Mummy’s Little Girl: A heart-rending story of abuse, innocence and the desperate race to save a lost child
Auntie Rose was there, wrapping Rebecca in her arms and whispering soothing words to her. Dani’s mum, however, had grabbed Dani by the arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘Get to your room,’ she hissed, and she pushed the little girl along the landing and through the door, slamming it closed so that the two of them were shut in there. Dani thought she could smell wine on her.
‘I’m sick of you!’ her mum blazed. ‘You haven’t got a fucking idea, have you? What it’s like.’
Dani was sobbing uncontrollably, great heaving sobs shaking through her whole body. She desperately wanted to explain to her mum that she hadn’t broken Rebecca’s toy, that she wouldn’t, but the words would not form in her mouth.
The little girl’s sobs seemed only to enrage her foster mother even more. ‘What have you got to say for yourself? What have you got to say for yourself?’
She didn’t answer, and her silence seemed to push the woman over the edge. It seemed to happen in slow motion as she raised her hand and brought it down with a surprising, shocking force against the side of Dani’s face. She started to fall towards her bed, and as she did so, her ankle twisted, as did her body. With a sharp, sickening bang, her face fell against the corner of her chest of drawers. The thud seemed to go all through her as she continued falling to the floor, and within a few seconds she felt a burning, stinging sensation creep over her skin. She looked up at her mum, who was standing above her, eyes blazing. She seemed surprised by what she had just done, but not, Dani thought, sorry.
‘I wish we’d never set eyes on you,’ her mum hissed, and Dani thought she could detect a slurring in her voice. ‘It was him that insisted on taking you in. Him. Twelve years, and never a word of thanks for what I’ve done. And how dare you go around breaking my daughter’s toys? How fucking dare you?’
Dani just stared at her, wide-eyed.
‘You’re an arrogant little cow,’ her mum said, delivering a parting shot before turning round, leaving the room and slamming the door behind her.
Dani stayed on the floor for several minutes, her hand pressed painfully to the side of her face that her mum had hit with such sudden violence, tears welling in her eyes. There was the murmur of voices on the landing – Auntie Rose calming Mum down – but no one came to Dani’s room. Noone came to check that she was all right.
Dani didn’t clean her teeth that night or wash her face. She just removed her clothes, switched off the light and climbed into bed. She wept for a long time, being sure not to make too much noise about it.
After all, she had created enough trouble for one day.
The following morning was Sunday, and everything was unusually quiet in the house.
Dani woke with a throbbing pain on the side of her face. In her chest of drawers was a hand mirror. She took it out and had a look at herself. The bruising was a mottled purple-black. It surrounded her left eye and went down the side of her face. Gently she touched her skin with her fingertips and winced. It was terribly sore, even to the lightest touch. Her arm was sore too, where Mum had grabbed it to drag her into the room. Dani peeled away the material of her nightie and saw bruising there too.
She gazed at herself in the mirror for what seemed like an age before mustering the courage to go downstairs.
James and Rebecca were already there, watching television in the front room. They knew not to have it on too loud in case it woke Mum up. As Dani appeared in the door, they both turned to look at her.
Their stares said it all.
‘You all right?’ James said in a small voice.
Dani nodded, and gave the boy a little smile. He looked frightened, and she didn’t want him to be. Then she turned to Rebecca.
‘I never broke your toy,’ she said, doing her best not to let herself cry.
Rebecca didn’t reply. Her lips went a little bit thin, her eyes narrowed and she turned resolutely back to the television, as if she was doing her best to pretend Dani wasn’t even there.
Dani left them to it and went to the kitchen.
The place was a mess. There were two empty bottles of wine on the side, and an overflowing ashtray that smelled so bad it made Dani want to be sick. Dani took the cardboard wrappers from the microwave meals Mum and Auntie Rose had obviously had for their dinner and tried to put them in the bin; but it was full to overflowing, and she couldn’t get them in, even by pushing the other rubbish down hard. So she left it where it was, her attempt to stop her mum being even more angry with her ending before it had really begun, and went back up to her bedroom.
It was at least an hour before she heard her mum getting up. Dani didn’t know whether she was scared that she might come into her room, or whether she hoped she would. Either way, it didn’t matter. She listened to the sound of her getting ready in the bathroom and stomping down the stairs. Minutes later the front door slammed shut.
By lunchtime she hadn’t returned, so Dani made sandwiches for them all. James and Rebecca seemed unable to look at her bruised face as she handed them over, and she took her own lunch up to her room and ate it there.
All afternoon, Dani stayed in her room, occasionally looking at herself in the mirror. Mum didn’t return until evening. She didn’t come and see Dani, who went without any dinner and spent a broken, fitful night worrying about what people would say when they saw her at school the next day.
Miss Sawyer was late, and she broke her own rule by running down the corridor towards her classroom, her register and other school books clasped tightly to her chest. God only knows, she thought to herself, what bedlam the kids were creating. She knew from experience that the lesson would be a write-off – let them run riot in the first few minutes and they’d never calm down. What a way to start Monday morning!
She glanced at her watch. Five past nine. ‘Shit,’ she muttered, and she upped her pace slightly.
Gina Sawyer’s classroom was at the far corner of the school, so it took a while to get there. It was a big school, with a huge catchment area that covered some of the biggest, most sprawling estates in the area as well as more well-to-do parts of town. She had worked there getting on for ten years now, and although some days seemed like a struggle, she was honest enough with herself to admit that she thrived on it. That said, there was no doubt that things were getting tougher nowadays. Some of the kids they had to deal with barely seemed like kids at all: they were so full of anger, so well versed in the world of adults. More than once, children who Miss Sawyer knew when they were only small had been excluded for carrying knives; and she’d lost count of the number of teenage pregnancies she’d had to deal with in her additional role as child support officer. By rights she was an English teacher, but the truth was that the teaching bit of the job was something that she seldom got to do.
Miss Sawyer was out of breath as she turned into the corridor where her classroom was located, so she slowed her run down to a brisk walk. Just ahead of her, walking a good deal more slowly in the same direction, was a pupil. Miss Sawyer recognised her immediately, even from behind – recognised the long, black hair and the slightly battered book bag that was slung sloppily over her shoulder.
‘Come on, Dani,’ she said, doing her best to hide her breathlessness. ‘Chop chop. The bell went five minutes ago.’
Little Dani Sinclair was a funny one. Twelve years old, but to look at her you wouldn’t think she was more than nine or ten. The teacher supposed that the girl had a working vocabulary, but if she did then it was seldom given an outing. In all her years teaching she had never come across such a quiet child. Hardly surprising that she was often picked on, because she never fought back. She just wasn’t that kind of girl.
It had only been a few days earlier that a social worker had come into the school to talk about Dani.