Read No Place for Nathan for Free Online Page A

upon which he rolled his eyes and flapped a wrist. ‘Could you bring it next time, Miss, maybe, and I’ll bring mine too? Then we could have a girlie time putting make-up on, couldn’t we?’
    I was finding it difficult to know where to go with him in this mode and wished I knew more about the reasons why children adopted such mysterious ways. In the meantime, though, I’d just have to apply common sense. ‘Boys don’t really wear make-up, do they, Nathan? Just girls and ladies, mostly. Anyway, you look very nice without it.’
    He drew a hand across one of his eyebrows to tame a stray curl. ‘Do you know,’ he said suddenly, ‘that we have a parrot in our house? It talks to me all the time; it’s
so
funny.’
    At last
, I thought,
a safer subject
, even if I wasn’t quite sure I believed him. ‘I used to have a parrot that talked, too,’ I told him. ‘What do you call yours?’
    â€˜It’s called Peter,’ he said, moving around to the other side of my desk and pulling out the chair. ‘And it says “Get the lazy fucker out of bed” and “Fuck off to school” and “Don’t dare talk to that Mrs Watson”.’
    He hadn’t sat down and as I looked at him I watched his expression change. He was staring at me intently now. ‘Why do you think your parrot says that?’ I asked.
    â€˜I don’t know, Miss,’ he said. ‘And do you know what else he says?’
    I shook my head.
    â€˜He says “And don’t fucking tell social services that you and your dad sleep on a mattress in your bedroom”.’
    Nathan’s expression was now mask-like – as if he really was just parroting words at me. It was so strange and unsettling that it made me shudder.
    â€˜And
do
you and your dad share a mattress?’ I asked him, conscious that, as he had already told me this, I wasn’t leading him.
    He looked me in the eye but his lips didn’t move. Instead he shrugged, then said, ‘Miss, can I go and read in the Unit now? I’m tired. I don’t really want to chat anymore.’
    I hesitated, wondering what I could usefully say next, but in the end, unable to come up with anything that wouldn’t feel as if I was pressing him, I let him go. I then pulled my chair under my desk, ready to write up yet another report, but thought better of it. Perhaps I’d just go straight to Gary, or, better still, speak to Martin in social services myself.
    Martin was, once again, lightly irritable. Well, at least, that was how his voice sounded when I outlined Nathan’s latest comments and he explained that he had already visited the family – by appointment – and had concluded that there was nothing amiss.
    I told him again that I disagreed; that I felt Nathan was suffering some form of abuse; that I was no psychologist but that it seemed to me he’d developed these different personas as a way to both distance himself from the trauma of what was happening and to enable him to tell someone about it.
    In return, I was told – and in no uncertain terms – that the situation had been dealt with; that they were a family that were doing their level best to cope with a child with behavioural problems – one who he understood was about to be reassessed through the school. Perhaps then we’d all be in a better position to help him.
    I went back to my office and typed up my report. I wasn’t sure quite what else I could do. ‘Mattress,’ I typed. The word lingered.
    I had lots of kids to help support and an invariably full timetable, so I didn’t see or hear anything of Nathan till the following week, when he arrived for our session with a big grin on his face, having got through the intervening time without causing any trouble.
    â€˜No fights,’ he said proudly, ‘and no bad language, neither. So, Miss, do I get a reward now?’
    I told him