Close Your Pretty Eyes by Sally Nicholls Page B

When I first came to live with the Iveys, I don’t think I would have done it. But I could see that Jim was trying. I got why he didn’t want me kicking off around Harriet, and I liked that he’d stopped making me go to my room. So even though I didn’t like it much, I stayed.

HOME NUMBER 12
    ANNABEL AND GRAHAM
    Before I moved in with Liz, I lived with Annabel and Graham. They were my second go at a forever family. They came to my foster home and took me to the funfair. Annabel had flat yellow hair and a sort of screwed-in face. Graham had round glasses and a bald spot and a nervous laugh, which he brought out whenever he didn’t know what to say.
    â€œCan I go on the dodgems?” I said, the minute we got into the car.
    â€œCourse you can,” said Graham, giving me a big gooey smile. He let me drive the dodgem, and I bashed it into all the other cars on the floor. It was brilliant.
    â€œAgain!” I said, the moment the car stopped moving.
    â€œDon’t you want to go on the other rides?” said Graham, but I shook my head as fast as I could.
    â€œI want to go on the dodgems! I’ve never been to the fair before, and I always wanted to go, and I had a book with pictures in it, and I always thought, if I had a mummy and daddy, they would take me on the dodgems. Pleeeeeeease! ”
    I thought that was going a bit far, and even Dopey Graham would see I was making it up. I’d been to the fair plenty of times with my old mummy and daddy, and even my foster parents had taken me once. But Dopey Graham believed every word.
    â€œWell . . . all right then,” he said, grinning like a loon.
    We went on the dodgems again, and again, and I could see he wasn’t enjoying it quite as much this time.
    â€œHow about we go on the merry-go-round?” he said.
    â€œOK. . .” I pulled my saddest face.
    â€œWhat is it?” he said. “What’s the matter?”
    â€œI thought it was my day,” I said. I squirmed like I was really shy. “To do whatever I wanted.”
    â€œSweetheart, of course it is!” said Graham. He looked horrified.
    â€œGood,” I said. “I want to go on the dodgems!”
    In the end, we went on the dodgems eleven times in a row. I only let him stop when he promised to buy me a candyfloss and a bag of popcorn and a packet of crisps. I totally ignored Grumpy Annabel. She looked right peeved off.
    â€œI love you, Daddy!” I told Dopey Graham, and he gave me this goofy grin and bought me a chocolate éclair.
    I was sick in the car on the way home, but I didn’t care. I made sure I threw up all over Grumpy Annabel. I knew this family wasn’t going to be any trouble.
    I was going to be boss.
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    I was boss right from the first day I moved in. I was pretty small – I was only seven, and I was the littlest in my class – and I could tell Dopey Graham thought I was sweet.
    â€œIsn’t she adorable?” he used to say. I’d run to the door as he came home from work, and give him my biggest hug.
    â€œI love you, Daddy!” I’d say, and he’d give me a Kinder Egg, or a bag of sweets, or a comic.
    I never had so much to eat as I did when I lived with Graham and Annabel. My old foster mother, Lynne, told them I had problems with food.
    â€œIt’s a fairly common side-effect of early neglect,” she said, when she thought I wasn’t listening. “You just need to make sure she has clear boundaries.”
    â€œPoor little thing,” said Graham. “No wonder she’s worried about food if she didn’t have enough to eat. Surely when she finds out we’re going to feed her, she’ll be fine.”
    Ha.
    The first few weeks I lived with them, they used to let me eat whatever I wanted. I would take food and hide it under my bed, so I wouldn’t go hungry. They told me it was my house now, and I could help myself. The first night I was