Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [30]
‘Come on,’ Mum said, and we ran over the road, holding hands. I didn’t know where we were going, but that didn’t matter. I’d have followed that woman anywhere.
About ten minutes later we arrived outside a familiar door. Our own flat. I’d been so close for so long and never suspected. In a way that made me feel even worse.
I couldn’t wait to get inside. I’d been away for nearly three months. I just wanted to be home again. I didn’t care what the social workers said; this is where I wanted to be. As freezing cold as it was, this is where I felt safest.
We went into the lounge and kept our coats on till Mum got the fire going. Then she lit a cigarette from the flames – one of the special herbal ones I used to roll for Mark – and we both fell back onto the sofa. Suddenly, though, Mum leapt up.
‘I nearly forgot, I’ve got some things for you!’
‘Happy birthday, Cathy,’ she said, and pulled two presents out of her bag. For that second, I was so happy I thought I was going to burst.
‘You remembered!’
‘Of course I remembered.’
As I tore off the wrapping, I didn’t care what was inside – which was just as well. The longer, more interesting-looking gift was a blue, plastic baseball bat.
Okay, fine. Thanks.
The other one was a jumbo colouring book. On the face of it a much better present, except I didn’t have a single colouring pen to my name. I never had.
‘Thanks, Mum, they’re wonderful,’ I said, and flung my arms round her neck. That’s when I saw the cat prowling behind us. Without hesitating, I screwed the wrapping into a ball and threw it for the cat to play with.
She loved it. I’m sure she thought it was a mouse, the way she was leaping all over it. Cats have such a way of waiting and then pouncing, leaping up in the air like they’ve had 4,000 volts through them. Mum and I were soon in hysterics at her antics. You don’t need a television when you have a cat pawing paper all over the floor. But then she took a massive swipe and knocked it into the fire.
That wasn’t the problem. As soon as it fell into the flames, the paper began to open slowly in the heat and a second later it floated out of the fire and onto the carpet.
I hadn’t seen Mum move so quickly since the police had appeared at the door. She leapt up and grabbed the first thing she could reach to put out the smouldering paper. It just happened to be my baseball bat. She smacked the wrapping paper again and again, then, when she was sure it was out, she whacked it back into the fire, prodding it into the heart of the flames for good measure. All of which had a terrible effect on the bat.
In her desperation to extinguish the fire, Mum hadn’t noticed the bat getting hotter and hotter until the end actually began to melt. By the time she’d finished, it was completely unrecognizable.
I had to laugh. I’d only ever received two birthday presents from Mum that I could remember in my whole life – and she had just destroyed one of them. As for the other one – a colouring book with no means to colour in – well, she may as well have that for fire food.
But I didn’t care. Just seeing her would have been enough. Actually being together in our flat was more than I could ever have dreamed. I genuinely believed I was the luckiest girl in the world.
For the first time in months I slept through the night and woke with a smile on my face. It didn’t stay there long. Standing over me was a man in dark clothing. As my eyes began to focus, I realized it was a police uniform. And next to him, there was Mum. The policeman spoke.
‘If you’d just like to get up and ready, miss,’ he said, ‘I’d be happy to drive you back to your home.’
I could have screamed.
Don’t you understand? This is my home! I don’t want to go back.
‘You can’t make me go,’ I shouted. ‘I won’t go.’
But, Mum explained reluctantly, they could make me go – and they did.
SIX
Don’t Touch Me
I don’t know whether someone decided to give Mum another chance or whether the warrant was only due to run for a certain period. Maybe my foster parents got sick of me. Whatever the reason, release day came