in the drawers were scattered all over the floor. The wardrobe doors hung open, the clothes inside dangling precariously from their hangers.
Lidless felt-tip pens were strewn here and there, two upended water bottles leaking over them and creating a rainbow effect on the beige carpet. And just visible at the edge of all the mess, I could see a few food wrappers sticking out from under the bed. Megan and I exchanged mutually shocked glances.
I picked my way through the rubbish. Megan followed. She stood next to me, hands on her hips. ‘What’s happened here?’ I asked, trying to keep my tone neutral. Between the ages of eighteen months and seven years, children are convinced that they are responsible for everything that happens to them. This so-called magical thinking, a natural phase of development, leaves children convinced that they are responsible for their own plight when they come into care. Instead of placing any fault with their parents, they assume that they are not worthy of being loved. I was worried that if I made a big deal of it, I could add to the toxic shame the siblings probably already felt. Besides, in my experience, most everyday upsets resolved themselves quickly if ignored.
Bobbi, still in her nightdress and pull-up nappy, was sitting in amongst the mess with a few pens clasped in one of her hands, the rabbit I had given her in the other. She looked blank, as if I hadn’t even spoken. I took another step towards her, noticing as I did that her picture had been torn from the wall, a few fragments of jagged paper left behind. The drawing, I presumed, lay somewhere beneath her. I wondered who had taken it down, and why. I looked at Archie, who was already dressed and standing by the window. He was staring into the garden, his face angled away.
‘We’ll clear this up later,’ I said firmly. By messing up the room, there was every chance that Bobbi had been unconsciously re-creating her home environment. Home might have been an awful place to be, but it was familiar and probably strangely comforting. Having noticed Archie’s fastidiousness, I had already decided that Bobbi was responsible for the mess. ‘Now, who’s ready for breakfast?’ I asked. Archie turned to me in surprise.
Bobbi jumped up. ‘Me! I am! I want cornflakes and toast and yoghurt and chocolate.’
‘I don’t know about chocolate!’ I said, laughing. ‘Right, we must all try to keep quiet as we go down. Emily and Jamie want a lie-in today. Bobbi, let’s get you sorted.’ The smell from her soiled nappy was overpowering, even from where I was standing. I wanted to shower her down before we went downstairs.
‘No, I want breakfast now.’ Bobbi’s tone was flat but insistent.
‘Yep, soon. Let’s go the bathroom and get you cleaned up first.’
She eyed me defiantly. Sensing a sharpening of the atmosphere, I turned to Megan. ‘Meggie, would you like to go and choose yourself something to wear?’ She nodded enthusiastically and trotted off to her room. I craned my head around the door and called out: ‘Don’t forget, it’s winter!’ She loved getting herself dressed but more often than not she’d appear wearing a swimming costume or a pair of hot pants, even on the iciest of days. ‘Right,’ I held out my hand. ‘Come on then, pickle, let’s sort you out.’
‘Nooooo!’ Bobbi yelled, her cheeks turning puce. ‘I want food!’
‘Tell you what. I’ll go to the bathroom and wait for you. If you come within ten seconds I’ll give you a sticker. Archie, you go downstairs whenever you’re ready. Emily found The Chamber of Secrets when she came in last night. She’s left it on the table for you.’
Archie tiptoed around the mess to the landing, still looking a bit taken aback. Clearly he was expecting a different reaction to the one I’d given.
Bobbi scooted after him but I caught her around the middle and lifted her up, careful not to touch her full nappy. ‘Gotcha,’ I said playfully, trying to avoid her kicks while not breathing too deeply; her nappy really did smell bad. She dropped the rabbit and lashed out, catching my cheek in the exact spot that had only just scabbed over. My skin prickled and stung. ‘Let’s try and stay calm,’ I said, my own adrenaline kicking in.
‘Nooooo!’ she screeched again, pummelling my face and neck with closed fists as I carried her to the bathroom and knelt in front of her. ‘Kind hands, Bobbi,’ I said, my voice sounding strained as I fended her hands away. She clawed at my arm by way of reply, her nails digging at the bare skin on my wrist until tiny spots of blood appeared.
‘Bobbi, you’re safe, sweetie. No one’s going to hurt you. Let’s just calm down and get you cleaned up.’
She was screaming so hysterically that I wasn’t even sure she heard me. Even if she had been able to process what I was saying, part of me knew that ‘calm down’ probably didn’t mean much to a child who had grown up amid chaos. ‘Be kind’ was a meaningless instruction to someone who had, in all likelihood, been mistreated since birth. I knew that. But with adrenaline surging through my veins, it was difficult to think of anything else to say but ‘calm down’.
I took a few deep breaths and realised that I was staring at her, probably with a horrified expression on my face. I forced myself to look away. ‘I’m going to cut you!’ she screamed, still trying to run at me. ‘I’m going to cut your cheeks and twist them off your ugly face.’
Another blast of adrenaline shot through my veins. I wondered what on earth she had experienced to come out with things like that. I fended her off, my mind flashing to the pictures in her room. I took a calming breath, grateful that at least Megan probably couldn’t hear any of what was going on.
‘Bobbi, I’m going to hold you close and help you to feel better.’ Being out of control was terrifying for a child. As I reached out I knew she would fight against me, but I also knew that she needed to understand that I was the one in charge. The sooner she realised that I would keep her safe, the calmer she would feel.
Enfolding her flailing arms with one of my own, I turned her around and pulled her onto my lap so that her back was pressed against my middle. Almost immediately I felt a warm trickle of liquid on my thigh as the contents of her nappy seeped through her nightdress and over my jeans. Simultaneously, the overwhelming stench of excrement hit my nostrils. I held my breath, trying not to gag.
She thrashed around on my lap, arching her back and trying to launch another assault. As gently as I could – I was anxious not to mark her skin – I held onto her wrists and cuddled her close. ‘There, it’s alright, I will keep you safe.’ I tried to force my mind away from the growing brown stain on my jeans. Eventually her screams turned to sobs and her struggles subsided, her body pliable enough for me to gently rock her to and fro.
When she fell silent I stayed where I was. If I moved too early she was likely to remember her anger and start all over again. Besides that, her stiffened features were softening and, with a sting of pity, I realised that she’d probably never been babied before.
In the early days of placement, when children are railing against the sudden changes that have been foisted upon them, it’s sometimes difficult to return their aggression with affection. One of the best pieces of advice I’ve been given is to ‘fake it until you make it’. It’s near impossible to love a stranger, especially an abusive one, but when you go through the motions of caring for someone, genuine affection usually grows. As the adult, it was up to me to forge a loving attachment with Bobbi.
After a few minutes I eased her gently to a standing position and rose to