You're my whole world - Tracy beaker returns

Promises

My heart raced in the car. The journey seemed to take forever , making the pressure build up in my head. I just wanted the ground to swallow me whole. But most of all I wanted Liam sitting beside me , holding my hand and telling my everything would be alright, but he wasn’t. He was on the run and leaving me to face my nightmares. Instead it was Sapphire holding my hand and telling me it would be ok , just like a best friend should. We were approaching the wrought iron gates, it had begun to rain and the skies were darkening making Burnywood look like a haunted house. The car came to a halt and I got out of the car with Sapphire and saw Harry and Carmen getting out of a car next to us, both with the same scared look on their faces. Our care workers led us up to the door, I could hardly breathe , I was almost frozen , I couldn’t go in there . Sapphire had to physically drag me into the building. It was like a prison in there I’d almost forgotten what it was like, but it all stood just the same as it had when Liam and I were here. The walls were white and plain , there was not much furniture , the cupboards locked , no carpet, decoration, hardly any light, no happy faces to greet us when we came in , just an angry scary looking man. He eyed us all ,as if we were wanted criminals ,he then looked down at the files our social workers had given him. After a quick flick through them , he threw them on the floor behind him “Right you” he pointed at me “As you’ve been here before you’ll know how this place works , for the others here’s a little introduction , you stay in your own rooms apart from the one hour the living room is open and when you have meals, you are not allowed to be loud, messy, start fights, steal or be a general nuisance, understand?” He almost shouted and then looked back at us for any signs of retaliation, none of us gave any. “Right then follow me” he said and began a brisk walk up the stairs. We grabbed our bags and followed him ,we arrived on the landing , “You three will be in there” he said pointing to the door to our right “and you , in there” he said to Harry. We gave Harry a quick goodbye and then went into our room. Well you could hardly call it a room , it was tiny “I think I’m going to go to the bathroom” Sapphire said

“Watch where you’re walking, put something by the bathroom door the people here don’t really respect your privacy” I said

“Thanks” she said and left me and Carmen to unpack our stuff. As I was setting up my bed , I heard a sniffle behind me , I turned to see Carmen crying “Hey what’s wrong?” I asked and made my way over to her

“I’m scared” she whispered “I’m scared that what happened to you , will happen to me.” I was scared of that too , I knew it never would happen ,I was just always looking over my shoulder, just in case they came back .“It won’t happen I promise you Carmen, me and Sapphire will look out for you, we’ll all look out for each other, ok? We have to stick together , because if your own you’re not going to survive this place, but lucky for us , I have 3 years experience here so I know what I’m talking about and I’m sure we’ll be home in a few weeks” I said reassuringly and hugging her. Sapphire came back and we just stayed in our room until it was time for dinner. We made our way down with Harry , who looked so scared , I hated seeing anyone , especially a little boy like Harry frightened of where they were living. Dinner was a hard and tiring task , we got stared and yelled at, we wolfed down our small portion of food for fear of it being stolen and then went up stairs. As I was going to brush my teeth , I went past a door, that I instantly recognised , my heart began to race and tears burst from my eyes. I ran straight back to my room and threw my self on my bed, Sapphire and Carmen rushed over “What happened?” Sapphire asked comfortingly

“I ..I.. I went past it.. The room where .. It happened” I said through my hysteria , Sapphire and Carmen immediately hugged me and just held me while I cried, knowing no words could help now. The only thing that would help would be Liam , hugging me close and telling me everything would be ok and that he’d protect me. I cried the whole night , my nightmares prevented me from sleep.