I held his coat out ready for him. There was a moment’s pause, as though he was processing or considering what I’d asked him to do, and then he slipped his arms into each of the sleeves and drew his coat around him.
‘I want you to hold my hand when we go out into the garden,’ I said to him. ‘It’s dark and there’s a step outside. I don’t want you falling.’ Also, not knowing what Danny wanted to do in the garden, I was concerned he might be thinking of running off and hiding again as he had done at school.
Danny didn’t offer me his hand, so I repeated that he needed to hold my hand before we went into the garden. After another pause he did as I’d asked. ‘Good boy,’ I said, taking every opportunity to praise him.
I opened the back door. The light from the kitchen shone out illuminating the step, and I helped him over it. Once outside Danny began looking around again anxiously. ‘George?’ he asked. ‘Where George?’
‘I don’t think we’re going to find George here,’ I said gently.
‘George,’ Danny repeated. Still holding my hand, he led me round the back where we stood on the patio facing the house. He pointed to the wall beneath the kitchen window. ‘George?’ he asked, puzzled. ‘George?’
‘Did you think George would be here?’ I asked him. He nodded. ‘I’m sorry, love, he’s not. I expect he’s at your house. Who is George?’
Danny opened his mouth as if to answer, but it was as though he couldn’t find the right word, so he said something else instead – ‘George needs dinner’ – and his eyes filled with tears.
Then it dawned on me. ‘Is George an animal?’ I asked.
Danny gave a very small nod.
‘Is George your pet who lives outside?’
Danny nodded. ‘George needs feeding.’
‘I expect your mother has given George his dinner,’ I reassured him. ‘What type of animal is George?’
Danny looked around, bemused, apparently unable to find the right word.
‘Does George live in a cage?’ I asked, narrowing down the possibilities.
Danny nodded.
‘Is he a rabbit?’
Danny turned to me, and for the first time since I’d collected him from school and brought him home he made eye contact. ‘Yes. George Danny’s best friend,’ he said so sadly I could have wept.
‘All right, love,’ I said. ‘I understand. Let’s go inside and I’ll explain.’
Danny still had his hand in mine and he slowly turned away from the place where he thought George would be. He looked lost and utterly defeated as he allowed me to lead him back indoors.
Danny’s assumption that George had come with him to live with us was, I felt, logical for a child of six. Danny had come to stay, so why shouldn’t his beloved pet and best friend have come too? It would have helped Danny if his mother or his social worker had explained to him more fully about coming into care – or perhaps they had, for I was realizing that Danny was a child with very special needs who not only had difficulty with language but seemed to have great difficulty processing information as well. I wondered if he’d been assessed.
Danny appeared slightly dazed by what had happened and let me help him out of his coat and shoes without protest. Paula took them into the hall. He was too preoccupied with George’s absence to notice that his coat had gone to hang with ours on the coat stand. I explained to Adrian, Lucy and Paula that George was Danny’s much-loved pet rabbit, which he had hoped had come with him. I could see from their expressions that they were as moved as I was by Danny’s upset, for they appreciated the bond that existed between pets and their owners from having Toscha with us for so many years.
‘Come on, Danny,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and sit down and I’ll try to explain what’s going on.’
I took him into the living room where I asked him to sit on the sofa. He clambered on and I sat next to him, close but not touching, which, to a child such as Danny who wasn’t naturally tactile, could have felt threatening and like an invasion of his personal space.
‘No George?’ he asked sadly, without looking at me.
‘No, love, George isn’t here. He’s at your house, safe and warm. I’m sure your mother will have given him his dinner.’
Danny shook his head and tried to say something, but nothing came out.
‘Do you usually feed George?’ I asked him.
He nodded.
‘After you’ve had your dinner?’ I asked. From the way Danny had left the table and started looking for George as soon as he’d finished his dinner, I thought it was probably a routine.
He nodded again.
‘Danny, I need you to listen carefully to what I am going to tell you. My name is Cathy and I’m a foster carer. I look after children to help their parents. You’ll still see your mummy and daddy, and you’ll be going to school as normal. But you are going to live with me for a while. Your mummy and daddy love you, and George loves you too. You mustn’t worry about any of them. They are all safe.’ I’d no idea what Danny understood about coming to live with me, but I knew from experience that many children who came into care fretted and worried that something dreadful had happened to their parents and any loved ones they’d left behind. Once they’d seen them again at contact they were usually reassured. ‘Your mummy and daddy are safe at home, and George is safe in his hutch,’ I said.
‘George here,’ Danny said.
‘No, love, George isn’t here. He’s at your house.’
‘George here,’ Danny repeated, growing anxious again. I was puzzled that he was still asking as clearly he’d seen for himself that George’s hutch wasn’t outside.
‘No, love. George is at your house,’ I said again.
‘No! George here!’ Danny cried more insistently. It was then I realized that ‘George here’ now meant something different and was no longer a question.
‘You want George here?’ I asked.
He nodded.
‘I understand.’
This was a difficult one, because pets don’t usually accompany a child into care. Reasons for this include that it isn’t always practical, members of the foster family may have allergies to animal fur, the animal might be unsafe (this usually applies to dogs), or the parent(s) might not want the pet to go with the child, which is understandable as they can be as attached to it as the child. But this was a little rabbit we were talking about that lived in a hutch outside. None of us were allergic to fur and I didn’t mind pets, so I decided not to immediately rule out the possibility of George coming to stay with us, but neither was I going to give Danny false hope.
‘I’ll talk to your mother about George when I see her tomorrow at school,’ I said to Danny.
‘Need George,’ Danny said despondently with his head down. I felt so sorry for him.
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘We’ll see what your mother says tomorrow.’
This was the best I could offer and it seemed to reassure Danny a little, for he climbed off the sofa and went over to the games and puzzles that were still laid out on the floor. Kneeling down, he began to play with the Lego. I was pleased; this was a good sign. When a child feels relaxed enough to play it shows they are less anxious and starting to settle in.
However, as I watched Danny picking the Lego bricks out of the box and laying them on the floor, I saw that he wasn’t using them to build a house or car or any other object; he was arranging them end to end in a line. After a few minutes it was clear he was creating a multicoloured line of bricks, and I saw a pattern emerging from the different