“It’s a bit gray-looking,” I remarked.
“Give it a go,” Colleen urged me on.
Forking a flat piece of yam, I dropped it on my plate and cut off a small piece. I put it inside my mouth and tasted it. “It’s hard,” I said. “Like a hard spud.”
Pablo and Sharyna burst out laughing again.
Ten minutes later, I finished my dinner. My plate was clean. Colleen busted out her biggest smile yet.
I helped Tony with the washing up as Colleen played a board game with Sharyna and Pablo in the lounge.
“So, what did you do today?” asked Tony.
Standard foster-parent speak. He’s making an effort so I’ll allow it. But I’ll be on prick-fiddler guard if he wants to buy me anything.
“Nothing much,” I replied.
“Did you go out?”
“Yeah.”
“Where did you go?”
“Shopping.”
“Did you get what you wanted?”
“Yeah.”
“What else did you do?” Tony asked.
Isn’t it obvious? What do I have to do? Swing my head and lash him with my new braids?
I shrugged.
“We had lunch at that new Chinese buffet place on High Street!” shouted Colleen from the front room.
“Great!” Tony smiled. “What did you choose to eat, Naomi?”
“Chinese.”
“Did you try any of their herbal teas?”
“No,” I answered. “I don’t drink flowers.”
“We both had spring rolls and special fried rice,” added Colleen from the hallway.
This convo is too boring.
“I’m gonna fly upstairs and watch one of my DVDs,” I said. I turned to Colleen. “You promise you’re gonna finish my hair in the morning?”
“Of course.”
“Louise is gonna be proper shocked,” I grinned, then breezed past Colleen and climbed the stairs.
* * *
A film and a half later, I skipped downstairs to get myself some juice. I passed the lounge and found Tony sitting down on the floor on a cushion. Behind him Colleen was parked in an armchair massaging his shoulders. Again, I never saw Mum doing that for Rafi or Dad. I guess they were raging at each other too much to have time for that.
“Everything okay?” Tony asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Sharyna and Pablo are in my room watching something.”
Tony and Colleen traded glances. I left them to it.
When I had sunk a long glass of Coke, Sharyna and Pablo sat open-mouthed on either side of me, propped up by pillows. I had the lights out and the curtains drawn. They watched onscreen a crusty-built bruv with one eye, a stained white vest, and raggedy jeans make a grisly mess of a tied-up teenage girl’s baby toe with a power drill. The blond chick screamed and screamed again before she zonked out. Serve her right. She shouldn’t have had sex with her boyfriend in the backseat of his secondhand Honda. Pablo covered his face. Sharyna’s fingers dug into her cheeks—her eyes went all brown-yolky fried eggs.
Someone squeezed the door handle.
My head snapped toward the door. Tony’s eyes shot cannonballs at me before he marched over to the TV and switched it off. He then glared at Pablo and Sharyna. “Bed!”
A big grin erupted on Pablo’s face. “Good night, Nomi.” He got up and cutey-toed to his room.
Sharyna took awhile to move. She climbed out of the bed and stared at the floor.
“I’ll talk to you in a minute, young lady.”
“Yes, Dad,” Sharyna replied.
Tony’s gaze fired back to me. He looked like he hadn’t had his pumpkin juice for the longest time.
“They were bored so they slapped on my door wondering what I was up to,” I said. “They wanted to watch what I was watching. They haven’t got a DVD player in their rooms. It’s not like you haven’t got the Gs to give ’em DVD players.”
Ejecting the DVD, Tony held it in his left hand as he disconnected the DVD player from the TV. He waved it in the air like he just didn’t care. “This,” he said, “is inappropriate. You obviously can’t be trusted. Kids of six and eleven should not be watching this kind of thing.”
DVD in hand, Tony stepped out of my room.
“Where are you going with my DVD?” I asked. I jumped out of my bed and chased Tony into the hallway.
“To somewhere you can’t find it,” he replied.
“But it’s mine. Hasn’t got your frucking name on it!”
“You’re too young to watch something like this.”
“It’s still mine! Who are you to take away my tings? Did you buy it? No! So give it back! Liberties!”
“This is my house and you’ll live by my rules.”
“I didn’t ask to come here, prickhead! Bomb your fricking rules! Gimme my DVD back.”
“Keep on insulting me, young lady, and you’ll never have it back.”
“You call this insulting? Keep your toes still cos I haven’t even launched my cuss attack yet.”
Pablo’s bedroom door opened—I could see half of his head and his grinning teeth.
“You can have your DVD returned to you when you apologize for showing it to the younger children.”
“So you’re not giving it back?” I challenged.
“You could be here for a day or ten years,” Tony said. “You have to learn boundaries, Naomi. Learn what is acceptable and what isn’t.”
I turned my back on Tony and stomped along the hallway. I turned into Tony and Colleen’s bedroom. They had DVD box sets on a shelf opposite their bed. I swiped 24, the Hobbit trilogy, and a load of others. I dropped a couple on the floor as I hotfooted out. Tony was still in the hallway. Colleen trotted up the stairs.
“She was showing a horror film to the kids,” Tony snitched.
Colleen gave me a why did I decide to be a foster carer look while Tony shook his head. “She has to learn boundaries,” he repeated. “Even if she’s here for just one night.”
I brushed by them and entered my bedroom. “You’ve got something of mine and I’ve got something of yours. And you’re not getting squiddly jack back till I get what’s mine.”
I slammed the door behind me. The doorframe vibrated and I crashed onto my bed. I found my meerkat and hugged it well tight.
* * *
Some minutes later, someone tickled my door.
“It’s me, Colleen . . . can we talk?”
“No.”
“We do have rules, Naomi.”
“So?”
“And they must be kept. We can’t allow Sharyna and Pablo to watch horror films. They’re not as . . . grown up as you. They have had