Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Know My Place
    Know My Place
    Know My Place
    Ebook81 pages1 hour

    Know My Place

    By Eve Ainsworth and Helen Crawford-White

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A teenager’s longing for family and a place to call home is poignantly portrayed in this heartfelt and ultimately uplifting story of life in the foster-care system.

    A teenager’s longing for family and a place to call home is poignantly portrayed in this heartfelt and ultimately uplifting story of life in the foster-care system from bestselling author Eve Ainsworth.

    Feeling betrayed when her long-term foster placement breaks down, Amy is sent to live with a new family, the Dawsons. Although initially reluctant to trust them, she eventually starts to let down her guard. But just when it seems like she’s found her forever family, she hears a telephone call that suggests things aren’t going to work out. Will Amy be abandoned again – or does she dare hope that she might finally have found home?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateJul 1, 2021
    ISBN9781800900691
    Know My Place
    Author

    Eve Ainsworth

    Eve Ainsworth is an award-winning teen author and experienced school speaker, with a background working for secondary schools in pastoral and child protection roles. She is the author of several best-selling novels including the award-winning and Carnegie Medal nominated 7 Days.

    Read more from Eve Ainsworth

    Related to Know My Place

    Related ebooks

    YA Family For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The WITCH GIRL

      Oct 20, 2021

      The WITCH GIRL
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Witch GIRL

      Oct 24, 2023

      The Witch GIRL
      6 min read

    • Article

      When Life Gives You Lemons

      Apr 2, 2020

      When Life Gives You Lemons
      7 min read

    • Article

      Home For The Holidays

      Aug 10, 2021

      It’s been a year since I’ve been home. I missed Christmas because of work, so Thanksgiving marks a full lap around the calendar. My mom’s been complaining lately about how difficult things have gotten for her. Everything seemed so out of reach, so im

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Spook House

      May 1, 2024

      The Spook House
      6 min read

    • Article

      Blackberries

      Apr 5, 2023

      Blackberries
      24 min read

    • Article

      Let Me Do It

      Jun 1, 2023

      Let Me Do It
      6 min read

    • Article

      Lineal Gaps

      Apr 6, 2021

      Lineal Gaps
      15 min read

    • Article

      Happy Families

      Aug 5, 2021

      Happy Families
      7 min read

    • Article

      Not Just For CHRISTMAS

      Nov 24, 2021

      Not Just For CHRISTMAS
      9 min read

    • Article

      Counter Waves

      Oct 23, 2020

      Counter Waves
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Space Between Us

      Oct 9, 2019

      The Space Between Us
      8 min read

    • Article

      Nuclear

      Oct 7, 2021

      Nuclear
      7 min read

    • Article

      Festival

      Sep 15, 2018

      My husband, who loved festivals, who was a great fan of festivals, wanted to get to the square in time for the first band at eleven o’clock. From bed, the dog and I watched him dress. He tried on various T-shirts, declaring some of them too tight and

      13 min read

    • Article

      A Last Look Around

      Dec 4, 2020

      A Last Look Around
      5 min read

    • Article

      Daughters’ Bodies

      Dec 1, 2019

      WHEN I’M about to go away to college, my grandmother dies and my mother silently puts herself up for adoption. LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO ADOPT ME: Kind, lonely, beautiful woman in her 50s. Dead husband. No children. Cooks and cleans. 4’11 and 90 lbs. Gu

      20 min read

    • Article

      Whiskey Sour

      Jul 18, 2023

      Whiskey Sour
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Family Plot

      May 7, 2020

      The Family Plot
      10 min read

    • Article

      Sisters and DAUGHTERS

      Jan 23, 2024

      Sisters and DAUGHTERS
      6 min read

    • Article

      Kıds & Angles

      Jun 24, 2023

      Kıds & Angles
      4 min read

    • Article

      Gray Hair Required

      Oct 27, 2022

      Gray Hair Required
      4 min read

    • Article

      Sisters and DAUGHTERS

      May 5, 2021

      Sisters and DAUGHTERS
      6 min read

    • Article

      Valentine Angels

      Dec 31, 2023

      Valentine Angels
      4 min read

    • Article

      Damson JAM

      Jan 17, 2024

      Damson JAM
      10 min read

    • Article

      Counselor of Chippewa Cabin

      Jun 26, 2020

      Counselor of Chippewa Cabin
      5 min read

    • Article

      Leaving Home

      Jan 12, 2021

      Leaving Home
      6 min read

    • Article

      Under Covers

      Mar 1, 2023

      Alejandro Puyana is a Venezuelan writer living in Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2020, New England Review, American Short Fiction, Tin House, The Idaho Review, and other publications. He is at work on a novel. My

      18 min read

    • Article

      Class Act

      Oct 27, 2020

      Class Act
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Workbench

      Dec 23, 2020

      The Workbench
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Ruins

      Aug 5, 2021

      The Ruins
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Know My Place

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Know My Place - Eve Ainsworth

      ONE

      BEFORE

      I was ten years old when I met my last foster family, the Gibsons – Mary and her daughter, Stephanie.

      I was scared and shy as I stood in Mary’s living room. I had a sore, twisty stomach and a head full of worries. Mary took my small hand in hers and gripped it. She was tall, with bright red hair heaped on top of her head in a messy bun. Her eyes were sparkly, and her wide red lips seemed to stretch right across her face when she smiled.

      You’re home now, Amy, Mary said. We are going to look after you.

      I looked around her large, cluttered living room. The shelves were packed with books and the cabinets stuffed full of interesting ornaments.

      I collect things, Mary explained. Precious things, pretty things. And now I have another gem to add to my collection.

      I didn’t feel much like a gem as I stood there in my old jeans and jacket I’d outgrown. Mary didn’t seem to notice that and took me on a tour of the house. She pointed out the old paintings hanging on the walls and apologised for the amount of stuff she had in each room.

      I’ve saved the best room until last, Mary said, pushing open the door.

      I stood back, almost too afraid to step inside. The room was bigger than any bedroom I’d had before. The bed seemed lost inside it. I ran to the window. The view was stunning, overlooking the fields behind the house.

      Do you like your room? Mary asked.

      It’s perfect, I said.

      Because it was.

      Stephanie came home after school. She was just over a year older than me but at least 15 cm taller. Stephanie had the same colour hair as her mum, but it was styled neatly into a plait. She looked me up and down carefully and I saw her eyes were different to Mary’s – cool and grey.

      We’re going to be best friends, Stephanie said finally.

      My first mistake was believing her.

      NOW

      There’s a game I play in my head when things are difficult. It’s pretty simple. There aren’t many rules. No one knows I do it and I would hate for anyone to find out. They might laugh at me or see me for the silly idiot I really am. But the game helps me. I can believe that I’m someone else for a moment, that I’m normal. I pretend that everything is going to turn out fine.

      I call the game happy families, and I’m playing it right now in the car. I’m sitting in the back and if I slump a bit, I can just see the top of the driver’s head. I can only make out a tuft of my new social worker’s blonde hair and her black sparkly clip. It makes it easier to play the game. I close my eyes and let my imagination take over.

      I can turn my life into someone else’s.

      I can make my life better.

      You’re my mum, I tell myself. My real mum. You’re driving me home. This clean, sweet‑smelling car is all ours. At the weekend we will go food shopping. I will help you pick all our meals. We will giggle at some of the disgusting things in the supermarket – cabbage! Who even eats that?! We’ll go clothes shopping despite me already having a wardrobe stuffed full of outfits. I have everything. Even a dad. He’s—

      Amy, says my social worker, Clare. This is it. We’re here.

      I sit up. My eyes flutter open and the dream is broken. Reality is back, like a nasty twist in my stomach. I taste something bitter in my throat. I have to cough it away.

      Look! Look, Amy, Clare says. This is your new home.

      Clare’s voice is sweet, upbeat. She presses her face into the space between the front seats to look at me. She is very pretty, like the china doll that used to live at the Gibsons’, my last foster family. Clare’s face is perfectly made up, with blusher highlighting her sharp cheekbones. Her blue eyes are large and clear under long eyelashes. She looks as fragile as the doll at the Gibsons’, but is she really? Maybe Clare’s tougher than that. Mary Gibson cried when I smashed that stupid china doll after I’d had another argument with Stephanie. Mary told me it was an expensive collectable. She was very upset with me for breaking it.

      I don’t know much about Clare except that I’m one of her cases. I’ve had so many social workers before Clare, it’s easy to lose count. They never really get to know me, apart from what they read in my file. I wonder what they think of me. A poor young girl abandoned by her mum and then shoved in the care system at the age of six after living with her poorly nan. My social workers must’ve been so pleased when they found the Gibsons. After all, that was meant to be my happy ending, my final page in the file.

      I wonder if everyone blames me for it all going wrong. I bet they do. But they don’t understand what it was like for me.

      Clare has a posh voice and really smart high‑heeled shoes. I can imagine her life is completely different from mine.

      What’s your family like, Clare? I want to ask but don’t. Do you have a nice mum? Not like me. But you know everything about me already, don’t you? That’s all I am, after all – a collection of recordings, a file of writing that is meant to tell the reader everything about me. But really it tells them nothing at all.

      The social worker I had before Clare was called Fiona. She was always snappy and in

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1