LITMIR.BIZ

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a little from the meeting and he was now wearing blue jeans with a yellow sweater.

      ‘Come through to the living room so we can have a chat,’ I said, leading the way down the hall.

      ‘It’s just like in your photographs,’ he said, looking around as we went. ‘Very nice.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘Oh! You’ve got a cat, how delightful!’ he cried as we entered the living room. Sammy, who was still nervous of strangers, shot off the sofa and out of the room. ‘Oh, he’s gone.’ Stevie looked hurt.

      ‘Don’t worry. He’ll be back. Sit down.’

      He settled on the sofa while I took one of the easy chairs.

      ‘Does Verity know you’re here?’

      ‘Gran phoned her,’ he said, flicking back his fringe and crossing one leg over the other. He didn’t appear particularly anxious; in fact, he looked quite at home on the sofa.

      ‘OK, I’ll need to talk to Verity. If she doesn’t phone soon, I’ll call her. Do you want anything to eat or drink?’ I always ask new arrivals this, as some of them haven’t eaten properly for days if they’ve come from homes where they’ve been neglected.

      ‘I’m good, thanks,’ he said. ‘Gran cooked me breakfast before I left. I can stay here, can’t I? I mean, for now.’

      ‘I don’t see why not, the room is free, but it’s not my decision. Verity will need to decide. It’s a foster placement. It’s not like a hotel where you can check in and out.’

      ‘She’ll be fine with it,’ he said confidently, smoothing his jeans.

      ‘So what happened at home? I thought you and your grandparents were going to give it another go.’

      ‘We did.’ He sighed theatrically. ‘It was cool for a day, everyone was on their best behaviour, until I got ready to go out on New Year’s Eve. Well, I mean, you get dressed up to go clubbing, don’t you?’ He pursed his lips indignantly.

      ‘Clubbing! A nightclub?’ I asked, shocked.

      ‘Yes. I’ve been before,’ he said defensively.

      ‘But you’re only fourteen. You’re not allowed into nightclubs.’

      ‘Nearly fifteen,’ he corrected. ‘I look older.’ Which was true.

      ‘Don’t the clubs ask for proof of age?’

      He smiled. ‘Of course. Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve got a fake ID off the internet.’ I should have guessed – I’d heard this before. But I would be telling his social worker. It was unsafe behaviour for a boy of fourteen to be in a nightclub, and if I was going to be his foster carer I had a duty to pass this on, but I’d explain all that later.

      ‘It’s a straight and gay club where I can be myself,’ he added, and watched me for my reaction.

      ‘That’s irrelevant,’ I said. ‘A lad of your age shouldn’t be in a nightclub at all, which I’m guessing is what your grandparents said.’

      ‘I didn’t tell them where I was going. It was when Grandpa saw me all dressed up ready to go out with my eye glitter on that he blew his top. He said if I went out looking like that I needn’t come back. So I didn’t. I just went home this morning for some of my things.’

      ‘So you were missing from New Year’s Eve?’

      ‘Yes,’ he said almost proudly. ‘Gran kept leaving messages on my voicemail. The last one said the police were out looking for me.’ His eyes lit up at the drama of it all.

      ‘I would think they were worried sick. Where were you all that time?’

      ‘After the club closed I went back to a friend’s pad to crash.’

      ‘If you are going to live with me, there will be rules and boundaries.’ Best say it now, I thought, for I was concerned by his attitude.

      ‘Not too many rules, I hope,’ he said, flicking back his fringe again.

      ‘No, just enough to keep you and everyone here safe. What did your grandfather say when you returned this morning?’

      ‘He wasn’t there, just Gran. He’d taken Liam and Kiri to the park with their bikes. They both had new bikes for Christmas.’

      I nodded. ‘And what did you get for Christmas?’

      ‘Money for clothes. Can I see my room now?’

      ‘In a minute. I’ll phone Verity first and make sure you can stay. She may have other plans for you.’

      ‘I’m not going back home,’ he said, his face setting. ‘She can’t make me.’

      ‘Let’s see what she has to say.’ I picked up the handset from the corner unit and pressed the social services’ number.

      Verity was now at her desk. ‘I was about to phone you,’ she said. ‘Has Stevie arrived?’

      ‘Yes. About ten minutes ago.’

      ‘He can stay, but I’ll need to place him. I’m in a meeting soon so I’ll come over later, around three. Can you keep him in until I arrive?’

      ‘Yes.’

      We said goodbye. ‘She said you can stay,’ I said to Stevie. ‘I’ll show you around the house.’

      ‘Thank you so much,’ he said, and came over and kissed my cheek.

      Usually when a new child arrives it is with their social worker, so I show them around the house together, as the social worker needs to see where the child is living, but Stevie was keen to look now, so I’d show Verity around later when she arrived. I began with the room we were in, pointing out the television, and explained how we tended to relax in here in the evenings and weekends.

      ‘Do you have wi-fi?’ Stevie asked, taking his phone from the pocket of his jeans.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Can I have the password?’

      ‘I don’t know the code off by heart, it’ll be on the router in the front room. I’ll give it to you in a moment when we go in there.’

      ‘You know about the internet and stuff?’ he asked.

      ‘A reasonable amount, yes,’ I said.

      ‘Gran and Grandpa don’t. I had to use my phone credit to get online cos he kept switching off the router at night. He thought it would catch fire.’ He raised his eyebrows in exasperation.

      ‘We all have different ways of doing things,’ I said, and led the way into our kitchen-diner. To a younger person who’d grown up with computers, routers and mobile phones, switching off the wi-fi at night would seem ludicrous, but not to someone of Fred and Peggy’s generation.

      While we were in the kitchen I took the opportunity to ask Stevie if he had any special dietary needs or was allergic to anything. It’s something the social worker would tell me in respect of a younger child.

      ‘No, I eat most things,’ he said easily.

      ‘Excellent,’ I smiled.

      We left the kitchen-diner and went down the hall and into the front room. ‘I call it a quiet room,’ I said. ‘You can read and do your homework in here or in your room, whatever you prefer. The computer and printer are here too,’ I said, pointing. These were now considered essential items in a foster carer’s home.

      ‘And there’s the router,’ Stevie said, spotting the hub on the bookshelf. I didn’t have to read out the passcode, as he beat me to it. Going over, he entered the code and began tapping away at the keypad on his phone as if his life depended on it. I watched him for a while as his

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