Blood Family by Anne Fine

Sometimes I must have seemed quite thick.
    And all the while, Rob Reed kept ‘dropping in’ and ‘passing by’, doing his job. His questions were differentnow. How did I feel about the Steads? Did I get on with Alice? Did I know she was adopted too? I did realize, didn’t I, that I couldn’t stay with Linda and Alan, but that the Steads would like to have me in their family. For good. Did I know what that meant? How did I think my mother (whom he had taken to calling Lucy all the time, even to me) would feel about that? Did I think she’d be glad that I was settled? Had I seen the new school?
    It seemed to me that my new life was one long answering of questions. And, maybe because of Harris, I’d never learned the knack of looking honestly inside myself to find a real answer. All that I ever did was say what I thought would sound right. Often that was as easy as when Miss Bright asked, ‘What’s four times five?’ and out came the answer, ‘Twenty.’ After all, if someone says, ‘You can’t stay where you are. So do you think you can be happy with these kind, smiling people offering you a home?’ a child like me would never in a hundred years have realized that he could say ‘No’.
    Not that I thought that I would be unhappy. I didn’t know how other people ticked, but I remember nothing, way back then, of tranquil, quiet feelings like simple happiness. I did feel triumph, yes. The very first time I managed to catch a really fat, wobbling rainbow bubble back on the plastic wand without popping it. Brilliant! Learning to work myself up on the park swings without a starter push, and sweeping my hair backwards along the ground in glorious celebration. And, joy of joys, finallygetting the knack of balancing on a bike. I still recall the rush of pride. I couldn’t sleep for longing for the morning, when I could pull the bike out of the shed again. Each skill tucked under my belt made me feel just a little more like everyone else, and moved me gradually further and further away from my old life in Harris’s flat, making me safer and safer.
    Yes, feeling safe was at the root of it.
    That’s why I’d fallen in love with Linda and Alan. I didn’t care that they were old. I didn’t care that everyone at school thought they were my nana and grandpa. I trusted them to protect me. I didn’t even care that sometimes in the night the doorbell rang, and in the morning there would be a huddled, heavily breathing mound in the spare bed, or some pale girl with blurry blue tattoos screaming obscenities at Alan in the hall, or some other child my age mimicking me across the kitchen table as I ate, or snarling at Linda. These passing visitors could be as loud and nasty as they liked. There was a far, far deeper fear for me than their aggression – that, if I left Linda and Alan, things might work out so I ended up back with my mother.
    It was the thought of that which made me sick with fright.
    So happiness was nowhere in my mind, and I could easily agree with Rob that Nicholas was warm and loving, and Natasha endlessly smiling and kind. I suppose wheels turned. I know I had a special session withEleanor. And Rob explained the panel had decided that I could see my mother even after the papers were signed.
    ‘Will I be sent to stay with her?’
    I reckon Rob knew perfectly well what I was thinking. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Never. Definitely not. You will be able to visit Lucy. But never on your own. And you can’t stay the night.’
    ‘Not ever?’
    ‘No. Of course, so long as everything goes well, you can write letters and send cards and things. But as for seeing Lucy, the panel were quite clear. No sleepovers. Day visits only. And never on your own.’
    And that, in my young book, was that. Done deal.
    There were more overnight stays with Nicholas and Natasha. My bike and clothes seemed gradually to drift across to their house. It was agreed I’d stay for two last weeks with Linda and Alan because Miss Bright had