James sat in his study, silently wishing a slow and painful death onto his tutor. Each and every day, they sat in the kitchen, learning pointless bits of information that weren’t ever likely to be used again. Learning where x was, or how to measure the length of a triangle’s side without a ruler. Why can’t they just use rulers?
“Where is x?” James read out lout into the empty room. “Here’s an answer for you.” James picked up his pen and wrote, in large letters ‘WHO GIVES A FUCK’ before throwing his maths book into the box marked ‘school things’. James tilted back in his seat and admired his ceiling. It wouldn’t be so bad, he thought, if he could call his friends to talk about it. For a moment, James imagined he was someone else. That he wasn’t home schooled. That he had friends. That he has someone, anyone to talk to.
He would pick up the phone, like a normal 15 year old, and complain about the amount of work he was being given. It would go something like this.
“Hey James glad you called, wanted to ask for some help with the algebra. Mr Page has really gone mad setting work this week, hasn’t he?”
“I know! It’s like he’s punishing us for his lack of a life. If they want to know what x is why don’t they do it themselves? Gosh man, there’s no way I’m taking maths for a level.”
“Just forget about it, say it was too hard and that you couldn’t do it. You coming out tomorrow night? Ben’s having a party, should be good.”
Snapping out of his reverie, James sighed. Of course he wouldn’t go to the party. His parents would never let him out while the sun was down. It wasn’t safe, they said. He needed to be kept where they could keep an eye on him. James recalled a conversation with his mother, where he had asked to go to one of his friend’s houses.
“Why can’t I go?” He’d winged, failing to comprehend why his mother would be so needlessly cruel.
“For the last time James I said no.” she had her back to him, busying herself with making dinner. It was easier to say no when you didn’t have to see the disappointment on your child’s face. Easier to remind yourself why it isn’t safe when you don’t have to see their innocent bewildered face. He had stormed off in a rage, hurt and confused. Why wouldn’t she let him go? He was 14, and his friend’s house wasn’t far. It was one night; it wasn’t like he was moving out, why was she being so strict?
James walked over to the school things box and retrieved his homework, trying not to recall the night he stayed round a friend’s house for the first time. But it was pointless. The memory rose in his mind, as unstoppable as the rising of the full moon.
To his eternal shame, James had disobeyed his mother that night. He had gone up to his room, and locked the door behind him. James’ mother, relieved that she wouldn’t have to keep saying no, didn’t follow him. This meant that when James climbed out of his bedroom window, no one was there to stop him. When he climbed down the back of the house, using windowsills as footholds, no one noticed.
James was thrilled. He was going to be able to stay at Ben’s house! Climbing over the back fence, James planned what he would say to his mother should he have been caught. He would tell her that if she wasn’t so strict, he wouldn’t have had to sneak out. Maybe it was because she was lonely, thought James. Dad was away on another business trip, and perhaps the woman wanted company. James had dismissed these thought, concluding that it wasn’t fair to punish him for dad’s actions. He wasn’t the one always away on business, she should make dad stay at home all the time.
James, sat at his desk, shook his head in disgust. How foolish he had been. It was a year ago now, that night. The night he disobeyed his mother, the night he found out why he was never allowed out past a certain hour.
He was halfway over the fence when it happened. Straddling the fence with one leg either side, James started, convinced he had just heard a fox in the garden. Angry as he was at his mother, he couldn’t let a fox dig up her precious garden. She was his mum, after all.
“Shoo, fox, shoo!” Thinking that any noise would scare away something as timid as a fox, James didn’t make too much noise. It was too dark to see, but James was certain he could hear something in the bushes.
Out of nowhere, the garden was as illuminated as it was on the brightest day of summer. This light was too bright, too harsh, blinding, bewildering. He put his arm up to shield his eyes. When his eyes adjusted, he tried to make out what was happening.
The creature before him was hideous. It hadn’t been a fox in the garden, it had been it, this thing, this incomprehensible thing. Its amber eyes were squinting against the light, its nose pointed away from the house. Its claws scratched the earth beneath them, its fur hung dirty and matted. This creature embodied everything that was wrong with the world, all that Mother Nature did her best to wipe out. This creature, whatever it was, had James too scared to move. He sat there, unable to register his mother’s pleas for him to come back into the house. She stood there with her torch, blinding the creature, in the hopes that her son would get back into the house before the thing’s eyes could adjust.
James sat at his desk, trying so hard to block out what happened next. He closed his eyes tight, but there the memory was, waiting to play out like a film on repeat every time he closed his eyes. The creature had lunged at him. His arm had been out, in front of him like a shield against the light. Unfortunately, it took more than an arm to stop teeth like those. James rolled up his sleeve, feeling the jagged scar on his arm. He switched his focus back to his work, away from the night he discovered why his father spent so many nights away.
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