Read At My Door Online

Authors: Deb Fitzpatrick

At My Door (3 page)

‘Is your brother awake too, Pops?' Dad asks.

I look at him, not wanting to dob Harry in. ‘Uhh …'

‘Right. I get the picture.'

‘Sorry, Dad, but you can't seriously expect us to sleep with all this —' I look around at everyone in the room, ‘— going on.'

Mei shifts then, and makes snuffling sounds
as she gets comfortable. We all hold our breath. I get the feeling no one wants her to wake up, because she might start crying again when she realises she's here with us rather than in her own home, in her own bed, with her own family around her.

She must have a family – a mum, brothers and sisters maybe, and a dad and aunties and a nanna. But if she does have brothers and sisters, why would her parents have left only Mei here? Wouldn't they have left all the kids? Or maybe they've delivered each child to a different house, dotted them about the neighbourhood … Or maybe Mei is an only child, and I'm getting
way
ahead of myself.

Mei takes a big shuddery breath and snuggles back into the cushions. And we all relax back into our seats too.

It must be after midnight when Mum and Dad finally tuck me back into bed, Mum straightening each of my blankets and doonas in the correct order, just as I like them. They kiss me at the same time, one cheek each, like my face is a burger.

‘Sleep now, love,' Mum whispers. ‘And sleep in. I reckon we'll have a day off school tomorrow.'

My eyes fly open. ‘At home?'

She nods. ‘A mental health day. A catch-up day.'

I feel myself sinking deep into the mattress
and pillow as they leave. I am so, so tired. And so, so warm.

It sounds like a siren is going off in our lounge room. Really close. Really loud. As I come out of the heavy, warm, deep world of my sleep I hear the muffled thumping of adult feet on the floorboards and lights clicking on.

It's not a siren. It's Mei. She's wailing. Loudly. And sobbing. It sounds horrible.

I push my face into the gap at the edge of my blinds. It's crow-black outside.

As I snuggle back into my soft cocoon I hear Mum's distant, rhythmic
shh shh shhhh
,
shh shh shhhh
,
shh shh shhhh
, and I almost feel it's me she's comforting, me, a baby in her arms again. I can almost remember it …

I wake up to different everything. The sounds are different. I can hear Dad and Harry, but not Mum. And the light's too bright – not how it normally is when I wake up in the morning.

My mind reels back over the night. Then I realise I can't hear Mei. I shoot out of bed like a rubber band from Harry's ging. What's going on?

I race into the kitchen. Dad's watching the kettle like a hawk and is massaging his neck. He's in his jamies. ‘Morning, love,' he says.

‘Morning. Where's Mum?'

‘In bed. She was up a lot during the night with Mei.'

Harry pads in. ‘Moaning, Flops. No school today,' he says, widening his eyes at me.

‘What's the time?' I ask.

‘Ten-ish,' says Dad.

‘Ten?!'

‘I know. We slept in, hey? It was a very late night for you two.'

‘Where's, um … Mei?' I ask.

‘On the couch in the lounge room, asleep,' Dad says. ‘Finally.'

Just then two big white cars swing into our driveway. Dad peers out. ‘That'll be the Family Services people. I'd better wake Mum.' Then he looks down. ‘I'm not dressed!' He weaves down the corridor and disappears into the bedroom.

I look into the lounge room. Mei is stretched out, with her green blanket close to her face, and one of our blankets tucked around her body. Knowing she's asleep, I go over and have a better look at her.

Her hair is swept away from her face. She looks so warm and soft.

The doorbell rings. Just as I call out for Dad, he reaches the door. And when he opens it, there's a crowd of important looking people standing on our doorstep.

‘Mr Campbell?' a woman asks Dad, smiling.

‘It's Matt, Matt Campbell, yes, hello. I guess you're all from …?'

‘Department of Family Services,' the woman shows us an ID card. ‘And I'm Liz.'

Dad shakes her hand. ‘Nice to meet you. Please, come in.' He runs his hands through his hair and then offers an embarrassed grin. ‘Sorry, we're in a bit of disarray here. I've had journalists on the phone already this morning. Jess is still in bed. The little one had us up a fair bit in the night, as you'd expect.'

There's some gentle laughter at that, and
everyone squeezes into the lounge room. People reach down to give Pixie a scratch or a pat as they pass and someone comments on how cute she is. Pixie's ears seem to point up and become even more perfectly triangular with all the attention.

As the visitors gather round the sleeping bundle of Mei, I dash down the corridor to Mum's room, practising my Ultimate Poppy karate move as I go. I know Mum'd want to get up for this.

She's pulling on a pair of jeans as I go in.

‘Hi, love.'

‘There's all these people here.'

‘Yes, I heard. I'm just coming.' She sits down on the end of her bed and yanks on her favourite Explorer socks. ‘They're here about Mei.' She looks up at me. ‘They'll need to make some … other arrangements for her.'

‘Will they take her back to her own family?'

‘Yes, hopefully. But if not, they'll settle her in
with another family till they can find hers.'

She grabs her hairbrush and rips it through her hair.

‘Why can't she stay here?' I say. ‘With us?'

‘Well, that's not how these things work, love, unfortunately. I'd better get out there. Are you coming? You're part of this too, you know.'

I put my hand in hers. I'm coming. And we head back out to The People together.

Dad's ushering them into the kitchen as Mum and I come in. Everyone's whispering and tiptoeing around. There aren't enough chairs so Mum shifts the ones the police were using in the lounge room last night back in. There are eight of us squeezed around the table – three of us and five of them.

Harry's outside kicking his soccer ball. I can see him through the kitchen window. Ever since the World Cup he reckons he's some kind of soccer legend. He's been trying to get all of us to call it
football
, not soccer, but I refuse, just to bug him. It works. I have to get him back
somehow for the Floppy thing.

‘So let's get this started while the child's asleep,' Liz says. ‘I'd like to introduce everyone first, if I may. We've got the emergency placement team from the Department of Family Services here, Caroline and Noula; and two officers from the Clarence Police Station, who've been fully briefed by the officers who came here last night.'

Everyone smiles and nods, and there are a couple of muted
good morning
s.

Dad shuffles in his seat, and says, ‘I'm Matt, and this is Jess. And our daughter, Poppy. Harry's outside.'

More smiling and nodding.

Liz says, ‘Nice to meet you, Poppy,' and everyone's looking at me all of a sudden.

I feel myself going red like someone's put a torch inside my face and switched it on. ‘Oh. Umm … thanks,' I say.

Liz pulls a folder from her briefcase and
other people start opening pads of paper and pulling out forms. Caroline puts her iPhone in the centre of the table and says, ‘I hope no one minds: we like to record meetings in case we need to go back and revisit anything.'

‘That's very …
formal
,' Mum says, looking flustered. Then she sort of straightens up, and says, ‘But I completely understand. Of course.' She pauses. ‘Can I make anyone a coffee, or tea? Or would anyone like a glass of water?'

With lots of forms being spread out on the table, I can see this is going to be the kind of meeting that I don't want to be at. I squeeze Mum's wrist and whisper, ‘Can I go?' and she nods in understanding.

I sidle back into the lounge room. Mei's still asleep, but she's bound to wake up soon, isn't she? And I've been thinking – she might want to play with some of my old toys when she does. Mum keeps a stash of our special old stuff on the top shelf of the linen cupboard. She has one
box for Harry's stuff, and another for mine.

I drag the red step-chair out from the laundry and position it in front of the cupboard. I can just reach the boxes when I'm on my tippy-toes. Harry's sleeping bag falls on my head when I tug my box to get it out. So I have to spend a couple of minutes shoving his stinky-pong sleeping bag back in before I can open my special-things box and look inside.

I drag it into my room onto the middle of my rainbow rug.

It's been a year or two since I last looked in here, and I love it a bit more each time. Mum adds a couple of things every year, to remind her of ‘each of our stages', she once told me. She has kept a couple of my Bonds Wondersuits. They are so cute. There's a white size 000 which is doll-small, as well as one of the bigger ones, from when I was a sumo toddler. There are photos to prove
that
stage, unfortunately. Then there are some of the littlest dresses ever, as well
as these funky orange-and-pink striped pants

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