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.