The Book of Daniel - Chapter One

Chapter One

He hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone about what had happened in the first place, but the way the Social Services had been passing Daniel from one worker to another, making him talk to more people, was really starting to get on his nerves. That was why he had started just sitting in silence when he was questioned, sometimes staring at his inquisitor blankly, sometimes looking around the room, or at his hands, looking simply bored. Which he was. He’d escaped for a few hours, forcing himself to keep putting one foot in front of the other, following the dirty, grey pavement to wherever it took him. He didn’t really care. He just knew it got him away from the cold, bleak Home that he was being kept in for a while, until they decided what to do with him. They. The social workers. His worst enemy, as far as he was concerned. Well. Second-worst. His worst was…he shook his head. Daniel had forbidden himself from thinking about anything to do with…the incident. He could easily have filtered out the noise around him, the rumble of the traffic, the heavy buses, and the colourful chatter of the people around him…anything that you would expect to hear in London. But he didn’t. If he blocked it out, he would be alone in his own mind, and that was the last thing he wanted. So as he wandered along the street, he took in every sound he could pick up. He wouldn’t think about it. He wouldn’t…
       
“’Scuse me, Daniel ‘Olland?” a voice said, from behind him.
Daniel sighed, inwardly. He should have known it wouldn’t have been long before he was found. It never was. He never got away from their clutches for long enough. He was tempted to keep walking, pretend he wasn’t Daniel Holland at all, just another London twelve-year old, but that could have led to a scene, attention…and that was high up on the list of things he didn’t want. Attention. He slowly turned to face the Police Officer that had said his name, and looked at him.

“Are you Daniel ‘Olland?” the officer repeated. Daniel almost told him that no, his surname began with the letter H, but his Mother had brought him up to be polite. It would have been rude to make a comment about the officer’s accent, however much Daniel wanted to.

“Yes, sir.” he replied, quietly. There was no sign of obvious relief on the police officer’s face that he had found the missing child. Children ran away every day in London. Instead, he said

“You’re gonna ‘ave to come with me back to the children’s ‘Ome, son.”

Son. The word alone was enough to bring terrible flashbacks to the front of Daniels mind, from where he had stuffed and repressed them, but he didn’t let them surface. Not now. Numbly, he nodded, and allowed himself to be guided to the police car. He didn’t curse himself for not running. He wasn’t stupid enough to think he could survive on the streets of London by himself, at twelve years old. Someone would find him. Or he would die. Which often didn’t seem such a bad idea to him, but…his Mother wouldn’t have wanted it. Not for him. He rested his head against the cool window, and watched the passing street, as he was driven…home.

* * *

Daniel was sat on an uncomfortable bench, outside of one of the offices. He didn’t flick through one of the old, faded comics on the low table; he didn’t look at the murky watered fish tank. He sat, looking at his feet. At his shoes. Converse boots. There was another child in the office. He could tell from the way the muffled social workers voice was coming through the wall. It had that patronizing edge to it that all social workers used when talking to anyone under the age of twenty. Poor kid, whoever they were. They would probably be pillared onto another social worker within days, and again, and again…Daniel shook his head. So much for finding the abandoned kids some stability. The voices got louder, and the office door opened. He didn’t move. There’d be paperwork and the like to take care of before it was his turn to go in.  The child they’d been talking to was ushered over to the bench, so the adults could talk privately. Daniel didn’t look at them, but from the corner of his eye, he could tell it was a little girl. A few years younger than him. He continued to gaze at his shoes.

“Alright there, Daniel love? Won’t be too much longer and we can have a nice chat.” the social worker said to him, again in that patronizing tone. He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t even remember her name. He heard the door close again, but not before he heard the social worker mutter to whoever was with them,

“That’s Daniel. Lost his parents too, bless…”
He presumed by too, that meant the girl who was sat a seat down from him had lost her parents, as well, and that’s why they were just compared to each other. He glanced sideways. She wasn’t looking at him. Her sleeves were pulled down mostly over her hands, and she was twisting the material, unconsciously. Her eyes had a look Daniel recognised - he’d seen it in himself every time he looked in the mirror. Which wasn’t often. Her eyes were blue. Quite a bright blue, but not as bright as his own. She had brown hair, slightly darker than his own chocolate-coloured mop. She looked quite ordinary.
         
What surprised Daniel, however, was that despite his coldness towards the world, not wanting to talk to anybody, his not being interested in anything at all, didn’t strictly apply towards this girl. For the first time since the incident, he found himself wondering. Wondering what had happened to this girl’s parents, why she had ended up in this social services unit in London, and why she looked so…so…what was the word? Her eyes looked dead. And he found himself wanting to know why. He looked at her properly. Not only did her eyes look dead, but they looked like she was holding vast amounts of tears back, like she should have been crying, but had refused to. For a moment, he considered whether or not she would want to be spoken to. He knew that he most certainly hadn’t when he’d first came here, a couple of weeks previously. On the other hand, however, girls seemed to like being comforted. Or so he had read. So he took a deep breath, and cleared his throat.

“Don’t worry if you don’t like your social worker - I expect they will pass you on to someone else soon enough.”

The girl didn’t answer. Her eyes flickered in Daniels direction for a split-second, but then continued to gaze at nothing. The eye-movement was all Daniel needed as encouragement to continue.

“I don’t mean because they don’t like you, but it’s just what they do. Maybe they get bored.”
He still got no reply. He could have easily got annoyed. She was the first person that he had willingly spoken to since what had happened, and she was almost ignoring him. But he didn’t. It just proved to him that whatever had happened to her must have been bad. Of course, she could have just been extremely rude, but Daniel didn’t think she looked the type. You got the rude ones in social services, and he’d learnt over the past few weeks to figure out pretty easily which ones were just plain rude.
He wanted to say something to reassure her - he didn’t know why, but he felt like it was his duty to make her feel at least the tiniest fraction better - but he didn’t know what to say. He was about to introduce himself when the office door opened, and the social worker came out with another woman.
They shook hands.

“I think it’ll work out. If there’s problems, you can call me. I’ll just talk to Daniel about it, and drive him over.”
The words filled Daniel with doubt. Drive him where? He kept his eyes calm, however, and didn’t react. The woman nodded at the social worker.

“I’ll see you later. Come along, Christine.”
At the final word, the girl near Daniel on the bench stood up, and shuffled forwards. So her name was Christine. Daniel watched her leave with the other woman. She didn’t look back at him. Not that he had expected her to. He wouldn’t have. He could tell that she was damaged. Maybe as damaged as he was, and perhaps even more so.


“Will you come into my office, Daniel? There are some things I need to talk to you about.” the social worker said, brightly. He supposed this was where he got in trouble for wandering off earlier that day. She wouldn’t shout at him - he didn’t think they were allowed. But she would be overly-patronizing and use that annoying tone, whilst explaining why he couldn’t do these things and it was disappointing that he wouldn’t co-operate and he was being referred to her co-worker…he wondered what would happen if he just sat still, went catatonic, didn’t answer their questions, didn’t react to anything they said or did. But in the end, it probably wasn’t worth the hassle. He got down from the cold chair, and walked into her office, without looking at her. He sat on a chair by her desk. The whole office stank of stale coffee. It was disgusting. He hated it. She smiled at him. He hoped she wouldn’t speak too close. He hated coffee-breath.

“So, Daniel. Your little escape act tells me that you really don’t want to be here, do you?”
He assumed the question was rhetorical, because, well, did anyone want to be here? No.
After a few seconds of silence, she must have realised he wasn’t going to answer, because she continued.

“We’ve decided to take you out of the Care Home, and put you under the watch of a foster-carer.” she watched him carefully for some kind of reaction, so he obliged, and blinked. She continued carefully. Obviously this conversation hadn’t gone down too well with others in the past.

“She’s a lovely woman. Her name is Sydney. Sydney Stephenson. She lives in North London, near Golders Green.”
         
Again, she waited for another reaction, and was granted another blink. The mere fact that Daniel wasn’t refusing seemed to be enough for her, and she smiled, slightly relieved, slightly satisfied. He didn’t know what she was so happy about. He wasn’t exactly leaping for joy at the prospect of going to live in the house of this unknown woman. Conversely, he didn’t particularly want to stay in the Home for much longer.

“Right.” the social worker said. Daniel decided to start calling them all Jane in his head. None of them had separate identities. Not to him, anyway.
“If you’re happy about that, we can leave shortly. I’ll give you a bit of time to pack your things up, say your goodbyes…”
Yeah, right. Daniel hadn’t made personal attachments to anybody in the Home, workers nor children. He silently stood up.

“Can I go now?” he asked, quietly. Jane looked surprised he’d spoken at all.

“Of course you can, love. I’ll come and get you when it’s time to go.”
Daniel didn’t speak again. He shuffled from the room, similarly to the way Christine had.

They were both broken children.