Chances Read online

  CHANCES

  By

  Ruth Saberton

  Copyright

  All characters, organisations and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The opinions expressed in this book are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and / or legal right to publish all materials in this book.

  Copyright © 2016 Ruth Saberton

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher. If you wish to share this book please do so through the proper channels.

  www.ruthsaberton.com

  Chapter One

  I knew today was going to be a bad day, not that I needed psychic skills to figure this out. When a social worker, two policemen and a doctor turn up on your doorstep before 8 am it’s not usually good news.

  But even I didn’t think things were going to get this bad.

  Here are two things I’ve learned about social workers:

  Number one: they’re hardly social – mine never pops round unless she’s bringing some message of doom – and number two: which follows on from number one really, they don’t seem to do a lot of work. I mean, drinking tea, looking caring and asking me if I’m all right hardly counts as work, does it? Doing two paper rounds before school and long weekend shifts washing up in a café is what I call work. Or rather that’s what I did call work because I won’t have a job now I’ve been dragged away without even being consulted, will I? But why should my opinion count? I’m just the one being taken into care. Who cares what I think?

  It’s only my life.

  “Look, Amber, there’s no point sitting there glowering. Why don’t you try to see this as a wonderful opportunity?”

  That’s Mrs. Dogood, my social worker, lobbing a few pearls of wisdom at me as she drives along the motorway.

  OK, you’ve got me. Mrs. Dogood isn’t her real name. It’s Allgood or Bigood or something but I’ve called her Dogood in my head for years and I think it suits her much better because ‘doing good’ is exactly what she thinks she’s up to. Every time she yanks me away to some new foster placement or core group meeting she thinks she’s doing me a favour, the poor deluded woman. She’s at it again right now as she witters on about how wonderful it will be for me to have a change of scene and (another) fresh start. If she doesn’t shut up soon I think I’ll just open the car door and hurl myself under the next passing juggernaut. As if being forced to leave my entire life is wonderful? How she ever got this job is utterly beyond me because the woman hasn’t a clue. She actually thinks I should be grateful.

  Like, hello? What planet is she on?

  Dogood sighs when I don’t reply. Even her frizzy hair looks exasperated.

  “Why don’t you try to look on the bright side?”

  I stare at her in disbelief. And what bright side would that be, exactly? The one where I have to leave everything behind? Or maybe the one where I get dumped in the middle of nowhere with yet another load of losers? Call me picky put I’m struggling to see anything vaguely resembling a bright side.

  “Cornwall’s a beautiful county with wonderful beaches. I bet you’ll have a lovely time,” Dogood continues in the bright tone of voice you’d use with a six year-old. How she’s ended up working with teenagers is a total mystery; she hasn’t a clue what makes us tick.

  “I don’t want to go to the beach,” I mutter. “I want to go back to Bristol.”

  Dogood sighs again. “We’ve been through this already. There aren’t any long-term foster placements in Bristol. This out of county one is all we’ve got for you at such short notice.”

  “Why can’t I just stay at home?”

  This makes total sense to me and I could visit Mum as well as look after Scally, our dog. I bet this would save money too. Since everyone’s always banging on about budgets and cuts surely this would make Social Services happy?

  Simples.

  “You can’t stay at home because you’re fifteen,” my social worker snaps, veering across two lanes of traffic and causing several drivers to gesture and hoot at us. “And before you ask again, the dog will be fine. Your neighbour said she’d feed and walk her.”

  “But she’ll miss me,” I whisper. “She’s used to seeing me all the time.”

  When I think of Scally, a mad bouncing ball of scruffy mongrel, sitting by the door waiting and waiting for me to come home, my throat starts to feel all tight and my eyes tingle. To distract myself I pull out my earring and dig the sharp hook into my arm. There’s no way I’m going to cry. Absolutely no way.

  I’ll probably flood the car.

  “If I stayed at home you could come and visit me every day to check I’m OK.”

  I’m clutching at straws now, which is hardly surprising seeing as each mile is taking me further and further west and further and further away from my life. Stuff straws, I’ll clutch anything. “I’ll go to school. I promise.”

  “You know as well as I do it doesn’t work like that,” Dogood says wearily.

  Actually I do. I’m quite the expert on foster placements. I’m also an expert on getting kicked out of them. Something tells me I won’t be hanging around in Cornwall for too long. Dogood ought to save herself a trip and turn around now. I give it a week, tops, before the latest foster parents are on the phone begging her to come and get me.

  “Anyway,” she adds thoughtfully, “I think a fresh start is exactly what you need. Let’s be honest, things aren’t going very well at school are they?”

  I glance out of the window at the blur of green hedges. Not going very well is a bit of an understatement. Before social services swooped I was minding my own business on a five-day exclusion, happy to hang out with Jeremy Kyle and the Loose Women while the Education Welfare Officer talked to Mum through the letterbox.

  “It’s not my fault the teachers hate me.”

  Yet another sigh. “You don’t help yourself, Amber. All they see is a bad attitude. They don’t know your case history like we do and it was your decision we didn’t tell them, remember? I still think it might have made things easier for you if we had.”

  I stare down at my bitten nails. There you go, yet more proof she hasn’t a clue. The last thing I want is pity. The thought of teachers making allowances because of…

  Well anyway, there are just some things that ought to stay private, aren’t there? I can’t bear the thought of them all gossiping about me in the staff room. I’d rather they just thought I was a stroppy cow.

  “And that nose piercing doesn’t do you any favours either. It’s not part of the uniform code.”

  “I know,” I mutter. “That’s why I got it.”

  “And it’s such a shame you dyed your hair!” Dogood shakes her head sadly.

  “No wonder they put you out for five days.”

  I pull down the sun visor and glance in the vanity mirror. A white face floats back at me, green eyes ringed with thick eyeliner and framed by inky black hair. It’s not a bad look, a bit Twilighty maybe which is so not my thing, but it certainly made my Head of Year freak which is my thing.

  “You’ve got such beautiful hair,” Dogood sighs. “And all those lovely red curls! I can’t think what you dyed it for. It really made you stand out.”

  I roll my eyes at my reflection. Who wants to stand out for being ginger? It’s bad enough being lanky and skinny and from the Shakespeare Estate. The last thing I want is to stand out. At my school standing out is a sure way o
f getting a good kicking.

  “I think new start in a new school’s just what you need,” Dogood tells me brightly. “Your grades have really slipped too, which is such a shame. You used to be a straight A student, Amber. I don’t know what’s happened.”

  “Yes you do,” I say under my breath. Of course she knows. It’s all there in my case notes.

  “You’ve got your GCSEs in the summer so you need to knuckle down. Living in the country with no distractions is exactly what you need. You’ll be glad of this move when you get your results! You’ll never be a vet unless you get good exam passes.”

  The last thing I need is yet another lecture about my (lack of) academic success. I know my grades are bad. I’m the one constantly being nagged about my lack of homework and unfinished assignments, aren’t I? And staying away from school to keep an eye on Mum doesn’t exactly help improve things, not that I’m going to share this choice detail with Dogood. She’ll be typing it up and calling a case conference before you can say at risk.

  It’s easier just to forget about my GCSEs. I’d probably have been a rubbish vet anyway. I’m rubbish at everything else.

  We drive on for what feels like hours and with every mile that takes me further away from Bristol I feel worse. When the car crosses a bridge over a vast river and Dogood declares ecstatically that we’re in Cornwall I want to throttle her with her tasseled scarf. What’s to be so excited about? How can a glimpse of sea and a few place names written in Cornish thrill her so much?

  She needs to get out more. Seriously.

  “This is it! St. Perran!” Dogood announces twenty minutes later, slowing the car as we drop down into a valley where houses cling for dear life to the hillside. The sea glitters in the sunshine and a couple of guys with surfboards tucked under their arms stand chatting outside a tiny shop.

  A shop? You have to be kidding. This place only has one shop? What on earth do people do here?

  “Surf?” suggests Dogood brightly when I voice thought out. “Study? Stay out of trouble?”

  Oh God. Kill me now, please, before I die of boredom. Oh look! There goes a piece of tumbleweed.

  OK. I may have made that up but you get the gist.

  This place is dead with a capital D.

  Our car passes through the village and past a long slice of golden beach. Scally would love that beach, but I’m not going to let myself think about Scally right now. Besides, I’ll see her very soon. It’s not as though I’ll be sticking around. We turn left by a church and the road begins to wind out of the village. Dogood chats away about the beautiful countryside but I can’t speak. It’s all right for her. She’s not the one about to be dumped with a load of strangers. I feel as though piranhas are gnawing on my guts. I suppose ought to be used to this but it never gets any easier.

  “Nearly there,” Dogood trills, turning off the main road. “Oh look! What a lovely house. I wonder who lives there?”

  Set back from the lane is a ginormous house, the kind that you’d imagine Cheryl Cole or maybe Wayne Rooney living in, if they’d ever be daft enough to move this far from civilization of course. I’m not very interested in houses, unlike my mum who on her good days loves watching property shows and pretending she can afford to buy one. She’s got a good imagination I’ll say that for her because some days we can’t even afford a can of baked beans.

  No, what catches my eye are the fields surrounding the house, bowling green smooth and fringed with post and rail fencing. These paddocks are filled with horses grazing contentedly and they aren’t any old horses either. I haven’t ridden for years, not since Dad left, but I know quality horses when I see them. As we drive by I watch a stunning grey, ridden by a blonde girl, floating around a ménage while a dark haired boy leans against the fence and looks on devotedly.

  There you go. Some people really do have it all. I must have done really something bad in a past life.

  “Oh look! We’re here!” Dogood says delightedly, slowing to pass through tatty gate with the name Perranview Farm nailed onto it. The car bounces along a drive full of potholes and moments later we pull up outside a farmhouse which has definitely seen better days. Ivy smothers the walls, paint peels from the window frames and the yard is little more than a patch of mud.

  And they were worried about leaving me on the Shakespeare Estate?

  Dogood yanks up the hand brake and smiles at me.

  “Are you ready to say hello? Please make an effort, this placement could be really good for you.”

  I don’t reply. What’s the point?

  I’m far too busy planning what I can do to get sent home.

  Chapter Two

  “Have some fruit cake, Amber. I only made it this morning and if you don’t grab a slice quickly the rest of my gannets will gobble the lot!”

  Kate Crewe, my latest foster mother, smiles at me but I don’t smile back. Does she really think I’m going to be won over by a slice of cake? In her dreams. She might have gathered everyone around the enormous farmhouse table and practically drowned us with cups of tea but it takes more than this to make me play happy families. Anyway, I’ve got my own family back in Bristol; Mum, Scally and me. We might not be happy exactly but we’re OK. Or at least we were until I got dragged here.

  “It looks lovely,” gushes Dogood, helping herself to a huge slice. “Doesn’t it, Amber?”

  “No,” I say, wrinkling my nose in what teachers always tell me is a really unattractive sneer. “I think it looks gross.”

  Everyone stares at me - Kate, her two children, Dogood, several dogs and three cats - and they all look shocked. I’d say that’s a strike. A few more days acting up like this and I’ll soon be packed off home. It’s easy when you know how.

  “Don’t you like cake?” This question comes from Kate’s daughter, Maddy, who’s sitting next to me. I’ve only been here ten minutes and already she’s driving me mad by following me around and asking about a million questions. If I stay here too long my mum won’t be the only one who needs a shrink.

  “I hate cake.” I curl my lip. “It makes you fat, doesn’t it?”

  Kate looks taken aback. A plump woman in her forties, she’s obviously more than partial to a slice or six of cake.

  “Err, right. Maybe a biscuit then?”

  I ignore her and yawn rudely, giving everyone a view of my tongue stud. Bet they love that.

  “Amber!” hisses Dogood. “What’s got into you?”

  “Not cake, that’s for sure,” observes the boy sitting opposite. Blue eyes beneath a shock of thick blonde hair narrow at me as he leans across the table and helps himself to a slice. “It’s your loss. This is great as always, Mum.”

  Kate beams at him. “Harry’s always hungry. It’s working on the farm, isn’t it love? Gives you such an appetite.”

  Harry can’t speak, his mouth is too full, but his freckled face dimples at his mother in reply and I look away. Vomit making shows of family affection are a bit more than I can stand right now.

  “There must be lots to do on the farm,” says Dogood, hastily changing the subject. “Amber loves animals. Maybe she can lend a hand?”

  Kate smiles at me. “I’m a sucker for waifs and strays, I’m afraid, Amber. There are always lambs needing bottle feeding. Once we even had a pet seagull! Harry and Maddy will show you around when you’ve finished your drink. There’s so much to do on a farm. We never seem to stop.”

  “Am I here because you need somebody to work? I thought child labour was illegal?” I say nastily.

  A blush stains Kate’s neck. “I just thought if you like animals…”

  Her voice tails off and she stares miserably down at the table while Dogood looks daggers at me.

  Amber one. Losers nil. This is almost too easy.

  There’s an uncomfortable silence in the kitchen. Harry’s glaring at me and I don’t blame him. If anyone talked to my mum like that I’d probably thump them. He’s protective of Kate and I totally get it. On the journey down Dogood told me all abou
t how Kate’s husband died a couple of years back and that her son had to quit Art College to run the farm. Harry might want to bury his cake fork in my head but we’ve got more in common than he’ll ever know. I’ve been trying to quit school for ages so I can look after my mum too and make sure she doesn’t… doesn’t…

  Well, never mind all that. I just want to make sure Mum’s all right. That’s why I give the teachers attitude at school. If I get kicked out then I can stay at home and keep an eye on her. It makes perfect sense.

  Something cold presses against my hand and looking down I see a black Staffy looking up at me with big melting Malteaser eyes. I scratch the top of her head and try not to think about Scally all alone in the flat and wondering where I am.

  “Look, Mum!” Maddy shrills, making everybody jump. “Saffy Staffy likes Amber! That’s amazing!”

  Kate follows her daughter’s gaze. “Goodness! How unusual! She really does like you, Amber.”

  I must have made a really bad impression if they’re this surprised a dog thinks I’m bearable.

  “Amber’s good with animals,” Dogood says quickly. “She wants to be a vet.”

  “A vet?” Harry’s blonde eyebrows shoot into his fringe. “You must be much more intelligent than you look, Amber.”

  “Harry!” Kate gives her son a warning frown. To me she says, “Saffy’s a rescue dog. She’d been locked in a shed and beaten, I guess they wanted to toughen her up and make her fight, so she finds it hard to trust anyone. It’s really unusual for her to approach a stranger.”

  I glance down at the dog. Her head’s resting on my knee now and her eyes are closed. My fingers drift across the silky dome of her head.

  “You have a gift,” Kate says softly. “She trusts you.”

  I feel myself start to blush. I might have dyed my hair but I’m still a ginger underneath.

  “Come and meet the other animals! See if they like you too!” Maddy shrieks, grabbing my hand and tugging me to my feet. Before I even have a second to refuse or to think of a sarcastic comment she’s dragged me out of the kitchen and into the yard where I’m introduced to goats, chickens, cats and a even a snoring pig called Malcolm.