Jess, our social worker, informed us that it may take ‘a little while’ for Maria to be found a new long-term foster home, and of course we told her we’d willingly look after Maria for as long as necessary.
‘We love having her,’ I said. ‘And in fact she has already asked if she could say, so I know she’s not in any rush.’
‘That’s a great compliment to you,’ Jess said. ‘It’s a shame that can’t happen, though. You know how much we need to be able to call on you for help with the teenagers, Angela.’
‘I totally understand, and it’s right that Maria moves on to the right type of foster home. I wish you luck in your search.’
While Jess and her colleagues were working behind the scenes to find a permanent foster home for Maria, Jonathan and I were working hard on making sure she enjoyed her remaining time with us.
One weekend we went to a theme park – the one Maria had tried to win tickets for at the local festival when she first stayed with us – and it proved to be a great success. Maria went on all the rides for younger children, while Tom and Dillon went off together to try out all the faster, scarier rides.
Maria hadn’t ever been anywhere like it before and she loved every minute of it, particularly the 3D cinema, which was her favourite activity. When the chairs moved and water shot out of the seat in front of us, I was taken by surprise and screamed, which made Maria hoot with laughter. And Jonathan and I laughed too, as we watched her reaching out to try to touch things she thought were actually there, becoming more and more bemused when she couldn’t find them. In fact, she enjoyed it so much that we ended up going back to the 3D cinema twice, although after the first time she sat on the step that didn’t move, so that she didn’t get wet. Tom and Dillon were not so careful, and when we eventually caught up with them we found them to be soaked to the skin after going on every log flume and water ride they could find.
We had such a good time that when the children spotted a poster for a Halloween camping event near the same park, Jonathan and I readily agreed we could return and stay over for the weekend in the touring caravan. There was to be a fancy dress party at the campsite, and Maria cracked us all up laughing when she decided she wanted to be a ‘little devil’.
‘Is that what you call typecasting?’ Dillon laughed.
‘Why are you laughing? What does typecasting mean?’
‘He’s laughing because it’s so appropriate,’ Tom said, ‘because you are a little devil, Maria!’
She took this in the good spirit in which it was meant, and when we got home we set about making the Halloween costume. It was easy really – a pair of black tights and shoes, a red dress that Mum and I made out of some cheap satiny material and then frayed the edges, all finished off with a pair of red horns attached to a hair band, plus a devil’s fork, picked up at the local supermarket.
The fun started at breakfast on the Friday morning of the camping weekend, when Maria could hardly contain her excitement. By the time I got back from school with her that afternoon, Tom and Dillon were already home and, as soon as they’d all had a drink and a snack, we began to pack up the caravan. By 6.30 that evening we were finally ready to leave.
Just half an hour into the journey Maria started asking, ‘Are we there yet?’
‘No, love,’ I told her. ‘We’ve got about another hour’s drive.’
‘Oh.’ She sighed and settled back in her seat – for about five minutes. Then she asked again, ‘Are we there yet, Angela?’
‘No,’ Dillon replied, before I could say anything. ‘Angela just told you it’ll be another hour yet.’
Maria hadn’t ever been to a fancy dress party of any kind before and she was far too excited to be patient. After she’d asked for the fourth time, I suggested, ‘Let’s play a game.’
I think Tom and Dillon were as relieved as Jonathan was by the prospect of doing something to try to take Maria’s mind off what otherwise promised to be a question asked on a continuous loop, and all three of them answered in unison, ‘Good idea!’ and ‘Yes, let’s!’
‘OK. You all choose a colour of a car and the winner is the first one to spot five cars of their chosen colour. But they have to be driving towards us. Cars parked in side roads don’t count.’ It was a rule I had added after having been caught out before by children apparently spotting cars in side roads that no one else had seen.
‘I’ll have silver,’ Tom said immediately.
‘Which is probably the most popular car colour,’ Dillon said sarcastically.
‘Oh really? How odd,’ Tom answered. ‘I chose it because I thought it would be almost impossible to spot any silver cars at all. Duh.’
‘OK, I’ll have blue,’ Dillon laughed.
‘I want silver,’ Maria said.
‘We can’t both have the same colour,’ Tom told her, ‘and I’ve already chosen silver. You’ll have to pick something else.’
‘But that’s not fair.’ I didn’t have to turn around to know that Maria was pouting. ‘It’s my favourite colour. Can’t you choose another one?’
‘OK, I’ll have white.’ I saw Jonathan catch Tom’s eye in the rear-view mirror and smile at him for having deflected what would probably have been a full-scale sulk. In fact, his good deed was rewarded when it suddenly seemed that every car that passed us was white.
‘That’s not fair,’ Maria said again, when Tom won after she had only seen one silver car. But at least Maria had been distracted for a while from asking, ‘Are we there yet?’ And it wasn’t long before we were.
The campsite where the Halloween event was being held was a farmer’s field, and there was a toilet and shower block quite close to where we set up our caravan. Despite having done it many times before, nothing seemed to fit when we tried to attach the awning to the side of the caravan. At first we couldn’t work out what the problem was, and it wasn’t until several people had scratched their heads and tried to help that someone finally realised we’d threaded the awning back to front. So then we had to start all over again, and by the time we finished it was past Maria’s bedtime.
Tom was sleeping under the awning, which he always liked to do, having spent many nights camping – in all weathers – with the Scouts. Maria and Dillon were in the bunk beds that each had their own private cubicle.
‘I want to go in this one,’ Maria said.
‘They’re both the same,’ I replied. ‘Can you take the other one as I’ve already put your bedding in there?’
‘I want this one,’ Maria insisted, tiredness making her sullen.
‘That’s fine,’ Dillon said, removing his bedding. ‘I don’t mind at all.’
‘That’s very nice of you, Dillon,’ I told him, grateful to him for being so amenable. ‘Isn’t it, Maria?’
‘I suppose,’ Maria said, before something made her add, ‘Thanks. I’m sorry. I am a little devil, aren’t I?’
‘No, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘You are tired. Sleep well.’
There were games organised for the following day like egg-and-spoon races, three-legged races and an obstacle course, which involved having to jump over little gates, slide through tubes and eventually sprint to the end.
All the races were divided into age categories. Being competitive, Tom and Dillon were obviously a bit put out when they didn’t come in the top three of their group, and I don’t think they were convinced when I told them later, ‘It’s the taking part that counts. Not the winning.’ Their scepticism wasn’t helped by the fact that Maria came third in the under-elevens and was so excited she spent the rest of the day – and most of the next one – showing us the medal she had won.
Unfortunately, Maria went into a mood when she didn’t win a prize in the fancy dress competition, and there was a rather disturbing incident when she saw one child dressed as a famous character from a horror film.
‘What’s he doing here!’ she screamed, running to hide behind Jonathan.
‘Who?’ Jonathan said.
‘That thing!’
We all looked over to see a boy wearing a Ghostface mask from the movie Scream.
Tom chuckled. ‘It’s not the real character!’ he said. ‘It’s just a boy dressed up.’
‘I didn’t think it was the real character!’ Maria snapped. ‘I thought it was him!’
She started looking all around, as if anxiously checking whether or not she was being followed or watched.
‘Can I have a glow stick, Angela?’
‘Of course you can, sweetheart.’
I took her by the hand to the stall, and while we were waiting in the small queue, Maria whispered, ‘Gerry used to put on a mask like that, just for fun, to scare me!’
‘For fun?’
‘It was fun for him, and Frank and Casey. But not for me.’
My heart sank. It was awful to think of Maria being scared like that and I wondered how anybody could take pleasure from frightening a little girl, least of all her own stepbrothers. Seeing Tom and Dillon treating Maria so well only added to the sadness I felt. Why could Frank and Casey not have been the caring big brothers Maria so desperately needed?
Despite the mask incident, it was a really good weekend, topped off with a day back at the theme park. On the journey home late on the Sunday afternoon, all three children chattered excitedly about everything they’d done.
‘We’ll have to plan the next trip,’ Dillon said. ‘Didn’t you have a magazine from the Caravan Club, Angela?’
‘Yes, it’s here,’ I said, fishing it out of the glovebox. ‘Good idea; they list all the events where you can take the caravan.’
‘Can I come?’ Maria asked, rather nervously.
I turned around just in time to see her bottom lip wobble.
‘Sweetheart, I can’t make any promises,’ I said, chastising myself for being a bit slow here, not pre-empting this as soon as Dillon mentioned the ‘next trip’. ‘I hope so, I really do.’
Maria had put the glow stick from the previous evening around her neck, like a necklace, and now she suddenly took it off. It still had a faint pink glow, and I wondered what she was going to do with it. To my surprise she opened it up until it made a half moon shape and put it in front of her face, making it look as if she was wearing a big, bright smile.
‘I hope so too,’ she said. ‘I would have a smile this big if I could!’