The Boy No One Loved and Crying for Help 2-in-1 Collection
Sunday Times bestselling author and foster carer Casey Watson’s first heartbreaking memoir The Boy No One Loved now combined in a single volume with her shocking title Crying for Help about a troubled 12-year-old girl.The Boy No One Loved is the true story of Justin who was taken into care at the age of 5 after deliberately burning down his family home. Six years on, after 20 failed placements, Justin arrives at Casey’s home. A childhood of hurt and rejection has made him aggressive, but this is only the tip of a chilling iceberg.In Crying for Help, Casey takes in Sophia, a girl with a pain-filled past and disturbing behaviour. Casey must get through to her, but Sophia’s violence is threatening the safety of the whole family. Can Casey really handle this lost and damaged young girl?
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Casey Watson
The Boy No One Loved and Crying For Help
Contents
Casey Watson
The Boy No One Loved
Dedication
To my wonderful and supportive family
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Funny the little details that tend to stick in your…
Chapter 2
I followed Kieron up the stairs, Riley close behind me,…
Chapter 3
I’m mad about Christmas – always have been and always will…
Chapter 4
I woke on Christmas morning in my usual good spirits,…
Chapter 5
One of the main things Mike and I had to…
Chapter 6
‘I just can’t help it,’ Justin said. ‘I know I…
Chapter 7
We’d been sitting there together for an hour by now.
Chapter 8
It was the following Saturday morning and I was on…
Chapter 9
It was a freezing cold day at the end of…
Chapter 10
The end of the week saw another email arrive from…
Chapter 11
April had arrived and with it some slightly warmer weather…
Chapter 12
Sunshine, I thought happily, as I yanked open the bedroom…
Chapter 13
‘Aw, Mum. Pleeeeaaase!!!’
Chapter 14
‘Mrs Watson? It’s Richard Firth, Head of Year Seven at…
Chapter 15
After the whole issue of the exclusion and Justin’s further…
Chapter 16
I woke up the next morning with a really thick…
Chapter 17
It was late August and, now that Justin was making…
Chapter 18
‘Spaghetti bolognaise!’ Justin announced with an excited flourish. ‘I’m gonna…
Chapter 19
Though we didn’t know for sure (and, as it turned…
Chapter 20
It was now late September and I was beginning to…
Chapter 21
‘Aw, it’s not fair. I soooo want to come!’ Riley…
Chapter 22
It was a Friday morning, just a week after Justin’s…
Chapter 23
‘What shall it be then, Casey, do you think? Shall…
Chapter 24
Deep breath, I said to myself slowly. Deep breath. It…
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Prologue
His little brothers, the boy saw, were both covered in shit. They’d removed their full nappies and smeared each other in it, while their mother’s dog – a spiteful brown terrier – was busy licking what remained from the bars of their shared cot.
He shooed the dog away and, gagging now, lifted both boys out, and then went to fetch a quilt from his mother’s bedroom. Where had she gone this time? Why was she never there?
He took the boys downstairs, used the quilt to wrap them up warmly on the couch, and tuned the TV to a channel that was showing cartoons. ‘We’re hungry,’ the older one kept repeating plaintively. ‘We’re hungry, Justin. Please Justin. Find us some food.’
There was nothing. There never was. Though he looked for some anyway. In all the cupboards. In the drawers. In the big dirty fridge. He felt tears spring in his eyes. And he also felt anger. He looked at his little brothers, at their hopeful, expectant faces. What was he supposed to feed them with? What was he supposed to do?
Then, suddenly, in that instant of despair, there came clarity. He didn’t have to think. He knew exactly what to do. As if on autopilot now, he took his brothers out into the front garden, sat them down on the grass – still wrapped in the grubby quilt – and told them to stay where they were.
He then returned to the house and looked around the living room for the lighter. Picking it up, he calmly flicked it at the couch. He continued to do this till the couch began burning and then he went and set fire to the curtains.
The dog came downstairs then, its face all smeared with the contents of the brothers’ nappies. The boy ran to the kitchen, to the cupboard under the sink, where there was a container of fluid which he knew was for the lighter. Grabbing this, he returned to the living room again, and squirted the fuel all over the animal’s filthy face.
Taking one last look around, he walked out of the front door, closing it carefully behind him. He then joined his brothers under the quilt, on the grass, and calmly watched while both home and dog perished.
His mother was located, by the police, three hours later. She’d apparently spent the day at a friend’s house. The little boy was just five and a half years old.
Chapter 1
Funny the little details that tend to stick in your mind, isn’t it? The day Justin, the first foster child to ever be placed with us, was due to arrive – a bright but chilly day on the last Saturday before Christmas – all I kept going back to were the same old two things. One of them was just how desperate the social worker seemed to be that we should agree to have him, and the other was the fact that I had black hair.
And it wasn’t just me either. My daughter Riley, now 21 and so supportive of the whole project from day one, had the same head of black hair that I did. We’d both of us inherited our raven locks from my mother and one thing I knew – and I really knew so little about Justin – was that he had a very powerful aversion to women with black hair.
I straightened his England football-team-themed duvet cover for the umpteenth time that morning, and tried to put the negative thoughts right out of my mind. I was trained to do this job, I told myself. So was my husband, Mike. Plus I already had several years of experience looking after difficult children. And this was the new career I’d chosen for myself, wasn’t it?
