Before any of us had time to get our heads around it, it was the day before the court hearing and we were all beginning to feel it. And to compound Jenna’s anxiety, I took a call at eight in the morning from Mrs Sykes, Seth’s teacher, who’d requested a meeting.
‘What can she want?’ she demanded, ‘and why would she ring you and not me? I’m his mother, aren’t I?’
‘For goodness’ sake, calm down,’ I said. ‘She would have called me because it’s my number she has, isn’t it? And – a small point this – you were in the shower.’
‘But what about? God, he’s not in trouble, is he? If he gets chucked out of this place, that’s going to look terrible on my record.’
‘She didn’t say, so stop jumping to negative conclusions. She just said she’d like to have a quick chat with us about certain aspects of Seth’s behaviour.’
‘So he is in trouble.’
‘No. She did not say that at any point.’
‘But why did she say “us”, and not “me”?’
‘Love, she didn’t mean anything by it. Right now, we’re a unit in law, you and me. It just is what it is. Stop getting your knickers in a twist!’
And right now, I didn’t add, Mrs Sykes had to follow protocol as much as me. And I was the one with parental responsibility.
‘Anyway,’ I hurried on, ‘shall we nip into town with Tommy this morning and get you a new top for court tomorrow? There’s also a bit in the budget going begging, since you’ve bought so much for the boys yourself, so maybe we can get a couple of other bits for you too.’
It worked like a charm, her angst immediately forgotten. ‘Can we go to Next? I saw a gorgeous black hoodie online last night. I was going to order it too. But I thought, no, Jen, save your money in case it all goes tits up in court, and you have to make a fast getaway with the kids again.’ She looked at me and laughed out loud. ‘Joking!’
I sincerely hoped she was. About the getaway, and the hoodie! ‘Come on then, chop, chop,’ I said to Seth. ‘Let’s get you ready, because we have to be in school early. Mrs Sykes wants to let you into the classroom before any of the other boys and girls get there. What a treat that will be, eh?’
Seth nodded sagely. ‘She probably wants to let me build a jail to put the bad kids in. I’m good at that.’
‘Well, perhaps not quite that,’ I said, but he was not to be dissuaded, and when we arrived, he announced that was exactly what he thought he should do.
‘Yes, of course,’ Mrs Sykes said. ‘That’s an excellent idea, Seth. I’ll be at my desk talking with Mummy and Auntie Casey while you do that, and then we’ll all come and take a look once it’s finished.’
‘It’s always a jail,’ Mrs Sykes said to me and Jenna once he’d gone over to the far side of the classroom. ‘Can’t ever be a den or a shop or something nice. Always a jail, or a cell or a police station. Goodness knows what some of the other parents must think when their children go home and say they get arrested every day!’
Jenna looked anxious. ‘Is that what he’s in trouble for? Is that why we’re here, because I swear down he doesn’t get any of that stuff from me. His nan and grandad used to always be telling him about his dad being in jail. I promise it wasn’t me.’
Mrs Sykes shook her head. ‘Goodness me – not at all! I love it when he uses his imagination through play, and he’s so funny with it – he often has us both in stitches. No, he’s not in any trouble. Not at all.’
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ I said as we all sat down – Mrs Sykes on her desk and Jenna on the other chair, while I perched on the edge of the nearest table. ‘But I’m intrigued now. What’s going on?’
Mrs Sykes explained that she and some other staff had been monitoring Seth closely, after witnessing some of his odd behaviours. Such as the way he treated Jenna and I before going into the building – the screaming and aggression – but then how he changed the very instant we were out of sight. He apparently had some strange ways in class too. ‘I don’t know if he does this at home,’ Mrs Sykes said, ‘but he sometimes deliberately takes things that belong to other children and squirrels them away out of sight.’ Jenna looked glum again, but Mrs Sykes smiled to reassure her. ‘Then he always seems to monitor them – watching as they discover that the thing is missing, and then making a big thing out of “helping” them to find it – their shoe, or their comforter, or whatever it is he’s taken – telling them not to cry and that he’ll try to help them find it, then eventually leading them to where he “thinks” it might be. And it’s more than him seeing himself as the hero,’ she added. ‘We thought that at first – that he was trying to gain peer approval. But it seems a little more complex than that. It’s almost as if he’s conducting mini-experiments – trying to understand other children’s reactions, their emotions. We’ve also found him more than once seeming to practise expressions. In the wavy mirror, over there – things like sadness or anger. As if he’s learned them and is trying them on for size. He’s also hyper-sensitive to loud noises and to smells. Have you noticed that?’
‘So basically, you’re saying my son’s a nut job?’ Jenna asked, though not at all defensively. She sounded genuinely interested. ‘I mean, he does do stuff like that at home, doesn’t he, Casey?’
I nodded. ‘He definitely squirrels things away,’ I said. ‘And you’re right about his sense of smell. He often comments on how things smell, doesn’t he, Jenna?’
‘All the time,’ she agreed. ‘He gets really agitated when I’m changing Tommy’s nappies. What’s that down to, then, do you think? What does it mean?’
I thought back to previous children I’d had, and their various idiosyncrasies, and also, of course, to Kieron, who was on the autism spectrum, and could have written the idiosyncrasy handbook.
It was Jenna who continued though. ‘Does it mean he’s autistic? There’s a girl I’m friends with on Facebook and her son’s autistic. They have to put noise-cancelling headphones on him when they go out to the park because he freaks out if he hears a plane going over.’
It was a thoughtful contribution and I was pleased at her engagement. I sat back a little to let Mrs Sykes talk directly to her. ‘It’s too soon to tell,’ she said, ‘especially as he’s only been here for a very short time. But the reason I asked you here was to tell you that I think it would be helpful to refer Seth to a child psychologist, so that they can explore what’s going on in there a little further. It might be multi-factorial – it probably will be.’ She glanced at me. ‘I know he’s had some challenges to face, and they will obviously have impacted on him, but we’re of the mind that there might be something else going on. That he might have other challenges.’ She tapped her temple. ‘With how his brain’s wired, if you like. The only problem is that because he’s obviously still very young, they may want to wait until he starts in school before investigating further. However – and of course I know he will most likely be leaving here soon – I still think it’s worth getting him into the system, so to speak, as I think it might be helpful for you, moving forwards. Because, trust me, I know how difficult it is to get a foot in the door when you need that kind of help. What do you think?’
‘I think fine,’ Jenna said. ‘I’ll use all the help I can get with him.’
‘Ditto,’ I added. ‘Absolutely.’ I turned to Jenna. ‘And this will be a great help, I’m sure. You’ve always said Seth can be a handful, haven’t you? And it’s so easy to assume it’s just because he’s had environmental challenges to cope with. But if it is more than that, it –’
‘Will prove to the social,’ Jenna finished for me, ‘that it’s not all my fault.’
‘Exactly,’ Mrs Sykes said. ‘So, if you’re happy, Jenna, we’ll make the referral. Though right now,’ she added, looking over to where some kind of structure seemed to have been erected in the soft play corner, ‘I suspect we have a building to inspect. He’s quite the budding architect,’ she added to Jenna as we all stood up.
Jenna grinned and pointed. ‘More Bob the Builder, I reckon.’
But I could see her whole body swell with pride.
‘You know, my son Kieron has autism,’ I told her, once we were on our way home. ‘He was diagnosed when he was small – with what was then called Asperger’s syndrome, which is a mild form of autism. They don’t call it that anymore – now they just refer to people being on the autism spectrum.’
‘ASD,’ she said. ‘That’s what my friend says her son has. That he has an autism spectrum disorder. She doesn’t like the word “disorder” though. I mean, you wouldn’t, would you? It’s just being a bit different, isn’t it? Not a disorder.’ What a long way the world has come, I thought. This was so heartening to hear. ‘So is he okay, your son?’ she asked.
‘Kieron? He’s fine. If you met him, you probably wouldn’t even realise,’ I told her. ‘He has his funny little ways, but it hasn’t stopped him doing anything.’ It hit me then how in all these weeks (Where were we – eight weeks? Or was it more now? It was all becoming such a blur) that she had yet to even meet him. Or Lauren, or Riley and David, and all the grandchildren. And though I hardly dared pre-empt fate by anticipating the outcome, if she didn’t lose the kids, and they decided to extend the placement, she could do a lot worse than spend some time with the wider family. Well, as long as we could keep Seth’s swearing under control.
‘You’ll have to meet him,’ I told her. ‘You’ll like him. He’s funny. And he and Seth would get on like a house on fire.’
And then I regretted having said anything, as I could see her face fall, just a little. It would be as much on her mind now, I reminded myself, as it ever was, perhaps more so. Because, referral or otherwise, she could still have it all taken away from her.