I wanted to spend time doing something light and pleasant. The wretchedness of the previous day had left me with no appet.i.te for difficulty or drama. What could we do in Little Scamps that would help take our minds off the troubles that so often hung over the little group like storm clouds? I watched a mistle thrush, perched on one of my gate posts, singing its heart out, and the answer came to me.

'"Whistle while you work,"' I said to the bird, toasting it with my gla.s.s. 'Hum a merry tune.'

'Is that a toy?' Gilbert asked.

He was looking at my ukulele, which, for the uninitiated, looks like a tiny toy guitar with four strings. If you study the history of the instrument you will find that Gilbert was far from the first person to question if such a frivolous-seeming item could be a legitimate part of the musical pantheon back in the 1920s the Musicians Union of America had debated whether or not uke players should be permitted membership. A formidable lady called May Breen persuaded it that they certainly should, and in one fell swoop cemented the instrument's place in folk and jazz history.

I had decided that the ukulele was the ideal accompaniment for a music session: it has a light, deft tone, and seems somehow less serious than other instruments it's difficult to play a mournful song on a uke.

'No,' I told Gilbert and everyone else. 'This is not a toy. Listen.'

I played a D-seventh chord in tremolo, and the group clapped loudly. Milandra had not come in, which, sad to say, had lightened the general mood: everyone was a little relieved.

'Now, I know you're all really good singers because I've heard you sing lots of times,' I said. 'Today I want to teach you a new song. It's very easy to learn, and it's all about animals.'

'Like bunny rabbits?' Rufus asked.

'Well, I'm not sure there are any rabbits in this song,' I said, 'but there are lots of other animals of all kinds.'

'Moo cows?' Jeffrey said.

'I'll tell you what,' I said. 'I'm going to sing it. I want you to join in and help me out because, d'you know, I might not be able to remember all the words. It's been a very long time since I sang this one. Will you give me a hand?'

The children said they would help, as did Susan (still pale and refusing to talk about Birthdaygate), Tush and Lonnie.

I played a short introduction, a simple finger pick between the G and D-seventh chords, then began to sing.

The first verse is all about how wonderful elephants are, and ill.u.s.trates this point by commenting on how they love to eat bananas and swing from tree to tree. Of course, by the time I was halfway through the line, half the children in the group had shouted me down. I pretended to be surprised at the interruption. 'What? What's wrong?'

'That's not elephants!' Rufus said. 'That's a monkey.'

'Oh,' I said, scratching my head. 'Are you sure?'

'Yeah,' Ross said. 'Dat should def'n'y be monkeys dere.'

'Okay, then,' I said. 'Here we go again.'

I began the next verse by singing about how I liked monkeys, particularly how they loved to swim in the ocean. I barely got the first word of that line out.

'No! That's fish you're thinkin' of,' Gus said.

'Fish?' I said. 'Well, I told you I hadn't sung this song for a long time.'

The fish in the next verse scratched at fleas and barked at the postman. The kids were laughing now. They'd realized it was a game, and jumped right in before I had a chance to move on.

'Tha's a dog!' Jeffrey said.

We had dogs who curled up on the windowsill, purred and chased mice, cats who said 'c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo', roosters that lived in the forest and stole honey from beehives, bears that sat on lilypads and ate flies, frogs that lived in holes in the wall and ate cheese ... We had great fun with the song (written by a hugely talented children's entertainer called Eric Herman), and when we finally got to the end (it's easy to string it out to nearly ten minutes) the children called for it again. I got a great kick out of watching them waiting for me to make the mistakes. I made different ones this time, mixing it up so they would have to identify each creature as I attributed its characteristics to a totally different hairy, feathered or scaled beast.

When I had completed my encore, I invited the children to sing something for me. They were not backward about coming forward. Jeffrey sang a rather unusual version (in that it had no discernible melody) of 'Molly Malone' and we all joined in with gusto. Ross sang the chorus of 'The Fields of Athenry' about ten times (Lonnie finally stopped him by clapping loudly). Arga sang something in Polish, which Lonnie explained was an old folk song.

But it was Mitzi who surprised us all. When Arga had finished her song Mitzi slid off her chair so she was actually standing (a rare occurrence in itself) and began to sing in a soft, unbelievably sweet voice. It was a song from that bastion of 1970s television, The Muppet Show, called The Rainbow Connection, usually performed by Kermit the Frog, accompanying himself on a five-string banjo. The song is about hope, loss and belief in the inherent decency of people. I wondered where she could have heard it, and a.s.sumed her parents must have taught her they were hippie types, after all, and the beautiful mysticism of the lyric has been adopted by all sorts of groups and wrapped around many different interpretations since it first became popular thirty-odd years ago.

When Mitzi finished her rendition she gave an awkward, shy curtsy and tried to get back on to her chair unsuccessfully. Tush had to go over and help.

'That was amazing, Mitzi,' Lonnie said, when the applause died down.

'I never heard you singin' afore, Mitzi,' Ross said. 'How come?'

'A girl likes to have her secrets, children,' Mitzi said, twiddling her thumbs and smiling to herself.

'Well, I, for one, would like to hear more from you,' I said. 'You're a very talented lady.'

'I have the voice of an angel, yes, I do,' Mitzi agreed.

'I'll be calling on you again, angel,' I said. 'So you'd better do some practising.'

At lunch I sat outside with Susan.

'How you doing?' I asked.

'Not so good,' she admitted. 'I can't believe I misread Milandra so badly. I thought I knew her. She's been with us since she was three years old. How could I have been so wrong?'

'I don't think you were.'

'How do you make that out?'

'You heard her wish you gave her exactly what she wanted. It was like you'd read her mind, for Chrissakes. But you've heard the saying "Be careful what you wish for." I think she got what she wanted, and it scared the bejesus out of her.'

Susan was sitting on the wooden rim of the sand container, a mug of tea cupped between her hands. 'Explain.'

'I worked with a kid in residential care once, a long time ago. He was my key-child I had special responsibility for him and I thought he was a great young fella, a real sweetheart. But life had dealt him a rough hand. He'd been orphaned when he was a baby, and shoved around from pillar to post between a lot of different care settings. So he was angry a lot of the time. Not like Milandra he didn't smash things or hit people. He was just ... sad, I suppose.'

'Poor kid.'

'Yeah. My first Christmas with him he told me the one thing he wanted was a bike. And not just any bike. He had gone down to the local bicycle shop and picked out a beautiful red Chopper.'

'Is that a cool bike?'

'Yeah. Pretty d.a.m.n cool.'

'So you got it for him?'

'Ah, if only it were that simple. You see, for my little boy, this bike became so much more than just a Christmas present. He talked about it day and night. "When I get my bike on Christmas morning, I'm going to do this or that." Like "When I have my bike, I'll be the fastest kid on the street. When my bike comes, everyone is going to want a ride on it." This bicycle was going to be the best thing ever to happen in his life.'

'The cure for all his ills.'

'Exactly. Except there was a problem. I had a budget to purchase gifts for him, and I can tell you, this bike was way, way beyond that amount. I went to my boss and I begged and pleaded, but he couldn't budge. So I went over his head, to the care manager. He agreed, after no small amount of weeping and wailing on my behalf, to stump up the extra few quid. And I got the bike.'

'Was your boy happy?'

I laughed sadly. 'For about an hour. Now remember, he wasn't like Milandra he didn't throw it off a bridge or set fire to it. He started to find fault. Why didn't I tell him the bell sounded like that? Why weren't the handlebars wider? Surely it was a brighter red in the shop had I even got the right one? By five o'clock Christmas night, he was up in his room crying his eyes out, shouting that I had ruined Christmas.'

'And in a way you had,' Susan said.

'That's right. By giving him exactly what he wanted.'

'Because it wasn't what he wanted at all.'

I put my own cup down and yawned in the sunlight. I was tired, but happy with how the day had gone so far. 'No, it wasn't what he wanted. He wanted his parents back, and not to be in care any more, and never to wake up with that hole full of sadness inside him. Somehow, in his confusion and pain, he got to believing a new red Chopper would give him all those things.'

'But it didn't,' Susan said.

'No. It was just a bike. A cool bike, but just a bike for all that.'

Susan nodded and looked wistfully at our ragam.u.f.fin bunch of children, playing a game of tag among the play equipment, with Lonnie as It.

'So what does Milandra really want, then? She has two parents who seem to love her, a nice house, she's pretty and smart ... I don't get it.'

I shrugged. 'd.a.m.ned if I know. From what I could see, her dad seems to encourage her aggression.'

'Yeah, I heard he was a bit of a p.r.i.c.k, all right,' Susan said.

'We're just going to have to watch this s.p.a.ce, and see what emerges,' I said. 'But, more pressingly, what did you make of Mitzi?'

We both looked over at her, sitting in a corner of the yard on her own, eating a peanut-b.u.t.ter sandwich.

'She's a dark horse, isn't she?' Susan said.

'She is,' I said, 'but she let her guard down.'

'How?'

'The kid has a lot of raw talent,' I said, 'but she must have practised some, too. She loves to sing. Other than eating and being a bit evil, have we ever known anything else Mitzi likes to do?'

Susan grinned. 'No, we haven't.'

'The question,' I said slowly, 'is how we can use this new information to make Mitzi a happier, healthier little girl.'

It was a problem that had both of us stumped.

26.

Days blurred into weeks and weeks into months. Little Scamps punctuated the rhythm of my life, and without even realizing it, I fell in love with the place and the children who made it such an infuriating, heart-warming and challenging place to work. No two days were the same: every time I walked through the front door I knew without doubt that something would test me to the extreme, and welcomed it. I was learning in ways I never had before, and it was an exciting, gratifying experience.

Productivity in childcare cannot be measured in the same way as it is in other professions the developmental steps small children take are often so tiny that even the people who work in the area can miss them. Yet I could see improvement. Progress was obvious to me, and my colleagues told me they could see it too. The violence, chaos and mayhem that had once characterized each day still erupted from time to time, but now it was a rarity rather than the norm.

Tammy remained implacable, although there were some c.h.i.n.ks of light through the darkness she seemed to carry about with her. Sonya Kitch.e.l.l at Tiny Flowers had proven that punishment was not going to induce her to be more expressive, so I began to wonder what we might use as a reward I hoped to reinforce the behaviour we wanted to encourage.

I watched Tammy closely when she ate to see if I could work out what her favourite treats were. This proved to be utterly fruitless she hoovered up everything we put in front of her without any comment, good, bad or indifferent. I tried varying the contents of her lunchbox hoping to judge by positive reactions, to no avail. I set out different items at breakfast, but that, too, was a waste of time. Finally, I determined that Tammy, like most other kids, would probably, given the choice, favour sweet things. I baked a batch of the oatmeal and raisin biscuits she had previously eaten without complaint, and kept a couple in my pocket, ready to reward any particularly communicative acts.

I wondered if she somehow picked up a subtle change in my demeanour, because days pa.s.sed without her making so much as eye-contact with me. When eventually she shook her head and grunted at me, a full week had gone by and I didn't have a biscuit within reach. Cursing myself, I made a fresh batch and determined to be more patient. This time I was rewarded.

'That's a great picture, Tammy,' I said. 'Want to tell me about it?'

Tammy shook her head firmly.

I grinned. 'That's okay,' I said. 'I'm just glad you answered me. Would you like a biscuit?'

Tammy looked puzzled, but held out her hand for the treat.

'I'd love you to talk, Tam,' I said, 'but only when you're ready. And in the meantime, maybe you could let me know how you feel about things by nodding a bit more, or doing anything to help me know what's going on in your head.'

Tammy crunched up the biscuit, her eyes fixed on me. When it was gone she slid down from her chair and walked away, leaving me sitting where I was. She did not so much as grunt in my direction for two weeks after that.

It looked as if bribery wasn't going to work.

Autumn came in with the smell of turf fires and home-baked bread. The narrow roads about our village were scattered with the spiky sh.e.l.ls of horse chestnuts, the fields covered with drifts of crisp brown leaves. The roadside hedges and trees sagged under the weight of berries and fruit. One morning Rufus's mother, who was spending the day with us, made a suggestion: 'We should make jam.'

'I'm not sure about the children working with molten sugar, Bridie,' I said to her.

It had taken six weeks for her to decide to share her first name with us, but she had thawed rapidly after that. I had also seen a notable improvement in her relationship with her son. Rufus was cleaner, better fed and generally happier.

'Sure they don't have to make the jam. They can help pick the fruit, weigh it out and that. It'd be fun.'

The following day, the entire complement from Little Scamps was trekking across the fields, buckets in hand, searching for blackberries and crab apples.

'I'm just like Peter Rabbit,' Ross said.

'Well, you're more like Peter Rabbit's sisters,' I said. 'Peter decided not to go blackberry picking, and stole from Mr McGregor instead.'

'No, I'm definitely like Peter Rabbit,' Ross insisted.

'How?' I said.

'I've just stoled a load of berries from Jeffrey's bucket.' Ross cackled, scooting away from Jeffrey's punch.

I had tried to erase Peter Rabbit from their memories but the naughty creature had proved to be remarkably tenacious. They mentioned him often, comparing a vast array of experiences to his exploits, and seeming to find endless uses for the moral lessons the story posed. Its profound impact had presented me with an opportunity I should not pa.s.s up. I planned to return to Beatrix Potter. I was just waiting for the right time.

'Now, ye have to look close to the ground for the blackberries,' Bridie told the children, pulling aside a leafy branch and showing them a bramble bush heavy with juicy black fruit. 'But the crab apples, which will make the jam extra tasty, they live higher up. See there?'

Using a stick she pointed out the small red apples that hung in bunches above the heads of the children. Like a shot, Rufus scaled the tree she indicated and tossed the apples down to his mother, who caught them in her bucket.