Part Eight – Toasted Lizards and Brand New Kitchens

So, following the exit of my brothers into the big wide world, the choice was made to go and see if I could live in foster care again, at the age of 14, still searching for a place to feel like home.

I didn’t move far, you could see my old bedroom window from my new one and that was a comfort, I wasn’t far away if I needed anything, and I could still visit, right?

They seemed nice enough. My foster mother worked as a teaching assistant in a local school, (not one I attended thankfully) She was a small lady, but plump and cuddly too, My foster father worked as a fabricator welder and was tall and thin in comparison.

He was really proud of his work though, and every time we went past the local sporting arena he would retell the tale of how he made the gates and how he had engraved his name on them somewhere.

They had 3 grown-up children, a daughter who worked in the local toy shop but who had left home, She had moved out to buy a house with her partner, a little fixer-upper, which she loved. Their house was a little bare but they were looking forward to building the dream together.

The eldest son worked for Sainsbury’s and his bedroom was opposite mine, he was rarely home though, he had a busy social life too. He would sometimes let me in to see his cherished pets, his 2 lizards.

The youngest was ever so clever. He’d show me a calculator that seemed to speak another language and he understood it perfectly. He was most certainly going places, he was easy to speak to, we got on okay, no issues with him at all.

To cement my place in the house I was allowed to pick out new decor for my bedroom and furniture to go in it, I remember going to the local mfi store and looking at all the options, I chose matching furniture, I had a pale grey midi sleeper with a little desk that pulled out from underneath, a matching wardrobe too, I picked out wallpaper to compliment it and pale greyish lilac paint to finish it off. I even got to help my foster father put it all together. It was perfect.

I was still at the mainstream high school at this point, I don’t mind the trek, I handled bus travel just fine and I enjoyed my freedom greatly. In earned my pocket money doing an early morning paper round, but I really didn’t enjoy the early 5am starts before school so the younger foster brother talked me into taking over his round, it was about 400 papers, and what felt like 15 miles of walking, but it only meant delivering for one day of the week so that was much better.

There was just one problem. I had to run past the house of one of my brother’s mates. He was about 17 at the time, really into motorbikes and always had a gaggle of mates hanging around with him, all fiddling about with their machines and trying to look cool, and then there was me. Flushing crimson from embarrassment and laden for my maiden voyage, a day glow trolley filled to the brim with papers and two day glo sacks I had to carry slung over each side of me with the straps crossing over my chest, I looked like a psychedelic donkey.

Running the gauntlet past my brother’s friends was something that always made me flush bright red, they took the mick every single time and the only time I ever got by unscathed was on the odd time it was raining, but I’d rather the taunts to the rain if I was completely honest.

Around this time I was still attending youth club, my best friend and I also hung out with another lad that I briefly dated but he was a little bit weird. He was really into his tarot cards and looked like he wouldn’t be out of place on the film set of the vampire film The Lost Boys.

He kept going on about this dead person he was claiming to speak to as if he had conjured up some ancient soul, till the day I pointed out that Leo Sayers was still very much alive and kicking and he must have gotten his psychic connections in a twist!

Life had a familiar routine to it though, school in the week, my delivery round, dodging the gauntlet of my brothers mates and youth club to hang out with my 2 best friends of the time, Saturdays would be the day my foster mother would take me into town, it had the same flavour every week, we would walk down to the local bus stop, catch the bus into town, get something to eat and look at the shops, and then down to Sainsbury’s to do a massive food shop and then my foster father would pick us up like clockwork every time, it was familiar. Predictable. Safe.

Only the older I got the more freedom I wanted, I may have been around 13/14 at the time but I felt so much older, wiser, and street smart than my years and I started to rebel against the tightening of rules that seemed to only serve to contain me and keep me locked in a cage, not literally, but I really felt like I was being kept in against my will. So I started staying out long after curfew, coming home when they were at work, it just seemed the easiest way to dodge yet another argument about my schooling and my general life and what I was doing with it.

On one of these particular days I was home in the daytime, all by myself, imagining this was my own home and just enjoying the peace and enjoying the freedom to be by myself, it was midweek and my favourite time to be there because weekends also meant family tv night, and I really didn’t want to sit and watch animal porn with two people in their fifties.

This day in particular the sun was shining, the patio doors open to let the sunshine radiate through the house, welcoming the summer in. I decided I’d get some lunch and have a lazy afternoon, I grabbed some noodles and cooked them just the way I liked them, just the toast to go.

Then came the noise of the cat. See my foster parents had the biggest arsehole of a cat I’ve ever met. It looked all cute and fluffy, it would stretch out as if to invite you to go give it some fuss and tickle its tummy, but the dam thing was part cat, part wolverine I’m sure, because it would entice you in with cute and fluff and if you even dared reach towards it it would swipe at you and hiss, the thing left many a battle mark in me from my few attempts at trying to befriend it.

So there it was, meowing at the front door to go out, I didn’t want it to pee on the floor or worse, so I let the cat out, still a lovely sunny day, I stepped outside for a moment to soak it in and then next thing I heard was the sound of the front door slamming immediately behind me.

I panicked. My front door key was in the house, no way to get round the back, this was when mobiles were very much in their infancy and I didn’t have one, the local phone box was some distance from the house and I had no change, but worst of all, it was mid day. I was supposed to be at school. So I sat on the wall debating what to do next when I was suddenly shaken from my daydream.

Through the kitchen window all of a sudden I just seen yellow and orange flames licking at the kitchen window and engulfing the window in seconds, before I knew it the fire had spread to the rest of the kitchen and black smoke started to force its way out of the venting and in sheer panic I ran down to the kids home to get them to ring the fire brigade, who swiftly arrived to put the inferno out.

I felt so bad about it. There I was at home when I was meant to be at school, and I thought I was grown up enough to handle making a meal by myself, I really didn’t understand why they were so upset, see they were always talking about how they’d like to rip the kitchen out and get a new one, this gave them the perfect opportunity to do just that!

Only they absolutely didn’t see it the same way, they packed my stuff and said I was never to come back, I handed in my key and I left. I never spoke to any of them again.

All I knew is that it just didn’t matter. Whether I tried my hardest or not, I felt like nothing I did was ever right. Clearly they weren’t going to make me into another carbon copy of their creation, I’d never be as good as their kids. They were more worried about 2 stupid lizards to care if I was okay.

See I’d spent a lifetime feeling like I was the embodiment of the scene in The Muppet’s Christmas Carol, the one where he’s outside the house in the cold snow in the dark, watching the family all happily enjoying their meal together all laughing and happy, but I always seemed to end up the one left out in the cold.

So a few more temporary placements later, the decision was made. Back into a Children’s Home.

Only this one was different.

This one was in preparation to start life post-16.. Out there on my own.

Missed a bit?

← Part Seven – Finally Reunited With My Brothers

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→ A Brief Interlude

Part Seven – Finally Reunited With My Brothers

Finally, after years of waiting, the time had come.

I’m around the age of 12 or 13 at this point, finally getting the chance to reunite with my two brothers. I’d barely got to see them growing up — the only real comfort I had was knowing they were together. If nothing else, they had each other.

My brothers are older than I am — three and four years older. My eldest brother, when I last knew him, was kind and gentle, loved animals, quiet, but always my biggest brother. I didn’t quite know how to take this person who had grown in his place. I was expecting my brother to still be in there — I guess he was, somewhere — but the kindness and the gentle had been replaced with moody, chain-wearing, pierced-to-the-eyeballs heavy metal music fan. I looked into his eyes as if I was trying to find the brother I knew in there, but he just nodded, “Alright, sis?” and then disappeared off out with his mates, and that was that.

I was confused. I expected him to welcome me with a hug and some kind of mention of having missed me — but it didn’t come. I got to know my brother instead from the other side of my bedroom wall, from the music he played loudly in the room next to mine. If I couldn’t connect with him in person, I’d connect through music, and that’s kind of how it went.

My other brother was more chatty, but he had also changed. In place of the brother I’d known — the one I occasionally spoke to on the phone — was someone who thought taking the mickey out of me and insulting me was the way to show brotherly love. But it annoyed me hugely.

We had a proper argument once. He was laid on the sofa chanting his usual taunts. I lost my temper, threw a pool cue at him like it was a javelin — only I missed him and it went straight through a window. He laughed mercilessly. Me? I got pocket money of just £1.65 a week and it took me about three months to pay for the damages. I was heartbroken, to be honest. I’d uprooted the life I knew for a chance to finally be with them, and the reception I received was frosty at best.

I wasn’t really introduced to their friends, more just mildly mentioned like I was a new responsibility they hadn’t agreed to. I didn’t want anything from them — not looking to be looked after — I just longed to connect after all the years apart. I started to regret my choice. The rejection never even crossed my mind as a possibility, and I wished I’d thought twice about it.

Still, I tried. I was confused by the coldness I met. But I was back in mainstream school, and I had work to do — especially as I had to repeat the first year. I’d left my old school in Year 8 and here I was, forced to do a do-over I never asked for. It was a double blow. I’d worked so hard for this chance — not just in my education, but in the hope of rebuilding family — and it all turned out to be completely different than I’d imagined. So I forged my own path.

I joined a local youth club and made new friends. It’s there I met my best friend, his older brother (whom I dated on and off for a while), and his best friend (someone I also dated now and then). I didn’t tend to get on with girls much — all that time in boarding school with far more boys than girls meant I just found them easier to talk to, easier to be around.

My best friend was someone I knew thought a great deal of me. We hung out often. I loved calling in at his house. His family was huge to me — never quiet, always someone around. His mum was warm and inviting — I liked her the moment I met her. Their dad was older, quieter. He ran a magic show and would take his wife with him to do face painting and balloon animals. It was a household I just wished I belonged to. They felt like a proper family, and I loved seeing them any chance I could.

They had younger siblings — both brothers and sisters — and usually if I called, one of the two younger girls would come out to say hello. They were both under five. The older one had this cheeky, giggling soul, brown curls and a mischief about her that I just adored. I imagined how she’d grow up to be this gorgeous young woman one day. She was ace.

The youngest was even more cheeky — maybe two or three at the time. She tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t understand a word she said. My friend explained that as the baby of the family, she didn’t have to try too hard — she’d made up her own language. Even now, I only remember two words: “Mommy” and “Bobbit” — her mum and dad.

Even though she made no sense to me and he was always translating, she was usually butt-naked and running about, and even now I swear my fascination with balloon dogs started with her. That child couldn’t talk to me, but she could twist up a balloon into a dog in seconds flat, like magic. She just fascinated me.

I’d never had younger siblings — I was the baby of the family — so to meet these little people was something really special. They brought little sparks of light into my life.

So for the most part, I hung out with my little circle of friends. Around age 13, I dated my best friend’s older brother on and off. One summer evening, we decided to give each other something you can only give once. It wasn’t quite the dreamy teenage movie moment — a bit awkward, a bit strange — but it felt like sealing our connection somehow.

I got home just in time for curfew. A member of staff clocked the glowing purple love bite on my neck and commented that teenagers shouldn’t be going out getting “things like that.” But something in me had shifted, I felt different. A few weeks later, after a missed period, I started bleeding quite heavily.

I told him at the time, but he didn’t believe me. Thought I made it up — a way to trap him, to keep him. And here I was, rejected again. A familiar theme pulsing through most of my early life.

After that, I started going out more. Met new people. Drifted into a different group. I didn’t really see him much again, though I stayed good friends with his brother for a few years. It just wasn’t the same.

At school, I gave up. Why bother? All the hard work I’d done hadn’t followed me. No one had my records from boarding school. I’d gone from a Level 7b in maths to a 3a — doing the exact same programme. At the pace they taught, I was never going to catch up to what I’d already achieved. I got bored. Fed up of waiting for the rest of the class to catch up with what I’d finished in the first ten minutes.

During this time, my brothers were starting to get on with their own lives. My eldest moved out to live with his girlfriend in another town. The younger followed when he was old enough to get his own place. They stayed close — I was a bit jealous of that. But I understand it now.

I did get to see my sister from time to time. She was the eldest of us all. She’d left our mother’s house as soon as she could and moved in with her boyfriend. I wasn’t a fan of him, but I loved that she’d found her freedom at last. That was something.

School stayed hard. One kid even threatened to get my own brother to beat me up — said I was lying, that he didn’t have a younger sister. When I told my brother, he laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’d never hurt you.”

That was mostly true.

Until the day he hit me so hard in the side of the head, my ears rang.

It was as if all I’d ever known was violence, rejection, and using misbehaviour as my way out when things got too hard. With my brothers gone and me getting older, a decision was made — I was to move to foster parents. Only a short walk from the children’s home, but it felt like a hundred miles away.

But I was getting used to being alone.

Missed a bit?

← Part Six – Emotionally and Behaviourally Disturbed

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→ Part Eight – Toasted Lizards and Brand New Kitchens

Part Six – Emotionally and Behaviourally Disturbed

What fresh hell was this?

So the day came where I started at Boarding School. Not away-for-months kind of boarding, but weekly boarding during the school week — home to The Children’s Home at weekends. I was now known as an EBD kid. Statemented, like I’d been rubber-stamped on the forehead for life. Great.

My first week? I hated it. I was in a class full of boys, all of us what could now be described as a little bit feral.

I tried to run away on day one. I didn’t want to be there. The other kids thought I was weird — the feeling was mutual. Didn’t rate them either, to be honest.

P.E. was football. I hated football. Never played it, didn’t want to. But I was told I had to join in. A few footballs to the face later, I snapped and left. One of the slightly kinder boys who shared my taxi route — decided to join me on my side quest. Newly formed allegiance in tow, we set off… but with no idea where we were or where we were going, and no phones to help, we eventually had to admit defeat and go back.

I don’t know what was worse — that we had to abandon our escape mission… or that no one noticed we were even gone.

At night, I was placed in a dorm with two older girls. Good friends, chatty, already in sync. I was walled off with mismatched wardrobes, listening to their laughter and feeling like I’d been put in a separate orbit. I hadn’t felt that alone in a long time.

Still, I’ll admit — “naughty kid” was a label I wore well, whether I liked it or not. We ran rings around supply teachers. One poor bloke got tied to a chair and pelted with wet paper towels and soggy torpedoes of wet toilet roll. Then we left the classroom on a bit of a declaration of our glory at overthrowing the supply teacher. Funnily enough after that incident, we never did see him again.

It took time to settle. But something unexpected happened — for the first time, my intelligence was noticed. Someone saw *me*. I was moved up a year. It was quiet validation, and I didn’t realise just how rare that was until much later.

I loved maths. I devoured it. Revelled in it. By the time I left, I was three full levels — each with four sub-levels — ahead of my peers. I finally had educational freedom to move at my own pace, no longer held back, no longer waiting.

Evenings were surprisingly bright. We went swimming, explored parks, wandered Woodbury Common’s old war bunkers. Summer nights were best — free, wild, ours.

I moved dorms — this time to a group of four girls. One quiet, barely spoke. Two others more lively. And then there was J.

J was chaos and charisma in equal measure. She had Oceanic blasting in her soul and would try to turn us into a band in the evenings. She was magnetic, loud, and full of life. I watched her in wonder.

But I still didn’t quite fit. That’s when I started smoking. Not because I liked it, but because it got me into a circle. It was currency. Newbies like me played lookout while the rest lit up, dodging staff through the hedgerows.

And that’s when *I saw him*.

The most handsome boy I’d ever laid eyes on.

I’d never felt anything like it — butterflies, and little tweeting birds lit up my mind and full tilt body-flushing rush would sweep over me every time he passed. He was older. He wasn’t a boarder. But he was there each morning, stepping from his taxi like sunlight and ethereal music sounded in my mind at the image before me.

Our paths crossed just enough. He’d smile. Sometimes say “hi.” The most I could manage was a weak squeak back, it was like the most amazing person in my world noticed me and I’d just be there, giddy, unable to keep my brain composed.

I’d spot him in assembly and glance back to see where he was and he’d wink — that was me done for the day. Gone. Jelly-legged and starstruck. It was awesome!

Evenings felt grey without him. I counted down to morning, just for another glimpse. For weeks, months, this played out. I was invisible and glowing all at once.

Then one morning, something changed.

I arrived late. And there he was — tucked just out of sight, out of reach of other eyes. He called me over. Pulled me around the corner. Looked me dead in the eye and kissed me.

My brain left the building.

It became a series of stolen moments. Glances. Secret smiles. And suddenly life was no longer black and white — it was technicolour and HD and I wanted more. To be more. And somehow… I tried.

With therapy, support, and sheer grit, I worked my way back to mainstream school. The ‘normal’ world. My school counsellor was so proud, she hosted a tea party just for me — sandwiches, cake, even pink champagne. Something we’d daydreamed about. I did it. And it felt exactly as magical as I’d imagined.

And then?

I was moved.

Another children’s home. Only this time… I was joining my brothers.

Skipped a bit?

← Part Five – The Children’s Home

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→Part Seven – Finally Reunited With My Brothers

Part Four – The New Foster Parent

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.

⸻

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.

⸻

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.

⸻

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.

⸻

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.

⸻

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.

⸻

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.

⸻

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.

Missed a bit?

←Back to Part Three – A Failed Plan

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→Continue to Part Five – The Children’s Home

Part Three – A Failed Plan

Well. That hit the fan.

I still didn’t understand why I’d been taken.

All I remembered from the day was looking for my school sweatshirt, and then — nothing. Just a sore back and the next moment was like I teleported to class. I tried to make sense of it, but the memory files in my head came up blank.

I really did try to behave. But when your only instructions are things like “just be quiet” or “just do as you’re told”, it’s hard to know what the rules even are. I tried to follow them anyway — and still got called naughty. I couldn’t win.

I was blamed for things I didn’t do. Or didn’t remember doing. But I was the foster kid. Might as well have had it tattooed across my forehead. Everyone seemed to know before I even opened my mouth.

But there were glimmers of light.

The village was tiny — a post office, a pub, a school, a church. There was even an old abandoned cottage that called to me. Every day I’d try to peek inside, daydreaming about what it might’ve looked like when someone lived there. Like it was frozen in time, quietly waiting for someone to notice it still mattered. I felt that way too, sometimes.

⸻

There was food. More than I was used to. Some of it was even delicious.

But then… there was the stew.

The stew deserves its own chapter.

Winter hit, and with it came the same bowl, night after night. Thick gravy, soggy vegetables, and hunks of meat marbled with slimy white fat. I tried. I really did. But one bite sent everything straight back up.

She screamed. Told me I wasn’t leaving the table until I ate every last bit — including the vomit.

So I sat. For hours. Sobbing. Gagging. Pleading silently. The stew didn’t stop. Gag. Retch. Repeat.

It’s not that I didn’t want food. I just couldn’t eat that. And besides — hunger and I were already well acquainted.

⸻

Back home, food had been rare. We always had coffee. Sometimes sugar. Milk if we were lucky. Anything out of date got eaten anyway.

What we did have plenty of — thanks to the pets — was animal food.

My sister Mia was like a mum to me. She’d sneak dog biscuits into her pocket, smear margarine on them, and call them crackers. I remember once eating a pig’s ear because someone said it was like pork scratchings. I didn’t question it. It was food. Sort of.

So no — the stew wasn’t the comforting meal it was meant to be. Even now, at 43, the smell of it can turn my stomach.

⸻

Then one day, the phone rang.

It was my brother. Shouting. Accusing. Saying I’d asked to be adopted. That I wanted to stay with this family. That I’d chosen them over him, over all of them.

I was horrified. I hadn’t said anything like that.

But later, I found out the truth.

It was my mother. She was the one considering putting me up for adoption.

And something inside me just… snapped.

My sister was still at home. My brothers were in care together, And me? I was too naughty for my mum, too naughty for the foster family, too much for everyone. I didn’t fit anywhere. I wasn’t wanted anywhere.

So I made a plan. A childish, desperate plan.

If being naughty had got me taken away, maybe being really naughty would get me sent back.

It didn’t work.

I told my foster mum I wanted to run away. She smirked and asked if I wanted a packed lunch.

Two years passed like that.

Then one day, a social worker appeared.

“We’re moving you,” they said.

I thought — finally. I thought I’d done it. My plan had worked.

But I was wrong.

What I got… was worse.

Missed a bit?

←Part Two – The Holiday That Never Ended

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→Part Four – The New Foster Home

Part One – 150. An Early Memory I Didn’t Ask To Keep

⚠️ Content Warning: This post contains descriptions of child abuse and trauma. Please take care while reading.

One of my earliest memories is the day I was divorced from my mother.

Not quite, but almost, actually.

I couldn’t find the school sweatshirt she had bought for me. Running late for school — the youngest of four — that would be me. I’m the little pain in the backside. The mess-maker. The mistake that wasn’t meant to happen. I was the gratitude I never gave my mother for existing.

I don’t remember the actual act, but I remember everything that followed.

At school, my back was sore.

I rubbed it to try and comfort myself, and my teacher noticed I wasn’t quietly working. She asked what was wrong. I innocently replied, “My back is a bit sore.” She lifted the back of my top and let out a small gasp. I would later learn that gasp was horror.

I was taken immediately from class. No idea where I was going or what I’d done wrong. My brain decided it was punishment. I must’ve been naughty. Extra naughty, knowing me.

They led me to another room. Another adult appeared. Another look at my back. Hushed tones. I couldn’t hear what they whispered to each other, but I imagined them calling my mother. Maybe she would show up and explain and then everything would be okay?

She didn’t.

Instead, I was put into a car. “We’re going to see a doctor,” they said. Maybe I was sick? I sure didn’t feel sick. Just really sore.

At the doctor’s, I was told to strip to my underwear. A man I’d never met looked inquisitively over the back of my bony frame. I remember being grateful my sister had found clean knickers for me. I stood there, not knowing what to expect next. Just every so vulnerable and totally scared.

Then I heard counting.

He was counting something on my body.

The number I remember is: 150.

That was the number of bruises on my tiny body.

I later would learn that my mother had used a Henry Hoover pipe and battered me with it, I was quite literally black and blue.

I’d be an adult when I’d discover that that day, I became an instant urban legend. The kid who was there one minute and the next?

Just, Gone.

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→Continue to Part Two – The Holiday That Never Ended

Part Two – The Holiday That Never Ended

I remember feeling utterly humiliated as they peered at my tiny, bony frame. With only a pair of knickers to protect me, I hadn’t felt so exposed and so awkward.

Minutes later, finally allowed to get dressed, I waited. I was still expecting my mother to appear. She didn’t.

Instead, the same woman who had picked me up from school told me I was going to stay with a lovely set of foster parents for the weekend — a little holiday, she said. That sounded alright. But first, we needed to stop at my house to get some clothes.

My mother wasn’t there either. Just my sister Mia, who scrambled to gather up clothes that weren’t covered in cat hair or smelling of cat pee. She emptied a bin bag, filled it with what she could, and handed it over. And just like that, I was gone.

I don’t remember arriving at the foster home, but I remember the smell. It wasn’t bad — just… strange. Like when you visit your grandparents and the air just feels like it belongs to someone else’s life.

They gave me my own room with a bunk bed, a wardrobe, and drawers. I remember thinking, this’ll do for the weekend. Just the weekend. I’d be back home with my brothers and sister soon enough.

No.

The weekend became a week. Then another. Nobody spoke about time anymore. I was enrolled at the local school. And I tried — really, tried — to be a “good girl.” Trouble is, I had no idea what that actually meant.

I watched the other girls: neat, well-behaved, always praised. I was desperate to fit in. But I was “the foster kid.” My foster parents were seen as saints for taking me in, but I knew the truth: I didn’t belong there.

One day, I was painting at the kitchen table. The younger of their sons joined me, and before long we were flicking paint at each other, giggling. Just kids being kids. But then she came in.

She screamed at me, slapped me, forced me into pyjamas, and locked me in my room.

I’d never been locked in a room before. I panicked. What if there was a fire? What if I died and nobody knew I was even here?

Lying on the bed, I sobbed myself to sleep. Nothing I ever did seemed right. But everything I did seemed wrong.

The next morning, I was allowed out. The paint fight was blamed solely on me. Their son smiled smugly from behind his mother, knowing he was protected. I wasn’t.

Eventually, I got to see my mum. She arrived with some second-hand gifts and clothes, but before I knew it, it was over. She was leaving without me.

Then I was told: one hour a month.

That was the agreement.

One. Hour. A. Month.

I was being punished again and again for a crime I still didn’t understand.

I tried to adjust. I really did. But the harder I tried to be good, the more the “bad” in me leaked out. I was blamed for everything. “Foster kid” might as well have been written on my forehead in permanent ink.

The only thing that brought me any peace was being outside. The village was tiny — just a pub, post office, church, hall, and school — but I loved exploring. It was the first time I felt free in months.

The food? A lottery.

My foster mum was part culinary genius, part food assassin.

She made this amazing fridge cake — actual heaven. But then she’d serve jelly-soaked cold meat things that looked like they belonged in a tin for the dog. Once I was forced to eat one. I retched. Hard. But I didn’t throw up — throwing up meant staying home with her, and I wasn’t doing that.

But then came the stew.

The stew deserves its own paragraph. Because it haunts me to this day.

Winter hit, and suddenly it was stew every night. Slimy hunks of fatty meat, greyish veg, and gravy that looked like it had been wrung from an old dishcloth.

I tried to chew. I tried to swallow. I gagged. I vomited — right there on the plate.

She was furious.

She told me I wasn’t leaving the table until it was gone.

Yes — that meant the stew and the vomit.

I sat there, sobbing for two hours. Eventually, I was sent to bed. Exhausted. Hungry. Defeated.

Stew became a nightly torture. I gagged every time. Even now, at 43, the smell of stew can trigger a gag reflex that takes me right back to that table, that plate, and that feeling of being completely unwanted.

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←Part One -150. An Early Memory I Didn’t Ask To Keep

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→Continue to Part Three – A Failed Plan

What Is Unwearing the Mercury?

“So I guess I’m here. Planting myself into the script code of the internet, for all to see.”

I was told recently I need to start writing.

I don’t know who I’m writing to, but I’m at a time in my life where I need direction. I spend too much time alone, hiding from a world I find both exciting and terrifying in equal measures.

I’m actually just a mother. I’m in my 40s.

And if I had a pound for every time someone told me I have “a way with words,” I’d be a hell of a lot richer than I am…

(well, if Amazon didn’t also exist, that is).

I’m trying to share the insides of my eyelids — the bits no one sees — even if I don’t think anyone will ever read or enjoy them.

But I know there’s one person out there — maybe long after I’m gone — who’ll find my words and feel connection.

I hope to build this into a collection.

And who knows?

Maybe one day…

I won’t feel quite so alone.

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