The Unknown Boy - A Dumping Ground Story

A Long Night

He was shaking. Not just because the air conditioning broke again and his mum couldn't be bothered to pay for it to be fixed, but because she wasn't home and there were sirens outside; there were sirens because someone had been going door to door, attacking whoever answered, and his mum wasn't home to protect him. She wasn't home to protect him, or tell him it was alright. Not that she ever did.he wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he had to think of something fast. Quite soon, the police would be around, asking questions, and he didn't think he would be able to answer them without them finding out his mum was gone. What was he going to do?

Meanwhile, things were starting to get intense at Ashdene Ridge, a children's care home. Sapphire was chasing Floss because she'd stolen Jeff from Harry, and it was evident everybody else was too caught up in their own affairs to notice what was going on between them. Ryan and Gus were having their usual argument about how Gus shouldn't be questioning him and his sister Chloe about their past. Little did they know, Gus would soon have another person to clash with.

*Knock knock* he sat there. Don't move he thought. If they don't see or hear you, they'll go away. *Knock knock* he continued his refusal to answer, and at this they opened the letter box and yelled "we know you're here, we can see your silhouette through the blinds. Although he was worried about what he was going to do next, he was also relieved someone was there. He thought their voice didn't sound as scary and villainous as his mum said, and he could tell there was two police officers, one man and one woman. So, he got up, ever so slowly, and timidly made his way across the room towards the door, undid the one metal bolt preventing people from entering without being welcomed, and opened the door.
"Hello," said the male officer, clearly taken aback as to the age of the boy who had just opened the door this late at night, "can we speak to your mummy or daddy please?"

"Kids, kids," Mike, the head care worker at Ashdene Ridge was running around trying to get everyone to cooperate. He'd managed to he the three youngest kids - Chloe, Harry and Floss to bed, but was struggling to get the other eleven asleep as Ryan and Gus were still arguing. This was causing Liam and Rick to think they could get away with more TV time than they were allowed, which was upsetting Johnny, and Sapphire was still annoyed about her previous fight with Floss. This resulted in Tee, Carmen and Lily trying to cheer her up by giving her a makeover, and Jody and Faith trying to stay away from the madness by helping May-Li tidy the kitchen, but claiming to be unable to get dressed if everyone was making that level of noise.

"So, do you know when your mum's going to come home?" Asked the female officer with a smile. Her name was Isabel and it turned out she was actually quite friendly, which went against all descriptions his mother had ever used for the police. The male officer was called Alex, and he also went against everything the boy's mum had ever said about police.
"No," he said in return to Isabel's
question. "She left this afternoon, so she'll probably be back in two or three days." Alex turned to Isabelle and after a short period of time, in which they had a non verbal communication.
Eventually, Alex stood up and said "I'll call Sarah."

It was edging towards midnight, and Mike had finally gotten everyone to sleep and was trying to complete some paperwork, he was clearly knackered and was just drifting off when... *RING RING*
"AH!" Mike jumped up, surprised and a bit disorientated. Wondering what had happened, he suddenly realised the phone was ringing and picked it up. "Hi, um, I mean, hello, Ashdene Ridge, how can I help you?" A woman was at the end of the phone. "Sarah, why are you calling this late at night?" Sarah was a social worker and she and Mike new each other quite well as they'd met multiple times before. She was phoning to tell Mike she had a young boy that wouldn't speak to her about anything and although it was late at night, she needed somewhere to take him. Mike reluctantly agreed, a bit irritated he had to break it to one of the boys they'd have to share, and said goodbye to Sarah.

After all the panic Mike had been through trying to get a camp bed up in the living room just for the night, the boy didn't arrive with Sarah until breakfast when things still weren't calm, but were actually quite chaotic. "Why does Harry have to share?" Sapphire was arguing with Mike about the sleeping arrangements. She had always been like a mother to Harry and loved him to pieces, which was nice at times, but could get annoying. "Why can't this random kid share with Liam?"
"Because, this lad is around the same age as Harry, besides, he's a bit shy and he and Harry would be great mates." Remarked Mike in a fashion unbelievably gentle on account of the stress he was under.
"Besides, Mike would never want to cramp my style, would you Mike?" Added in Liam.
"What's his name?" Asked Gus.
"Well..." Mike began, but was interrupted by the doorbell.

"Sarah! So good to see you, and this must be him." Mike's eyes turned to the young boy stood by Sarah. He was quite short, about four foot, and had brown hair with a ginger tinge and green eyes with a hint of grey. He also had very pale skin.
"Yes, come on you," Sarah directed the boy inside where he was greeted by May-Li, who took him to the kitchen to meet everyone.
"I'll show you out," Mike said to Sarah, guiding her towards the door. Sarah stopped in her tracks and turned around to face Mike.
"I know you will be, but be careful with him- and patient. We don't know how long he'll be here. We don't have a name for him or his mother, a birthday, indication towards any kind of education. Nothing."
"Don't worry Sarah, he'll be fine. Now go get some sleep, you've had a long night."
Sarah let Mike take her to the door and left without another word.

Back in the kitchen, things were already started to get out of hand. Although May-Li was trying to get everyone to calm down, nobody was listening or paying any attention. When Mike went back to the kitchen following his conversation with Sarah, Gus was upset because the boy wouldn't tell him his name, and Gus's tempers. were famous for putting people in bad moods, so the atmosphere was crazy. It was Faith's suggestion of playing rounders in the garden that eventually managed to cheer everyone up. Faith yelled to Mike and May-Li who had gone to the office that they were playing rounders and that they could join if they wanted, and went outside with the rest of them.

When Mike and May-Li got outside, everyone was arguing about teams. Once Mike got everyone settled he asked who didn't want to play. Gus didn't because he claimed he needed to write a running commentary in his notepad which he couldn't do if he was playing, Sapphire didn't on account of the fact she wasn't very athletic and her shoes would get ruined. Chloe didn't want to because she was in a wheelchair. Mike looked to the new boy, and asked if he knew how to play, which resulted in a short shaking of his head, leading to a five minute, in-depth explanation from Gus. After it was clear to everyone what to do, they split into teams. The teams were as follows:
Team A- Johnny, Floss, Liam, Carmen, Rick and Jody
Team B- Faith, Harry, Tee, Ryan, Lily and the new boy

"Okay, this is ridiculous," exclaimed Johnny. "We can't keep calling him the new boy." He was speaking to everyone, but mainly Mike and May-Li, as a hint towards them revealing his identity. After another ten minutes of them umming and ahhing during an explanation of the situation, Carmen, Lily and Tee got together to discuss names to call him.
"We've got it!" Yelled Lily.
"Conor!" Continued Carmen.
"How did you come up with that?" Faith, Rick and Liam asked in unison.
"After Conor Maynard, duh!" Started Tee.
"Well," interrupted Mike, "what do you think?" He asked 'Conor'.
He, after much consideration, nodded his head. "Great," began Ryan, "now can we please play before we grow old?" They all agreed and began the rounders game.
One thing Faith hadn't considered when she suggested rounders, was that there would be a winning and a losing team. Team B won, as Conor appeared to be some sort of rounders prodigy and overall won them 4 rounders and caught out 5 people. So, after the match had finished, everyone started bickering again! Everyone suddenly went silent, when an unexpected yell came from who you'd least expect...
"QUIET!" Yelled Conor. Everybody stood, staring at him, flabbergasted; until Liam finally stepped forward and said,
"Nice scream." And everyone followed as they headed back towards the house.

A/N: We've only published this first chapter because we want to know your opinion before writing lots because we don't want to write the worst story in the world, which I think this might be. Let us know what you think so we can improve it in any way necessary. Thanks!