Mould

There was never much in his lunch box, but he couldn't eat it anyway. It hurt his throat and made him feel sick.

Belly gnawing and gurgling, he watched the other kids biting into their sandwiches, apples and granola bars. He wished he could do that.

His lunchbox was made of metal, and painted yellow. It had Asterix and Obelix on it. He peeked inside. The ham sandwich looked thin and dry. It was starting to curl at the edges. His throat was already closing just looking at it. He gulped. It hurt. He shut the lid. Sipped his juice. Winced.

She had crackers and grapes. Chunks of cheese, thick juicy slices of real ham. Fudgy squares of homemade chocolate cake, or peanut butter cookies that she shared with her friends. The boy tried not stare.

Sometimes a grown-up version of her appeared at the school with a clipboard and a sugary smile. But not really real sugar. No. The horrible kind you get in little pills when you're a diabetic like Gran.

Her long fingers sifted through his hair, looking for the little critters that bit and scuttled and itched. She'd pause, and he knew she was pursing her lips, brows drawing together, the same way she did when he stood on the scales. The same way she did when they were close together, and her nose wrinkled.

There was always a slip of paper when he went to see the nurse. Always too much concern in her face, and it always looked like judgement.

At home, the flat was cold. His mother wrapped pipes with dish towels, which might have helped a bit. They didn't freeze or burst, at least. It didn't stop the march of mould though. Damp swarmed the corners. Sometimes Isaiah woke coughing, ribs stinging, throat complaining.

At school, it might have smelt like cabbage and bleach, but at least there was no mould. Some days there was a yoghurt in his Asterix tin. He could manage that. He ate it slowly, to trick his tummy into thinking he'd et everything else and all.

On the next table, she was eating fat, firm blueberries, and a large, chewy cookie waited in a paper wrapper. She had a brand new pencil case, and she was showing it to her enthralled friends. By the time the bell went, it was organised with all her pencils in closet togetherthis bit, and her special handwriting pen in that bit. She buttoned up her coat ready to go on the playground. It was red. She freed her long, wild curls from the collar and laughed with her cohort. Content the way well-fed children can be.

It was a stroke of bad luck that on the day the grown-ups took it upon themselves to be nosy, and look inside the Asterix tin... the dry and curling ham sandwich had spots of blue fur on the crust. He tried to say, it's not always like that, but his throat felt closed up again.

He didn’t go home that day.

A fat lady with ugly black hair took him to a house with floral wallpaper and a scruffy little dog.

"I can't stay here," the boy croaked out, in what the woman thought was a shy whisper. "I don't have my things."

"That's fine," she said, with shiny lips that looked wet and disgusting, "You won't need anything tonight. We can get you a toothbrush, and you can borrow some pyjamas."

But he did need things tonight. He needed his own pillow. His familiar room. Brian-bear. He bit his lip. When were they going to realise it was all a mistake?

They took him home a few days later only to gather belongings. The plump social worker with ugly black hair sniffed disapprovingly at the mess, and then wrinkled her nose at the smell. His mother held her swollen belly protectively and offered biscuits. The tin was dented.

His parents didn't have a suitcase, because they'd never been on holiday. Not together, as a family. When the boy left, feet dragging and one arm caught in a flabby talon, it was with a bin bag of higgledy-piggledy clothes, and mismatched shoes with matching holes. Brian-bear was not in it. The woman threw the sack in the back of her car as if it really were just a bag of rubbish.

When they got to the foster home, dinner smells were waiting out of the window.

"There now," she said, with a big smile, "I bet that's nicer than anything you'd get at home, isn't it?"

The boy squeaked something he hoped was polite.

"Now, you understand, don't you, Isaiah, this is going to be your home for a little while. Okay? Be good for Mr and Mrs Wyatt."

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