Another placement. Another stranger. Another house that wasn’t mine.
I was placed with a new foster mother — just her and me. No other children. Just us.
The house smelled odd. A mix of faded patchouli, old sadness, and Imperial Leather soap. I walked in gingerly, I didn’t know what to expect.
It was a nice enough house, and being here meant I was closer to my maternal grandmother — my mum’s mum. She was ace. Childlike in the best way. Funny. Naughty. A die-hard Walt Disney fan. She could make magic out of the mundane. If she stood just right in her flat, the radio signal would cut out. She’d chuckle madly. I’ll come back to her story one day. She deserves her own chapter.
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My new room was off a study — the weirdest layout. A door to the left, a door to the right. Mine was the right. It didn’t matter. I unpacked in silence and perched on the bed, trying to make peace with the new reality.
Another clean house. Immaculately so. Sterile, even. I was in for two shocks.
The first: she worked at the local school.
The second: she told me she was a teacher.
Brilliant. Watched at home, watched at school. Just what every kid dreams of. Not.
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Every day after school, she’d interrogate me about my behaviour. The teachers were “keeping an eye,” she said. I was seven — but even then, the alarm bells starting ringing.
Then came the chore list. If I wanted pocket money, I had to earn it. Twenty jobs. Twenty. It struck me that she was being paid to take me in, and I was being put to work like a maid. Still, I didn’t mind the chores too much. It gave me an excuse not to be in the sitting room with her.
The sitting room just screamed ‘Teacher, rows of books standing proudly on shelves, potted plants, a piano in the corner, and a TV hidden in a cabinet like she was trying to hide the fact she even owned one. It was a room of silence and not a room for talking.
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One day, I was sitting quietly in there, trying not to breathe too loud. I shifted and let out a tiny fart. If she’d just had the TV on, I could’ve blamed it on the cat and moved on. But no. She heard it. Her face twisted in outrage like I’d defiled the Queen’s own cushions.
She banished me to the hallway. Told me to face the wall. For a tiny fart!
Though I couldn’t help but giggle at the absurdity — I was in the hallway breathing in old soap while she sat marinating in the scent of my packed lunch and her own disapproval.
After that, I wasn’t allowed back in there. Not even for a minute.
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I came home, did homework in the study, ticked off my chore list, ate in silence, and went to bed.
I wrote in a diary about how much I hated it there. She found it.
She read it.
She questioned me like a detective and took it away.
I never kept a diary again.
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The weeks passed. My routine was school, chores, escape. I started playing outside with the local kids. They invited me to Sunday school — not because I was religious, but because it meant I didn’t have to be in that house.
Then one Sunday, I came home and the door was locked. I knocked. No answer. Checked the back. Still nothing. Her car was gone.
I waited for hours on the step. When she finally returned, she didn’t say a word. Just unlocked the door and carried on like she hadn’t left a child stranded.
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School became my escape. I leaned into music — any instrument I could get my hands on. It gave me a purpose, a sound to fill the silence.
Eventually, even she seemed to give up. She stopped caring. So I stopped trying. Stopped doing chores. Stopped speaking unless spoken to. I was sick of being treated like I should be seen and not heard.
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Then came the film.
She said she’d bought something for us to watch together. I was excited — maybe she was finally going to open that cabinet and fire up the forbidden telly.
She put on Annie.
A musical about an orphan in a children’s home.
She looked at me and said,
“You should watch this. Because you’re moving to a children’s home. If you thought this place was bad, mark my words — a children’s home will be ten times worse.”
She watched my face crumble. And I swear — she smiled.
To this day, I can’t watch Annie. It sends me right back, as if I’m seven again.
I lay in bed that night, trying to imagine what came next. The film made it look like we’d be in huge dormitories, cleaning floors with toothbrushes. Just work and rules and silence. I didn’t understand how I’d ended up here.
We’d left our family home after my dad died. Moved to a council house. Then my mum became cruel. Four kids, all torn apart — me, snatched from school, turned into an instant urban legend. Passed to a foster family who were only marginally better than her. Then handed off to the real-life Grotbags. And now — a children’s home.
I genuinely didn’t know what I’d done so wrong to deserve this.
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