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Shorts
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| Soft Centre | |
| By gwennypenny | ||||||||||||||||
| 05 June 2007 | ||||||||||||||||
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This is an old piece which I don't really know aht to do with. Soft Spot Staring straight in front of him, he bit his lip as he sensed rather than heard the footfall stopping just beside his desk. ‘Homework, Robson, where is it?’ the voice boomed down at him. Robson hung his head between his shoulder blades, examining the cracks in the varnish of his desk, seeking ostrich –like invisibility but steeled for the onslaught at the same time. ‘ Look at me when I’m talking to you, boy.’ Robson straightened and glanced nervously up into the steely eyes of Mad Max, the meanest teacher in the school. ‘Well,…..’ Mr MacMillan, Head of Mathematics, tapped his foot. Robson’s eyes went back to scanning the desktop, as if the answer was written there, if only he could decipher the code of scrapes and scratches. He remembered going home yesterday, letting himself into the council flat with his own key, fully intending to do his maths homework. The smell of whisky and Marlboro cigarettes assailed him in the hallway, waylaying his good intentions and setting him on his guard as he pushed open the door to the living room. ‘S’that you’ she slurred. At least none of the usual giroday collection of bone-sucking scroungers seemed to be about. She struggled to sit upright on the grubby settee. ‘I’m gonna make my two lovely boys some bacon and egg for tea.’ Robson eyed the plastic bag of cans and bottles at the side of her seat. He knew from experience that she would have squandered three quarters of the cheque already. Then, while the sensible part of her brain was still working, before the drink kicked in, she would have hidden the remainder. Somewhere in the cloudy alcoholic mind of his mother, she knew her children had to eat, and so she played this game of hide and seek to avoid the temptation of spending all the housekeeping on her addictions. Robson quietly set about the search leaving her in the kitchen, swaying in the middle of the sticky floor like a shop sign. Soon the smell of burning bacon brought him back downstairs, to find the grill unattended, his brother Ben, staring at the TV screen. He could hear harsh retching sounds coming from behind the locked bathroom door. The schoolboy removed the pan, waited for it to cool and scraped the charred remnants into the bin. He filled the kettle to heat water to clean the grill and scavenged in the cupboards for food. He found 4 potatoes and a packet of frozen peas. There were no eggs. Carefully he peeled the potatoes as thinly as he could so that none of the flesh was wasted. His mother had gone to bed with some of the cans from the plastic bags. ‘Here you are Ben,’ he said softly and they sat together and ate their peas and potatoes in front of the TV. Then Ben said he was cold, so Robson cleaned out the grate and lit a small fire. He made it a rule never to steal from the same bunker more than once a week. That way the neighbours never noticed anything missing, or at least they never said anything. With Ben settled in front of the screen, Robson cleaned up his mother’s mess in the bathroom. Then he joined his brother back on the settee where they cuddled together for warmth. ‘Promise you’ll go to school tomorrow,’ Robson whispered. ‘Promise’ said Ben. In the unnatural stillness that mushroomed in the classroom, Robson was aware of the other second years, looking at each other, their eyes full of excitement and fear. Mad Max was about to blow and this looked like it could be a big one. ‘Please sir, I forgot it sir’ he mumbled, glancing up quickly. There was another lengthy silence, while Mr MacMillan digested this information. ‘Have it in by tomorrow,’ he said, walking on to the next pupil, who spun round to the front and began to tremble.
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