The Little Girl in her Lair

You know on TV; Morse or Taggart or something, when they finally uncover the lair of their killer? They usually find all sorts of sick, depraved stuff that reveals the mind of their quarry; obsessive photographs of the victim, locks of hair, their mum's dresses, that kind of thing. Well our garage and Emilie are a bit similar.

You see, autistic children often cannot bear certain items. Not the kind of things you and I hate; the ceramic duck Aunty Sissy gave you last Xmas, but everyday things that somehow upset their equilibrium. To an autistic person items in the home often map a world they want to make sense of and to feel safe in. This explains the often obsessive behaviour, the need to arrange toys in rows, have furniture a certain way.

With Emilie, it explains, 'in up'.

Quite often, Emilie will hand you some random item and say; 'in up.' She means, 'please put this in the garage, preferably deep in there and up on one of the highest shelves, because quite frankly, I can't stand this item.'

Which I guess is fair enough.

Unfortunately however, Emilie can do 'in up' without our help. Instead, rather like a 1950's Hammer movie, you just become aware of items mysteriously disappearing. At first you blame untidy spouses, or your own faulty memory. Slowly but surely however, you come to accept that once again Emi has struck.

Your missing items are deep in-up!

I have just spent the last hour exploring the garage and as I say above, it reveals the mind of this strange little girl we live with. Amongst the shelves, behind the boiler, under planks of wood, some things I've not seen for years have emerged. Let me share with you a little of what Emilie cannot tolerate.

Tins of Ravioli - Heinz only.  Marks and Spencer ravioli is fine. My daughter operates snobby in-up, clearly.

My dressing gown. This irks. I'd love to roll out of bed into a lovely warm gown, but Em won't hear of it. So instead (you will recall we share a bedroom with Lucie at the moment), I have to grope for yesterday's pants and top if I need a nocturnal wee (becoming worryingly more common, but I digress)

Door keys. You always find them after you've had more cut and changed the locks - thanks, Em.

Spotty coats. Only spotty ones - stripy or plain is fine.

Teletubbies.  Actually Em, I'm with you there. In fact, if you want to feed the rotund little bastards into the boiler, I'm okay with that too.  Just do Tinky Winky really slowly.....

Shoes - usually her sister's, which creates so much fun when the school taxi arrives and suddenly we are faced with sending Lucie off in wellies. But not the spotty wellies, obviously.

Where does one draw the line with this behaviour? After all, my daughter cannot help it, it is a factor of her autism. I tell you where I draw the line, dear reader - when she messes with Patch!

Now I consider myself a reasonably mature forty-something man, I do not get upset about trivialities and I know what is important in life. I'm well rounded, reasonable and fair.

But if she lays her one finger on my fluffy toy dog again - I'll ......I'll .......just cry!

I had to sleep without him last night! You know why? Because Em is an experiential learner - she adapts like bird flu. Having retrieved Patch umpteen times from the garage, she changed hiding place. 'In up' became out the landing window and on the porch roof. I had to climb out in non-spotty clothes to rescue him while the neighbours shook their heads.

'Mad Willis is off on one again. On the roof now, he is. Wife's probably thrown him out - not before time too'

Poor Patch!!

So now I hide him. In the sock drawer next to my bed. And wait. She has gone too far this time. This is war!   I'm not afraid of her spider in the web act. The obsessive in her lair. I'm not scared. Well...not as long as I've got my fluffy dog!

Thanks for reading,


Mark