Mummy Told Me Not to Tell: The true story of a troubled boy with a dark secret. Cathy Glass
me push the trolley out of the store and through the car park, missing most of the cars. I strapped him into his seat while I packed the bags in the boot — it was safer than having him hopping around in the car park. Once all the shopping was in the boot I returned the empty trolley to the trolley park close by and got into the car. Before inserting the keys into the ignition I turned and looked at him. ‘Good boy,’ I said. ‘Thanks for helping me.’ Then I noticed he was chewing something.
‘What are you eating?’ I asked, for certainly I hadn’t given him anything. I had said he could have one of the iced buns when we got home.
‘Sweets,’ he said, producing a packet of fruit pastels from his coat pocket.
‘Where did you get those?’
‘From the shop.’
I stared horrified. ‘But I didn’t buy them.’
‘No, I looked them,’ he said, popping another one into his mouth.
‘But Reece, that’s stealing. I didn’t pay for them.’
He gave a shrug. ‘No worries. The police can’t do me. I’m under age.’
I stared at him, dumbfounded, as he chewed loudly, unashamed by his admission. Clearly Reece had no idea that stealing was wrong but was well aware he was below the age of criminal responsibility and therefore couldn’t be prosecuted even if he was caught.
‘Who told you that?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’ So I could guess.
‘Did you use to steal things when you lived at home?’
He didn’t say anything, but popped another pastel in his mouth and grinned. I certainly couldn’t let him enjoy the spoils of his theft. I opened my door and got out. I went round to his door.
‘Reece,’ I said leaning in and taking the pastels. ‘You have taken these without paying for them, so they are not yours. It’s stealing. We have to pay for the things we want: we don’t just take them.’
‘But they’re mine!’ he yelled, making a grab for them.
‘No. They are not, Reece. They belong to the shop. They only become ours if we pay for them.’
If the item had been of any greater value I would have taken it back to the store, but returning a half-eaten tube of fruit pastels was going to cause more trouble than it was worth, particularly as I would have to take Reece with me and he was now erupting with force.
‘Mine!’ he yelled, kicking the back of the seat in a frenzy. ‘Mine! Give me them! Thief!’ which I thought was choice.
‘No, Reece. You won’t have these sweets. They are not yours, they are the shop’s.’ I dropped them into my coat pocket to throw away later.
‘Mine,’ he screamed. ‘Mum gives me the sweets when I help her.’
‘Help her do what?’ I asked over the noise.
‘Take things,’ he said. Then he stopped.
‘You stole things for your mum?’
He stopped screaming and looked at me. ‘Hate you,’ he said and poked out his tongue, which was bright green from the pastels.
The return journey from the supermarket was more eventful than the one going when Reece had sat quietly in his seat with the promise of pushing the trolley. Now he screamed, yelled he hated me and kicked the seat relentlessly. I had to stop three times to resettle him and return him to under his seatbelt. After repeated warnings, I told him he had lost thirty minutes’ television time that evening because I couldn’t have him distracting me while driving, as it was dangerous.
‘I’m watching television,’ he yelled defiantly as we finally entered the house.
‘No, you are not, Reece. You can help me to unload the car or you can play with some toys.’
‘I’m watching telly,’ he yelled again, sticking out his tongue.
I ignored it and began unloading the car with the front gate bolted so that he couldn’t run out into the road if he had a mind to. Each time I carried the bags of shopping into the house I checked on where he was and what he was doing, which was zooming around, arms outstretched and making whooping noises, so at least I knew where he was.
Once I had all the bags in the hall I began carrying them through to the kitchen. ‘Would you like to help me?’ I called to Reece, but he was in no mood for cooperating. By the time I had all the bags in the kitchen Reece had done a dozen laps of the house and was demanding lunch.
‘You can have lunch, yes,’ I said, glancing at the clock. ‘It’s twelve o’clock. But say “Can I have lunch?” rather than “Give me”. Sit at the table and I’ll make you a sandwich.’
The promise of food settled Reece and I quickly made a ham sandwich, which he ate while I unpacked the food into the cupboards and fridge-freezer. As soon as he’d finished he was out of his seat and orchestrating one of his plane landings or shark attacks. I made a hasty sandwich for myself, took it into the living room and ate it while reading Reece some stories. He was quiet again and the incident of the sweets had now been forgotten. I wouldn’t say anything more about them now, but next time we went shopping I would remind him that things in the shops only became ours when we paid for them.
Sadly, Reece wasn’t the first child I had come across whose parents had primed their child to thieve as though they were modern-day equivalents of Fagin. Sometimes it had been out of necessity — there was no food in the house and the benefit money wasn’t due until the following week. Sometimes it had been for more expensive items like iPods, jewellery and CDs, where the easiest option was to take the item rather than save up for it as socialized parents teach their children to do. I didn’t know enough of Reece’s home situation to know whether it was from necessity or greed he had been trained to steal and then rewarded with sweets, but clearly I would have to be more alert in future, because I still had absolutely no idea when he had slipped the sweets into his coat pocket. His technique had clearly been well designed and I suspected well practised.
The afternoon passed with me reading Reece more books and then with me beside him, painting and Play-Doh. This was interspersed with him zooming around when there was a break in the activity. Reece repeatedly asked if he could have his television on and I repeatedly explained that he had lost half an hour of his television time for his behaviour in the car, and that he could have it on at four o’clock instead of 3.30 when the pre-school programmes began.
When Lucy and Paula returned, I briefly took them aside and, having asked them how their day had gone, told them of Reece’s comment that morning after he’d kissed them goodbye. I didn’t need to say anything more: they knew the implications of having a sexually aware child in the house, and they also knew the guidelines we all had to follow. We followed the ‘safer caring’ guidelines anyway, with any fostered child, but if there were issues over possible sexual abuse or even inappropriate television watching which had made the child sexually aware, we were even more careful. So, for example, bedtime stories were read downstairs, not in the child’s bedroom, and kisses and cuddles were given downstairs, with the child at our side, not on our laps or face to face. It’s sad, really, because we naturally hug and kiss our own children without a second thought, but with a child who has been sexually abused, or has come from a highly sexualized and inappropriate home life, even the most innocent of hugs or kisses (like those the girls had allowed Reece that morning) can be misinterpreted. Reece would still be having his hugs and kisses — he was after all a little seven-year-old — but there would always be someone else present and we would be just that bit more careful so that nothing could be misconstrued by him.
Jill phoned just after 5.00 p.m. and I updated her, and before I went to bed I wrote up my log notes. That night I lay in bed contemplating and worrying over the day’s events, and I wondered how well I had handled everything that had happened — from Reece’s hyperactive behaviour, to the stealing, and of course his comments about giving the