A story inspired by Yuko Ohigashi's "Love Is"
The evening sun was slowly setting. I was out on the porch sitting and chatting with Megan, Ralf and little Stuart. This was the kind of life any thirteen year-old could possibly want. Schools were over, winter was setting in and all that was left to do was to have fun and frolic in the winter sun all day long and then this, waiting for evening tea in the company of good friends. This was it; I couldn’t have asked for more.
“Golly gee, that was a whopper of a salmon you caught today”, said little Stu, his eyes gleaming with wonder.
I looked at little Stu. His eyes were filled with admiration for me. Although I only have one sister, I always considered little Stu to be my little brother. True we were of the same age but a big advantage in size justified this feeling of seniority I had.
I smiled at him and replied, “Don’t worry Stu, you’re still new at fishing. Once you’ve gone with me for a couple more rounds you’ll soon get big uns of your own.’
Megan sneered, “It’s the onset of winter, Billy Crimple. How in the world do you think you’ll keep on fishing, you wanna kill little Stu out there in the lake, do you? Have some sense and don’t let your pride kill Stu, kill yourself maybe, but spare Stu.”
“Who says you can’t go fishing in winter? I’ve caught many a big un in the middle of December. Don’t you dare say it’s not possible.”
“Humph! You’ll soon kill yourself of fever and cold, you will and when you do, don’t expect me to mourn then.”
“Fine then. I won’t,” I shot back.
Then I heard the magic words of my mom in the background calling me for tea.
“Gotta go guys. Tea time.”
And with that I dashed home and happily sat down for tea. It was starting to get dark outside and I knew that I would be out in the streets again very soon, giggling and playing with my friends, telling each other of stories of the Bog man out in the swamps and all other scary stories till all of us screamed our little lungs out. Why we screamed I never understood. For me it wasn’t out of fear, I knew that I was safe within the town and no Bog man would come after me. But screaming was fun anyway and that’s what I always did, and I was always the loudest.
Soon we gathered round ol’ Moe’s doorstep and we met him as he was just getting ready to leave for the pub. We all hid when we saw him, but he saw us anyway and shouted, “Aye, you little rascals better be gone when I come a home, I’m a warnin y’us little mongrels, better clear off when I come back ya hear?”
We all giggled. We knew that he would probably pass out at the pub and we didn’t have to worry about him coming back. It was usually dawn by the time he came back staggering all the way to his house.
I noticed a new face in the crowd tonight with Megan.
“Hey Megan, who’s the new girl?” I asked.
Megan looked at all of us with an air of authority. She never failed to let us remember who was the oldest among us, and all the guys hated her for acting so mature and bossy with us. But none of us really spoke out as we were all afraid of being called a sissy for fighting with her.
Finally Megan spoke up. “This is Tiffany. She and her mother just arrived from the city today. She is going to be with us here from now on. Her mother will be working in the school from next year.”
“And where’s her father?” shouted the loudmouthed Jonnie Brooks, loud as ever.
I noticed that Tiffany trembled a little when she heard this question. “I…I…I…I never knew my father,” she stuttered. I noticed tears in her eyes as she said this.
There was a strange silence after that. Everybody stared at Tiffany. After a minute or so of silence she burst into tears and ran off. Everybody started laughing at this and started to call her names.
Even Megan started snorting out her arrogant laugh. “You guys should have left her alone,” I said breaking the grand effusion of laughter in the air.
“Billy’s right for once,” said Megan.
But we soon forgot all about the episode and we were all lost in the stories we told one another, the ones we had heard many times over, and as expected it ended with all of us screaming and running towards our own homes. On my way home, I started thinking about what had happened that night. As I was walking, I noticed the little wooden shacks by the side of the roads with drawn curtains and shadows of flickering candles visible through them. It wasn’t much but this was our little town of Staunton and I couldn’t dream of living anywhere else.
I knew the town well, if it could be called a town at all. It was surrounded on the north and the east by a thick forest. To the south there was the swamp, or the Bog man’s home as we called it. It wasn’t really much of a swamp, just an old lake overgrown with vegetation. To the west was my favorite place, the lake. There I had caught many a huge salmon and I was famous in town for my prized catches which helped my mom and dad feed the mouth of me and my sister.
The town itself had a population of just around 100 houses. Everything was quite and orderly- this was home. I took a left just past the ol’ blacksmith’s forge and there stood a little house made of pine wood, slightly elevated from the ground with poles from all sides, with inviting little steps leading up to the porch and front door.
Home at last.
It was around nine o’clock and time for supper. I could smell the inviting scent of stew and warm bread even from outside and my tummy rumbled inside me. I soon forgot all that had happened that night and was in the house in no time. I noticed my dad wasn’t in the kitchen. Mom was there and my sister had yet to return from the trip to the city to my aunt’s.
I went into the living room and there I saw dad sitting with a woman. The woman was wearing a brown dress and her brown hair was tied up in a bun. She had small looking glasses on and she was very sickly and pale. There was a girl of around my age sitting at the woman’s feet. I was shocked, it was Tiffany and the woman was undoubtedly her mother. She would have no doubt complained about our behavior towards her earlier to her mom and now they were here, talking to my dad about it. I was about to run out of the room when my dad caught sight of me.
“Ah! Billy, just in time. Cm’ere boy.”
I prayed a silent prayer and I hung my head as if I was carrying the weight of the world on it. I could not dare look up, I was feeling so bad.
“Look sharp, my man. Meet Mrs. Winters, she just arrived from the city today and she will be your new schoolteacher next year. And this is her daughter Tiffany. Both of them have been dying to meet you. They shall have dinner with us tonight.”
I was stunned. I remembered saying something that sounded like “hello” when I shook their hands, but I wasn’t sure.
How the rest of the evening went, I am not sure. I hardly saw anything but my shoes, not daring to look up. I don’t even remember if I ate well or not but judging from the rumbling tummy I had in the middle of the night, I guess I didn’t eat very much.
Next morning I woke up fresh and confident. Tiffany hadn’t told anything about our mean behavior to her mother after all. I smiled and went down to breakfast happily. There my mom told me about her and her mom. Her mother had been raped by a man, but she chose to have the baby anyway since she felt it was wrong to go for an abortion. She had been raising Tiffany up this way, finding work in different places as a school teacher and now she was finally here. I felt sorry for Tiffany and wondered what it would be like to grow up without a father. I certainly could not imagine my life without good ol’ dad by my side and I was full of sympathy for her.
After breakfast, I asked mom if we could go pay them a visit. My mom thought it to be a lovely idea so we went to their house. I didn’t say much during our stay there, Tiffany said even less. I just smiled at her to show her that I came in peace and she too gave me one or two smiles, nothing more. The rest of the day I couldn’t stop thinking about her, her tears the previous night, her painful expression and now that sweet smile stuck in my head like the pleasing scent of the fresh summer flowers that lingers on in one’s senses.
I wasn’t myself the rest of the day. The guys thought that I was sick and Megan gave me a mouthful claiming it was because of my fishing and triumphantly sneered, “I told you so, dummy.”
But I couldn’t tell them what had happened to me, no, they would make fun of me and accuse me of liking her which I certainly didn’t. But I couldn’t help it, I asked the guys to excuse me and I sneaked off to the Winters’ residence. I knocked at the door and Mrs. Winters answered.
“Young master Crimple, how good to see you here, come in, come in. Would you like some tea?”
“I came to ask Tiffany if she would like to play.”
“Oh! How sweet of you. Come in. This is the first time that someone is asking her out to play. She will be so happy.”
No comments:
Post a Comment