How To Ruin A Childhood Without Really Trying.

In an hopeless attempt to shut out the noise, I bury myself in my bed, a pillow over my head, under a thick pile of blankets, and cuddle up to Scamp, the little dog. He can't stand the shouting either, and his scrawny little body shakes uncontrollably as I hold him tight against me.
They are in the midst of yet another full volume argument, my Mother and stepdad Jimmy, and as usual I don't know how to deal with it and just want it to stop. At times like these I am full of trepidation. I should be on Mums side. I should go downstairs and look after her. But I sense that she is the main protagonist. Why can't they just be happy?
Not doing anything to help makes me feel useless and ashamed. But what can I do? I am thirteen years old. There is not a lot of me. My personal confidence level is at rock bottom. The brash, cocksure personality I attempt to exude, is a pathetic charade, a pretence, adopted to fool my new school friends into thinking I am a tough city kid not to be messed with.
The reality is, that I suffer from an inferiority complex, brought on by being abandoned to a life in children's homes under local authority care, by my feckless Mother. Abandoned more than once too. It is a complex brought on by being given hope so many times and then to have it snatched away, again and again. Situations like this must have an adverse effect on a growing boy. Of course some of these feelings I would not have been able to put into words as a child, but they were there nevertheless. Planted by unthinking, or unfeeling parents.
They are arguing about the usual things tonight. Mainly to do with money and what Mum sees as Jimmy's meanness, but when my name is mentioned it naturally focuses my attention.
It seems that Jimmy wasn't told by my Mother, when he married her, that I was part of the deal. Jimmy had been expecting me to return to London after the summer holidays. He does not want the responsibility of having me there permanently. If I have to leave, Mum says that she will go too. Jimmy tells her to go then. It is a seemingly never ending round of accusation and counter accusation. Conducted at full and frightening volume. In my mind, the whole sorry situation is all my fault.
Eventually, emotionally exhausted, and fearful of what the morning has in store for me I fall into a fitful sleep, my face pressed into the softness of Scamps neck.
The short lived normality, the happiness, the security of a home, of being with my Mother is about to be snatched away.
The next day, the council welfare officer comes to collect me. My Mother has done what she has always done when she feels she can't cope. Put me back into care. Another children's home. But I must not be too concerned I am told. It is only temporary. I will go back home when things settle down a bit.
Thinking back on it now, it occurs to me yet again, that in those days, a child's feelings were always a secondary consideration.
This time though, the raging hormones of puberty are upon me. Combine this with my ever growing anger at life in general, and it is no wonder that I am about to go off the rails big time.
I really miss Scamp.