There’s a hierarchy at the children’s home. I’m not sure how it started, but it’s been this way since I can remember — and I’ve lived here my whole life, exactly 17 years. Here’s how it works: the ones at the top are the youngest and prettiest girls, those with clear skin and good hair. They don’t stay with us for too long. And they get the most food and privileges because people are hungry to adopt them.
Second are the smart girls, or those with talents, like singing or dancing. People want them for their potential to earn. Adopting a kid like that is like an investment in your future. Someday, they’ll be able to pay your bills for you.
And then there are the sweet girls. They may not be especially gifted in looks or intellect, but their manners are impeccable. These girls won’t cause trouble, have their pleases and thank-yous hardwired into their DNA, and smile and nod politely when spoken to. If they’re ever reprimanded, they bow their heads and shrink like sad, wilting flowers.
I belong to the fourth category of girls, the lowest group in our hierarchy: The Leftovers.
We are the ones who remain once all the good children have been picked. In this mixed bag, you’ll find victims of sex trafficking, girls who’ve been beaten by people who should never have become parents, those who have minor disabilities and behavioural problems, or those whose parents are still alive but unable to care for them. We’re the girls who scream in their sleep.
There’s something wrong with everyone in category four — including me. My problem is that I was a sickly child who ended up in a baby box when my own mother gave up on me. They tried to place me in foster care but she’s impossible to live with was the overriding impression I made. So I stayed at Home for Hope, and I’m happy to keep staying here until next year when I turn eighteen and go to university. In another world, I would’ve been in the smart category, but no one wanted to adopt me due to my miserable nature.
Our house mother is nice and I get on well with most of the girls at the home — at least I can tolerate them. All but one.
Aleesha Naidoo is a six-year-old girl who should have been in the first category because she’s beautiful. She wasn’t meant to stay with us longer than three months, but she kicks and screams and cries whenever a family tries to take her.
She’s convinced her mother’s coming back for her, that she simply dropped her off because she had important business to take care of overseas.
“One day my mum is going to come fetch me in her bright red Mini Cooper. And then I won’t need to eat these fish cakes any more,” she loves to say.
And she mentions her mom at every opportunity. When we receive small gifts at Christmas or when she doesn’t like the bedtime rules or the TV and internet restrictions.
My mum would have bought me my own computer.
My mum would have let me watch TV longer.
My mum would have bought me a REAL Disney Princess Barbie.
She’s like a broken record, always spewing fairytales and clutching at the old locket around her neck that she never shows to anyone but that I’m sure contains a rather unremarkable photo of the woman who was once her mother.
One day when we were buying sweets and chips from the tuckshop lady at school one of the older girls finally snapped, and slapped her across the face so hard her lip bled. The tuckshop lady gasped and called for help while all the other kids aome running, chanting for a fight. But Aleesha was already defeated when the older girl said, “Your mother’s probably dead. She’s never coming back!”
So you can imagine the shock on everyone’s faces when, just a few months later, a blood-red Mini Cooper pulled up and a beautiful dark-haired woman waltzed in, placed a thick folder on the receptionist’s desk, and asked to see her daughter.
Aleesha clutched the little locket around her neck and hid behind our house mother’s skirt the whole time.
Tell us: What do you think has happened? Did you expect Aleesha’s mother to come back for her?