Ron

Short story exercise, week FOUR. Prompt: Ambition. I wanted to parallel the ambitions of a young autistic boy with that of a Fox.

We live on a farm. Dad always says, ‘Living on a farm is something to be proud of.’ I’m not sure I agree. I tell the children in my class I live on acreage or a demense, because they have no idea what I mean by that. I used to tell them I lived on an estate because it sounded posh like in Monarch of the Glen, but they thought I meant a council estate.

I like to pretend I’m a fox. I silently skulk around the house in the dead of the night, tip toeing all the way. I know where every creaking floorboard is and exactly how quickly to turn each door knob. The only tricky part is the latch on the kitchen door, it always rattles despite my steady hand. This is where musical statues comes in handy, I always win. Listening out for a single sound, but the only noise I hear is the low grunting of the pigs as they try and sniff out their late night snack. Mum says ‘If you have milk and cheese before you go to bed you’ll have nightmares. I do not want you waking your father!’

Sometimes I wish I was a fox. I like to watch them from my bedroom window. There’s one that comes every night at the same time, when the big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the one, I’ve called him Ron. He cautiously comes in from the hole in the bush I made when I was hiding from Mum. Then he runs along the length of the bush to avoid the security light, behind my swing set and back down behind the chicken coup. I watch him with the great anticipation I have when watching the dog shows Mum takes me to. He’s perfected his route and he’s onto the last hurdle. He pushes the mesh that surrounds the chickens house, prodding it to see how much resistance Dad has troubled him with; quite a lot. Then he starts to dig at the ground, but this takes too long and I fall asleep.

Dad is angry. ‘Those bloody (he says a word I’m not allowed to repeat) vermin, they’ve only gone and slaughtered the whole bloody lot of ‘em. Every single bloody one,’ he kicks over a bucket of water which goes everywhere, but most falls through the gaps in the floorboards. I think Ron might have got in this time, I know I shouldn’t smile, but I can’t help it.

I didn’t know if Ron would come back. Mum said, ‘All the chickens have been killed by those rodents, those bloody rodents that are good for nothing except hats.’

I thought of Ron sitting on top of Mums head and started to laugh. ‘Mum,’ I said, ‘Foxes aren’t rodents, they are part of the dog family, even though they are more like cats,’ and was sent to bed early.

That night I woke to a flood of lights attacking my room, for a minute I thought I was about to be abducted, but after a while nothing happened so I got out of bed and went to the window. It was Ron. He was staring up at my window, his eyes looked like the marbles I get every Christmas, but have no idea what you do with them. He stood there frozen, his chest as white as a ghosts. I heard a loud thump next door and Dad shouting in-between yawns ‘They’re back yawn again, I’m not having this any yawn more.’ I heard his door slam and the sound of his feet pounding the stairs. Ron must have gone off course.

Mum came in, sat on my bed, pulled me close and put her hands over my ears. It was then, and only then I realised what Dad was about to do. ‘Ron!’ I screamed, ‘Ron!’ I kept screaming his name until my head hurt. Mum wouldn’t let go as much as I fought her off. ‘He was only feeding his family, let me go! Dad kills the chickens for us to eat, why can’t Ron have one?’ I wriggled, scratched and tried to bite her arm. ‘Fucking!’ I shouted as loud as I could. Her palm came swinging from a height and landed right on my cheek sending a burning sensation through my whole body. I fell asleep.

I’ve decided I’m moving to the city when I’m older. It’s where all the foxes go when they don’t like the farms and the country side. I don’t want to be a farmer and I don’t want to live here any longer. I don’t want to sound like my parents either, the other children at school don’t sound the way I do. They sound like Fantastic Mr. Fox. I want to talk like Fantastic Mr. Fox, not a farmer.

'Hup, two, three, four'

Writing The Journey exercise, week ONE. Prompt: Childhood. I wanted to capture the innocence of a young child and go off on little tangents, whilst still having a physical journey take place.

Today we are going to see the elephants. I have waited all week for today, and finally it’s here. Mum said it’s going to be a long journey, about two hours by car to get to Chiang Mai. But I don’t mind, we were on the aeroplane for a lot longer. Whenever we go on a day trip I always fall asleep. Mum says it’s the heat that ‘zaps it out of you’ and that’s what happens when you’re a child. I remember hearing Dad telling Mum that I was a ‘trooper’ for managing to stay asleep through the bumpy car rides, so sometimes I pretend to be asleep even when I’m not. I try not to scrunch my eyes up as that is a giveaway of fake sleeping. I’ve already picked out a name for my elephant.  I’ll call him Dumbo. Dad says I can ride the biggest elephant they have if I’d like.

The car pulled up and Mum gently shook me. I jumped out of the car expecting to see the elephants, but they weren’t here. ‘Mum, Mum, Mum, where are the elephants?’
‘We aren’t there yet hunny bun, we’ll be there shortly,’ she said as she patted my head.
‘But you said it was a two hour car drive.’ Mum stopped paying me attention and gave the driver some money. The money here is much more colourful than our money. It comes in greens, blues, and reds and has pictures of elephants on. Our money has pictures of old people. Dad picked me up and put me on his shoulders as we started going down a muddy path to the river. There were lots of rocks in the mud so it made it hard to walk. Mum kept telling Dad to put me down before he dropped me. But I didn’t want to be put down because I had the best view, so I tightened my hold on Dad with my legs.

We got to the bottom where there were some old, long boats waiting for us. The smell of the river made me feel a bit sick.  One of the men who live here put a plank from the mud to the boat so we didn’t get our feet wet. Mum made a little scream as the boat wobbled which Dad thought was really funny, so I started laughing too. This made Mum cross. This wasn’t like any other boat I had been on, this one had tiny blue seats made out of wood, with nails sticking out a little bit and the paint peeling off. We had to sit towards the back of the boat because it filled up quickly. The engine was really noisy so I put my fingers in my ears to block it out. That’s what Dad does when Mum is shouting at him. But it doesn’t work very well because I could still here the engine. I didn’t like this boat. The water was really high and it nearly came up to the edge of the boat. I’ve seen this when I’m in the bath and my toy boats are sinking, if too much water comes in, the boat will sink all the way to bottom and make a clunk sound. I got a bit scared and hugged Mum.

We weren’t in the boat for very long. I counted to sixty, eight times. Which means the boat took eight minutes to get to the other side. I think we could have walked it quicker. We were the last people to get out of the boat, which I didn’t like as the smoke from the engine kept making me cough. Dad bumped his head on the roof, which made Mum laugh, but I didn’t want to make Dad cross so I pretended I didn’t see. When it was my turn to get out I didn’t want to walk down the plank again, so I tried to jump. As soon as I jumped I got scared again because the water was really brown and I thought there might be snakes in it. But Dad caught me and I clung on tightly.

When we finally got to the top of the stairs, which were made of more mud with bits of wood, I could see the elephants. I tried to run off to see them but Dad grabbed my hand and wouldn’t let go. I tried to fight him off, but he is stronger than me, and I always lose. So I sulked instead. This side of the river was very different from the other side. It was like being in a jungle, the floor is covered with green plants and there are lots of tall trees too. It smells better on this side. There’s a small path that we have to follow, in single file, so Dad went behind me and Mum was in front. The jungle is very noisy too; all around me I could hear this loud noise. ‘Dad, what is that noise?’
‘Crickets’ he replied and pushed me on.
I didn’t know that crickets could make this noise, I sometimes watch it with Dad on a Sunday on the TV, but I haven’t heard them make this noise before. Maybe it is a secret noise to tell the team that they are going to hit the ball really far. I tried to run off again, but Dad had his hands on my shoulders, making sure I couldn’t go anywhere. I tried to wriggle out but he just pushed down harder.

I heard Mum gasp, and quickly pushed past to see the elephants.

I thought they’d be running around chasing each other, splashing water and blowing their trumpets. But they had big chains around their feet which looked really sore. They clinked as the elephants tried to shake them off, but the trees were stronger than them.  ‘Oh, my, look Bill. Look how malnourished they are. Go feed them some pineapple or something,’ said Mum, with her hands to her face. When Mum has her hands to her face it means she isn’t happy. But I didn’t know why. The elephants had funny shaped heads, they were big at the top and then went in and then back out, like a monkey nut. They looked hungry; I think this is what malnourished means.

Whenever Mum cries, I cry.