*Jody's POV*
My mum left wjen i was younger, about 6 or 7. Im 11 now and i'm living with my grandma. Shes just had a fall. Its not seriois though, she was just brought into hospital as a procausion. When the doctors asked some questions they decided that its unsafe and isnt righ tfor me to conti ue living with my grandma so they called social services and my social worker is assessing my case and has found a care home for me. When a woman walks in and starts talking with her i block out wjat they say.
Soon the woman (May-Li) and my social worker are at the flat with me so i can pack up my things. I ensure i have everything i need and want including my tiger and blanket, photo albums etc.
When May-Li pulls up to the house I stay seated with my seat belt on along with my arms crossed. She pulls my suitcase and duffle bag out of the boot and then puts them down next to the gate. When she looks back to see I'm still in the car.
She buffs and walks back, opens the passenger door and says, "Come on, it's not as bad or scary as it looks. Come on let's get you settled." She's slowly losing her patience but covers it well.
"I don't want to get settled. I want to go home!" I say angrily.
She sighs before reaching acoss me and taking my seat belt off of me awkwardly. When she has I try to make a run for it. I only get about 5 steps in before she grabs me.
When she turns me around I'm met with a partially bald man who's half smiling. He walks over and sticks his hand out towards me. I look a tut and don't bother shaking it. I try to get out of May-Li's arms but she keeps a strong grip on me.
The man lowers his hand before saying with a smile, "I'm Mike Milligan, head care worker. You must be Jody."
I hear some laughter and look around him to see a line of kids. The kids that must live here.
"Why's she trying to run?"
"It's useless"
"What's the point?:
"What a wierdo"
That's all I hear from them being rubbish at being subtle and quiet.
"Well I can see you've seen the kids. Ok so from left to right we have Sasha, Tee, Carmen, Lilly, Johnny, Frank, Harry, Mo, Tyler, Floss, Toni and Billie. Guys this is Jody." He says and gestures to all of them.
"Ok can you let go of me now and take me home?" I ask bored and not wanting to stay.
"Your going to stay here for a while. Why don't we go to the office and talk privately?" Mike says as May-Li picks my bags up.
I just raise my eyebrow and follow them with my arms crossed. Before the three of us go in everyone goes inside first to do whatever they do.
Once in the office I go to sit down on the settee when I see everyone watching not so discretely and from how May-Li and Mike ignore it, it must happen all the time.
"Ok. So when can i go home?" I say in one breathe, bored already.
"Oh-" May-Li says looks to Mike and then continues.
"You can't. See your social worker says that your grandma can't look after you properly so you'll be living here."
"But that's not fair!" I shout.
"Hey, calm down." May-Li says with her hands out.
"No! My grandma needs me! We look after each other!" I shout standing up now.
"Hey! Calm down and sit back down. We aren't done here." Mike says. I ignore him and stay stood up but cross my arms and pop my leg out to show I'm still angry and annoyed.
"We need to talk about your parents." I huff and sit down. As I'm still annoyed I twang the elastic bands that are around my wrist against it as I look between them.
"So? I don't know who my dad is and I've not seen my mum in about 4 and a half years. What's there to talk about?" All the while I'm talking I keep twanging the elastic band.
"First of all, Can you stop that? You're going to hurt yourself." May-Li says reaching out to touch my wrists to get me to stop. I just move to the side.
Mike comes to sit next to me. "We just want to know if you know what their names are. If we know their names we can track them down. We can assess their situation and see if you can maybe live with one of them if you want?"
I stand up again, "I don't want to live with either of them! I just want to go home!" I say opening the door and slamming it behind me when I finish.
"And you lot can stop gawping and talking about me as well!" I shout before stomping up the stairs and shoving people out of my way.
When I get upstairs I decide to look around. I look through all the rooms until I find one with 2 beds, one with covers on and one without. If that's mine, I'm not sharing. I find a door with stairs that go up so I close the door behind me and go up.
When I get up there I look around and see that it's an attic with shelves with toys, games, old clothes etc and at the other end there's a settee with blankets facing the attic door.
I decide to take a few blankets off the settee and sit down behind it and hold the blankets tightly around me.
I don't k ow how long I was there but after a bit I hear my name being called. I stand up nd go around to sit on the settee and hug my knees tightly to my chest.
When the door opens a girl comes in and I look up at her keeping still and looking at her through my eyelashes.
She walks towards me as if I'm a wounded animal.
"Hey, I'm Carmen. We've all been looking for you." I don't acknowledge what she says but I do listen.
I move right to the arm of the settee and she sits at an angle next to me. I then look at her through the corner of my eyes.
"I know it's a bit overwhelming but you can't hide away." She reaches out and goes to grab me so I push her away and stand up away from her.
She falls back onto the floor and hits her head slightly.
"Right! I was trying to be nice and help you but now- now you're in for it!" She says and gets up to run at me.
I turn and run. I run down the stairs, down some corridors and then down the stairs again. I run into what looks like a kitchen and run in as fast as I can. There's a table straight in front of the doors I run through with some of the kids sat at it. I can hear my pulse in my ears and the foot steps of Carmen behind me.
I run into a few people and their plates plummet to the floor and smash. I hear them all screaming and then May-Li grabs me and pulls me behind her when she sees Carmen.
"Can someone tell me what's going on here?!" She says loudly over all of the noise. Everyone stops and silence takes over.
All at once everyone starts talking. I put my hands over my ears and close my eyes. After a few minutes my hands are being pulled away from my ears so I open my eyes and see every one stood watching me in silence and May-Li is in front of me.
"She started it!" Carmen shouts pointing her index finger at me.
May-Li looks back to me. "Is that true?" She asked me with a pointed look.
"She went for me!" I say in a high voice.
"Carmen?" She says looking back at her.
Carmen crosses her arms and rolls her eyes.
"I didn't do anything! I found her, told her she doesn't need to hide. When I went to put my hand on her shoulder she pushed me back. Look, I'm the victim here! She's a violent animal! She pushed me and I fell back and hit my head! She needs to leave!" She jolts her finger towards me again.
Mike steps in then.
"Right, you two out. My office now." I walk slowly to the office behind Carmen.
Once we're in I sit at the far end of the settee and Carmen stays stood near the door with her arms crossed. Mike comes into the office and shuts the door behind him and then stands behind his swivel chair with his hands holding the back.
"Right. You two are sharing a room so I want you both to appologise to each other." He says looking between us.
Neither of us say anything.
"Now!" He says sounding more annoyed.
"I didn't know. I thought she was going to hurt me."
"That's not an apology from both of you. Come on." He says looking at Carmen.
"Sorry." He grits out through her teeth looking at the floor.
"Sorry." I actually mean it so I don't grit my teeth, however I do look at the floor.
"Right Carmen you can go get your tea. Jody, you stay hear I want to have a word with you."
As Carmen shuts the door behind her to head to the kitchen for tea Mike sits down at the other end of the settee angled towards me.
"We don't tolerate things like that here. Now I'll let you off with a warning this time but if something like this happens again then you will be given sanctions, now is that understood."
"Yes." I reply with my head down still.
"Ok. Let's go back in so you can get some food then."
When I walk back in everyone quietens down and looks at me. I just grab a plate with a little bit of food on it and sit down at the island with my back to them. They soon start talking again and I sit in silence eating my food.
"When wa s the last time she ate?" I here someone say and a few of them laugh.
"Alright guys that's enough." Mike says calmly.
Having eaten half the plate of the small amount of food, I stand up.
"Can I leave now?" I ask.
They sniffer and laugh while May-Li answers me.
"Sure. I'll show where your room is." She says and guides me up to my room.
When we get to the room my bags are already there. She helps me make my bed and then when she moves to help me unpack my bags I stop her.
"I don't have to unpack do I?" I ask with soft eyes.
"Yes. You are going to be staying here for a while so it would be best to unpack. I nod back and when we're unpacking my stuff I ask her another question.
"Is my grandma ok? When can I see her again?" I ask looking at her now.
"Well I'm sure she's fine. And I'm not sure about when you can see her next but I'm sure me or like can take you tomorrow."
"Ok." I say in,a calm quiet voice.
When we've finished she bids me good night and I get changed into my pyjamas and got into m bed. I still hate the idea of sharing but it's been made abundantly clear that I have no choice.
When Carmen eventually comes into the room she makes her frustration clear and when she finally falls asleep I hear her breathing and it brings back bad memories from the few sleepovers and school trips I've been on.
It upsets me so I decide to leave the room. I go up to the attic with my pillow and deuvet and when I get up there I take the seat cushions and blankets off the settee and place them down behind the settee and go to sleep after getting comfy and listening to the silence.
*Carmen's POV*
I've just woken up and rolled over to see an empty bed. I look at my alarm clock and see that it's 1:35am.
When I look around the room and can't see her I go to the staff's bedroom so I can wake May-Li up so we can find Jody.
"May-Li!" I whisper yell as I shake her. "May-Li!" I repeat. She wakes up so I tell her about Jody.
"Jody's gone. She's not in our room."
This is enough to get her up. We go to the kitchen first and don't see anyone there. We then look in the quiet room and the office. She isn't there either. We go to the living room- she isn't there.
Just as May-Li is about to phone the police and Jody's social worker I stop her.
"Hold on. I have an idea of nowhere she could be."
"Ok, come on then." She says and follows me.
I go up to the attic and go to the settee to see the seat cushions are gone. May-Li goes back to the door and turns on the light. I go around the settee and see Jody covering her eyes.
"Go away!" She says her voice full of sleep.
"Hey, what are you doing here? You can't sleep here." May-Li says as she crouches down next to her.
"I couldn't sleep I could here her breathing and I didn't like it it made me remember some things I didn't want to remember."
May-Li looks up at me and tells me to go back to bed. I do as she says and go back to my room and get in my bed. It doesn't take long for me to fall back asleep.
*Jody's POV*
Once Carmen leaves May-Li sits next to me.
"So... what did the breathing remind you of? I can't help you unless you help me by telling me."
I really don't want to tell her everything but I can say what I need to so I can get my own room.
"I've never really had friends. When I got invited to sleepovers it would be a group thing and I'd be the punchline of every joke and I didn't feel safe enough to go to sleep. It was roughly the same when I went on the school trips. I don't have friends as no one likes me and I feel safer alone anyway."
She nods and then puts her hand on my knee."Ok, let's get you settled in the quiet room."
"Can't I stay here?" I ask as I don't want to go anywhere else.
"Well you'll be more comfortable in the quiet room. You'll still be on your own but it'll be more comfy." May-Li says trying to convince me and I decide to agree as I'm really tired.
"Ok." I nod. And she put the things back into there place and she leads me down to the quiet room and once I'm settled she says goodnight and shuts the door behind her. I fall asleep about half an hour later.
******
Authors note:
Hi, I hope you like this so far. I've obviously based it off of the dumping ground series however I've only loosely based it off of it as I'm not doing the same storylines. I'm going to include things about me in this book and things I've made up and some things roughly based on the programme.