One of the single greatest things about being a Dad is reading bedtime stories. I love books and push them on the kids like a QVC huckster. Last night I wondered whether we had a copy of the Winnie the Pooh in the house so that I could read it to Big S. We didn’t, so I went online and as soon as I saw the illustrations I had Proust moment. Suddenly I was 5 again, taking my father’s copy from the bookcase and poring over EH Shephard’s illustrations. I could remember exactly what I had thought back then:

What is he picking up? Is that …? No, really? Eeewwww? Is that why they call him Winnie the Pooh?

Take that stuffed animals — Guns don't kill people ... page boy cuts do.

Why have they called this little girl Christopher Robin?

I went looking to see if the Puffin Post was still going. The Puffin Club was the first club I ever joined. I wrote the application letter myself having found the address in the flyleaf of a library book. I felt giddy sending off a stamped addressed envelope. In the 70s most truly magical things seemed to require you to send off an “SAE” and to “wait 14 days for delivery”. It must have been a eerie job being a postman. Each street you turned down would reveal a fresh row of children’s faces pressed against windows with excitement, their eyes following your progress, their furrowed brows trying to force you telekinetically up to the front door. The Puffin Post was my dream magazine. It was full of pictures of the covers of new books (so I could judge them) and had nerdy articles that appealed to swotty little middle class children like me. Hence my knowing, at age 7, what a “palimpsest” was. I tried to work it into school essays at every opportunity.

I’m pleased to see that the Puffin Club is still going but it now costs £45 a year and has, dispiritingly, a commission scheme. What would Kaye Webb have thought?

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Fortuna's favoured daugher — Fortuna's favoured daughter

Proof today that there is no such thing as Karma. We were all due to head up to the school for the fete and “mini-olympics”. Just before blast off I heard P having a hoolie and the police siren “WAAAAAAH” of Little S trudging her way up to her bedroom. Our tiny delinquent had been caught throwing gravel at the paintwork of her mother’s beloved motor. She had wanted, she explained, to make the sound of rain.

P headed off to man a tombola stall and I was to follow once Little S had served her sentence. When I went up ten minutes later, Little S lay sleeping, her chest rising and falling, her arms stuck out as if she had been trying to flap her way clear of the ground. I thought it best to leave her.

After 30 minutes I roused her and she grouched her way to the car. “Carry me” she moaned when we arrived. At the entrance was a raffle stall. I bought 10 tickets and marked them with Little S’s name as P, who came over to meet us, had already bought 5 tickets and put them in Big S’s name.

Little S bumped around causing trouble in a modest way but, since we had managed to arrive as it was winding up, her opportunities were limited. “Be nice” said P “If you are not nice, nice things will not happen to you”. Little S looked grave.

Meanwhile, the head of the Parent’s Association was drawing the raffle for first prize: a Nintendo DS. “Little S from Nursery”. Little S was bemused as applause broke out and people patted her on the head. She was dragged to the stage, given her prize and shooed back to us. She promptly dropped the DS on the ground as it was interfering with her dogged consumption of Haribo. The second of the 6 prizes went to the woman who had sold us the tickets.

“And third prize goes to … Little S of Nursery … hang on hasn’t she won already?” We suddenly felt 300 pairs of parental eyes upon us. “Draw again” I shouted.

“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes. Draw again.”

Little S chewed gummy sweets, oblivious. Fourth prize went to a delighted friend of Big S’s. “Fifth prize goes to … Little S of Nursery”. This time they did not wait for our invitation to re-draw. People began to gaze at this wonder child with a monopoly of luck. She, meanwhile, took Fortuna by the hand and dragged her off towards the swings in a little cloud of miscreance.

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Today is Big S’s 6th birthday. This year she has been very excited by the prospect and does not seem to have been suffering from any anxiety that this milestone might mean her having to move on to a new family. I helped her to school this morning, pushing her new “grown up girl’s scooter” up the hill and dropping her off at the playground. I decided to stick around and watch.

There was a group of girls from her class talking just inside the gate. She ran straight past them to the far end of the payground and swung herself around the netball post. She spotted N, someone she has told me is her best friend. She ran over and spoke to N. N kept walking and delivered a withering brush off of a sort I had not thought within the capabilities of a 6 year old. Big S went back to the netball post. The other girls in the class began a game in which they walked backwards around the playground. Big S moved over and got in their way and then started to talk to one of them. She was pushed away. Big S retreated to the netball post and only left it to speak to a teacher.

I felt sick and it was all I could do not to run onto the playground, scoop her up and hug her till her eyes popped out. What on earth, I wondered, could the problem be?

P had coffee with another mum and broached the topic. The class has decided, apparently, that Big S is too bossy. The class is almost certainly right. Big S is overwhelmingly bossy. She feels compelled to set the agenda. Whatever anyone is playing, she has a better thing that everyone must immediately do. Perhaps that is just how she is, but it is a very common trait in adopted children. When your world has spun dizzyingly in your early years; when you have been pitched at no notice from one family to another, you crave some control over your world. It is a perfectly understandable need which is heightened by the low self-esteem that also frequently characterises adopted children: you try too loudly and too often to make a case for friendship because you don’t really believe that you deserve love.

My heart broke this morning. I desperately want to break the link between Big S’s past neglect and her present feelings. I want her to know she is an amazing little girl and, most of all, I want her to be happy. It looks as if that will not come easy. Would that it did. Would that it did.

Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 288 user reviews.

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