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benchmark, then this little girl would be she.
    ‘Ready to roll your sleeves up?’ I asked her, as I unlocked the door and opened it. ‘What are you getting out of this afternoon anyway?’
    ‘Double English,’ she said, without hesitation.
    ‘Well, we’ll be doing double decorating instead,’ I said. ‘That okay with you?’
    ‘That’s fine, miss,’ she said, taking the pink backpack from her shoulders and parking it on a nearby chair. ‘I’m good at decorating. I painted a whole bedroom wall last weekend, all by myself. Pink,’ she added, grinning.
    I smiled at her. ‘How did I know you were going to say that? So, what would you like to do, sweetie? My walls all look bare, the glass in my door looks boring, and all my plants need a watering and a talking-to, so – take your pick. What are you best at?’
    She chose to create some artwork for the door, which suited me fine. Doing something physical was often key to getting kids to open up. Rather than sit them down and start interrogating them, I’d learned over the years that a softly-softly, lateral approach was usually better – get them doing something alongside you that kept half their minds occupied, and a child would often relax enough to open up a little.
    I was quite the expert at it, in fact. With my son Kieron, who had a mild form of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome (as it was known back then, anyway), I had become well practised in winkling out the nuts and bolts of anxiety in a child who preferred to bottle everything up. If he was struggling with something, I’d nag him to help me with something in the house or garden and then, once he was ‘in the zone’ of whatever he was doing, he’d be so much more receptive to sharing what was on his mind and we’d be able to find a solution together. It was never quite as simple as that with the kids in school, obviously, because we didn’t have that history and mother/son bond. But, eventually, after building up that all-important trust, they usually did start to talk.
    And hopefully Kiara would, too. ‘Right then,’ I said as I clapped my hands together. ‘The door it is. I’ll leave the design ideas to you.’
    Kiara threw herself into the work with gusto. Within ten minutes, she was carefully cutting out the giant cardboard Easter egg shapes she had decided would be perfect. She’d made four of them in total, having checked with me first, one for her to write her name on – ‘Kiara woz ’ere!’ she joked – and one for each of the three children who I told her would be joining me in the morning. She was using different coloured card for each and decorating them with contrasting borders. ‘You can explain to them that they have to write their names across this middle bit,’ she said. ‘And then they can stick them to the glass in the door. That should brighten the place up a bit, miss, shouldn’t it?’
    A girl after my own heart, I thought, as I remembered the flowers that had previously adorned the door, all decorated by my last brood of children. I also noted that she seemed both alert and engaged and, with her hands fully occupied, was refraining from absent-mindedly fiddling with her hair.
    ‘That’s a great idea,’ I agreed, having a bit of a re-think, ‘and since you’re so good with the art stuff, you can put up some new borders round my display panels, while I get on with sorting out the books.’
    ‘I’ve always been good at practical things,’ she said. ‘I get it from my mum. That’s what she always says – that we’re both really good with our hands. But I’ll help you sort the books out as well, once I’m done. I’m good at that too.’
    But it turned out there was something Kiara Bentley was even better at. The decorations made, she did indeed join me in the quiet corner and between us we pulled out every single book in there, dusted them off, categorised them and put them all back in their new positions, after which I left her to it, putting labels