When you’re in care, folks think it’s because you haven’t got no one, no family at all. But I got Aunty Jasmine. I always wanted Aunty Jasmine to be my mum, even when my mum was alive. Aunty Jasmine was the one who took me to the cinema and for ice cream in the park and for walks by the river. Once, she took me for a walk by the Thames when my mum was stressed because I kept getting hair nits. The tide was out and it was the first time I’d seen the sand and stones on the river shore. Aunty Jasmine told me that there are people called mudlarks who search for old things there. She stroked my head.

“And you know what, Charlene?” Aunty Jasmine said. “A mudlark found a nit comb that goes right back to Roman times. Folks have been fighting nits for thousands of years, but the damn mites still get the better of us every time.”

I’d imagined a little Roman kid sitting between their aunty’s knees as she combed old-style Roman nit lotion into their hair. And it did make me smile.

Elena nods. “Give me your aunty’s details and we’ll call her.”

Then Elena says they have to put me in a cell. I thought you had to do something proper wrong for the feds to do that. Or be drunk or out your head on drugs. I want to tell them that I don’t want to be locked up. Man, I really don’t want to. But if I open my mouth to speak, all I’m gonna do is cry.

I’ve met other kids who spin out the stories about their cell time. It was like they’d been watching old Law and Order reruns and they thought they were in New York instead of England. There ain’t no tattooed gang boys in here. It just stinks and I can hear someone puking their guts out.

I can’t answer when they ask me if I want food or water. My mouth’s too dry to talk. My hands feel like they need their knitting needles. I sit on my hands so they press into the thin mattress.

I wait.

*

I don’t know how long I wait for. They don’t put clocks in police cells. I go up to the door and yell through the hatch, “You calling Aunty Jasmine?”

I wait some more. Then Elena comes up to the hatch.

“I’m afraid your aunty Jasmine can’t come,” Elena says. She even sounds sad for me. “She’s very sorry, but the twins are poorly and there’s no one else who can look after them. We’re just trying the duty social worker now.”

And then Elena goes again. The puking sound stops and I just hear crying.