Mummy’s Little Girl: A heart-rending story of abuse, innocence and the desperate race to save a lost child. Jane Elliott
was breathing heavily now. ‘The girls here,’ she said, ‘the ones I’m sharing with – they said everyone gets told they’re going home soon, but they never do.’
‘Don’t listen to them, Dani. Everyone’s going to do their best for you, and you’ll be looked after properly here.’
Dani suddenly felt cold. She removed her hand from Kate’s grip and wrapped her arms around her own body. She wished Kate would go, just leave her room – leave her life and never come back. Every time she saw her, she acted as though she was there to make things better for her; and yet every time she made things a little bit worse. Dani was not prone to hatred, yet in that moment she felt she hated the social worker, sitting there and pretending she was performing acts of kindness.
‘I think I’d like to be left on my own now,’ Dani said.
Kate nodded. ‘All right, Dani. I’ll come and see you again soon. I’ll go and explain to Christian everything that’s going on.’ She stood and looked as if she was about to say something else; but at the last moment she appeared to think better of it, and left the room.
Dani didn’t know how long it was that she sat there, hugging herself, staring into space and feeling as though her heart would break, but it was a long time and she barely moved. Wild thoughts went through her head – thoughts that she had never entertained before. Perhaps she could run away, run back home. If her mum saw her on the doorstep, perhaps she would have a change of heart. Deep down, though, she knew that probably wasn’t the case, and the sting of that rejection pierced her to the core.
She just wanted something to hold on to. Something familiar. Comfortable. Gently she pulled back the duvet to see the tattered remains of her teddy bear – the one thing she had with her that reminded her of home. And now that too was spoiled.
Just then there was a knock on the door; it was opened without Dani giving a reply, and Christian was there. Quickly Dani threw the duvet back over the bed.
‘Ah, Dani,’ Christian announced. ‘There you are. How is everything, my love? Settling in?’
Dani looked down at the floor, but didn’t answer. Christian seemed to consider that for a moment before he spoke again. ‘I’ve never met a girl,’ he said with a smile, ‘who doesn’t like hot chocolate. Do you like hot chocolate, my love?’
Dani nodded.
‘Come on, then,’ Christian smiled. ‘Come to my room and we’ll see what we can find.’
Christian’s quarters were scrupulously neat, if a little shabby. The walls were covered with books, and there was a modern stereo player and a TV in the corner, as well as a sofa and a couple of other comfy chairs. Her eyes were immediately caught by a pile of comics at about her height on one of the bookshelves.
Christian noted her interest. ‘Help yourself,’ he said, but Dani immediately looked away.
At one end of the room there was a door, which Dani presumed led to his bedroom, but it was firmly shut. He indicated a place on the sofa. ‘Sit down, my love,’ he said as he switched on a kettle that was sitting on a low table. He spooned some brown powder into a mug, poured on the boiling water and handed the mug to Dani. Then he sat down next to her.
Neither of them spoke for a little while. Christian just watched her intently as she sipped the steaming hot drink. It made her feel a bit uncomfortable.
‘Thank you,’ she said diffidently after a couple of minutes, more to break the silence than anything else.
‘That’s all right, my love,’ Christian replied. ‘You can come here any time, day or night. I mean that, my love. Any time.’
Dani nodded and went back to sipping her hot chocolate.
‘If you feel like a cuddle,’ he persisted, his voice much quieter now. ‘Or anything else.’ He carried on staring at her.
As Dani took another sip of her hot chocolate, she felt his fingers brush lightly against her bruised face. They were fat and sausage-like, the skin strangely dry. Instinctively, Dani moved her head away, and she became immediately aware that the atmosphere had turned awkward.
Christian stood up. ‘I wondered if it still hurt,’ he said by way of explanation as he walked back to the kettle and screwed the lid of the hot chocolate powder back on. He looked over at Dani. ‘Nearly finished?’ he asked.
Dani hadn’t, but she understood the tone of his voice and quickly put the cup down on a coffee table and stood up.
‘Lunch at one o’clock,’ he told her. ‘I’ll see you there.’
Dani nodded, and quickly left.
At lunch it was only her and the grown-ups. She was invited to sit at their table, but she didn’t speak to them, and Christian barely even looked in her direction. For Dani, it couldn’t end quickly enough, and she was grateful to be able to go back to her room and sit on the bed, where she listened to the persistent rain falling outside. She willed the afternoon to pass slowly, but time flew and soon she heard the sound of the other children coming back from school. She was still sitting on the bed when Kaz and Vicki burst in.
They were shouting at someone down the corridor, and as they fell into the room, they laughed boisterously. At first they seemed not even to notice Dani, but when they realised that she was sitting there watching them, their smiles fell from their faces.
‘Still here?’ Vicki asked spitefully. ‘Not gone home to Mummy yet?’
‘Surprise surprise,’ Kaz added.
‘I wish you hadn’t ruined my bear,’ Dani said.
The two girls looked at each other. ‘Who said it was us?’
Dani shrugged.
Vicki stepped up to her. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘you go telling anyone things like that, and we’ll give you a bruise on the other side of your face. So you’d better shut it.’
Dani clamped her lips tightly shut. As she did so, Vicki tapped her three times on the bruised side of her face with the flat of her hand. Dani winced, but that just made Vicki and Kaz giggle. They continued giggling as they left the room.
The evening passed slowly. Dani remained in her room, apart from at dinnertime, when, as before, nobody spoke to her. Even Christian refrained from coming up and offering her a cheerful word, though he cast the occasional glance in her direction while they were eating. After dinner, part of Dani longed to go into the day room and watch the others playing snooker and table tennis, to try to chat to someone or maybe even just look at a magazine; but no one asked her, and she was too unsure of herself to brave being with the others of her own accord. So she went back to her bedroom. Her little prison. It seemed to her that she would spend the rest of her life sitting on that bed.
She brushed her teeth and washed her face before anyone else started getting ready for bed – that way, she would be able to avoid any encounters in the bathroom. She would have liked a bath, but the lack of privacy prevented her. Maybe tomorrow, when everyone else was at school, she’d be able to; but just now the idea of taking her clothes off in front of the other girls sent a shiver down her spine. Once she had washed, she got into her pyjamas, climbed into bed and waited for the inevitable onslaught from her two room-mates as soon as they arrived.
It was gone eight o’clock when Kaz and Vicki sauntered into the room. For once they were silent, and although they cast the occasional scornful look over at Dani as she lay beneath her duvet, they didn’t make any of the comments that she was expecting. They just got ready for bed, turned the lights out and fell silent.
As soon as the lights went out, Dani pulled her covers over her head and retreated once more into her little cave of darkness, and for the first time that day, she felt a moment of comfort.
It didn’t last long.
It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes before they charged into the room. In the darkness, Dani couldn’t tell how many