Casey Watson - Mummy’s Little Soldier - A troubled child. An absent mum. A shocking secret.

This book is a work of non-fiction based on the author’s experiences. In order to protect privacy, names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.

HarperElement

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperElement 2016

FIRST EDITION

© Casey Watson 2016

A catalogue record of this book is

available from the British Library

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2016

Cover photograph © Rebecca Nelson/Arcangel Images (posed by model)

Casey Watson asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at

www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

Source ISBN: 9780007595143

Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780007595150

Version: 2016-02-16

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Epilogue

Topics for reading-group discussion

Casey Watson

Moving Memoirs eNewsletter

About the Publisher

I’d like to dedicate this book to all those brave soldiers, men and women, who continue to dedicate their lives to serving their country so that all our grandchildren, mine included, can look forward to a peaceful future. A special mention goes to the parents and grandparents of serving soldiers, airmen and seamen, who will surely be facing their own private battles, as well as being filled with pride. Bless you all.

As ever, I’d like to thank the team I’m so privileged to work with. Huge thanks to everyone at HarperCollins, my agent Andrew Lownie and, of course, my lovely friend Lynne.

Working in a school, or so my thoughts ran, I should really love words, shouldn’t I? Words are good, after all. Words are a brilliant way of communicating with one another. Words are one of the best ways invented for expressing how we feel. But as I looked down at the word that had appeared on the screen of my mobile, I could think of a fair few more I shouldn’t even be thinking , much less typing out furiously in response to it.

The word that had been texted was ‘whatever’. Which was to be expected, as it was the word that was my daughter’s current favourite, in reply to pretty much anything I said. Except she spelt it ‘whateva!’ Which was another thing.

I’d had the last word that morning, which had been no kind of victory, because when you’re a mum and you start the day by having words with your teenage children, you spend the rest of it feeling miserable, even if you’re in the right. Which I was, about that one thing she’d promised to do but ‘couldn’t’, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

And now the text, just to rub it in. Just to make her point. I flipped the phone shut, shoved it into my bag and headed into school. Better not to answer it. Not just yet.

Also better to put it behind me and focus on work. Everyone has one of those days sometimes, after all. But there are some days that you really don’t want to be one of those days, aren’t there? The first day of term being one of them.

Which would have been the case anyway – first days of term tend to be complicated at the best of times – but it seemed that today I wasn’t even going to be allowed the luxury of licking my wounds a bit while easing into it.

‘Ah, Casey!’ Julia Styles called, marching down the corridor towards me, bristling with efficiency and thick manila files. ‘Brilliant. You’ve saved me a journey.’

Julia Styles was the school SENCO, or special educational needs co-ordinator, and it was her job to oversee everything special needs-related. It was also her job, in conjunction with the other relevant senior staff, to act as gatekeeper of where I worked – the school’s behavioural unit.

‘I have?’ I asked her, as we reached each other, wondering why she’d been in search of me anyway. The first day of a new term usually involved me heading to her office, for a sit down and a chat about my latest bunch of pupils, as well as a catch-up about the holidays over a mug of coffee or two.

But not today, it seemed. Julia linked an arm through mine and swivelled me around. ‘We’re off to a meeting in the meeting room,’ she explained, leading me back the way I’d come. ‘All a bit last minute, I know, but I decided we all needed to put our heads together. Donald’s already up there. Gary’s coming, obviously. I’ve sent Kelly off to hunt Jim down as well.’

Donald was the deputy head, Gary the school’s child protection officer and Jim was my alter ego; we both did similar jobs. We had the same job title, too – the rather fierce-sounding ‘behaviour manager’. Even though neither of us was very fierce at all. Kelly Vickers, who’d just gone off to find him, was one of the twenty or so teaching assistants in the school, and was these days pretty much my number 2.

‘Quite a gathering, then,’ I said, as Julia and I mounted the stairs up to the room in question. ‘What’s brought all this on? Something happened?’

‘Oh, don’t look so worried,’ Julia reassured me. ‘Nothing bad’s happened. Well, not yet, anyway.’ She grinned. ‘No, you know what it’s like, Casey. I just had one of those eureka moments. As you do. No, we’ve got a couple of potentially rather complicated children joining the school today, and since they’re the sort of kids who are going to require input from all of us I thought “I know! How about I take the bull by the horns and get all of us together, then?” So I did! Seemed to make a great deal more sense than trying to organise half a dozen separate meetings on the hoof, as usually happens. Means we’ll all be on the same page before we start working with them, won’t it?’ She pushed the door to the meeting room open and smiled again. ‘I believe it’s called “joined-up thinking”. Something jargon-y like that, anyway. Ah, Gary, Donald. Hi. You got my notes, then. Thanks so much for coming.’ She threw her files down on the big table that dominated the space. ‘Quite the party, eh? Ah, and here are Kelly and Jim. So that’s almost all of us. Who’s brought the bubbly?’

That’s another thing about the first day of term, particularly when it’s the first term of the academic year as well. For those of us who work in schools, it’s a bit like the first day of January. The ‘happy new year’ we’ve all anticipated over the long summer break. Some with an element of dread (or so I’m told; that never applied to me personally), and some with a degree of manic energy and enthusiasm that would have everyone else wondering what they’d slipped into their cornflakes.