Tom All Alone 17 (ii)

Tom returned to school on the Monday, and Miss Newman was back again. But things weren't the same. As soon as he arrived in the playground he noticed some other children from his class looking at him, prodding each other, giggling and pulling faces. He looked for Barry, who was playing a catch game with Colin and Sanjay. Barry spotted Tom and put his hand up, but didn't come over. Tom went and stood on the edge of the playground near to them and watched them play until the bell rang. He then joined Barry as they went and lined up.

"Hello, Tom," Barry said - but just that.

"Hello, Barry."

A couple of girls standing in front of them turned their heads quickly and looked at Tom. He wasn't sure if they were smiling or sniggering. He looked down and ignored them.

After assembly, he sat and got on with his News Book, saying what he'd done at the weekend - playing with Bobby, and going for a walk with mum to feed the swans by the river. He engrossed himself in the task and tried to shut off from the rest of the class. He could hear a few of the others whispering. He glanced up every now and then and saw faces looking at him.

At one point, Miss Newman came over and crouched down beside him. A couple of other children at the table were watching, but she turned to them.

"Carry on with what you're doing, please."

They went back to their work.

Tom was doing his News Book drawing, showing himself and Bobby. He'd drawn Bobby with pointy ears and a smiley face, with a long tail and stick legs, and claws curling like hooks from his paws.

"That's a good drawing, Tom," Miss Newman said, quietly. "Is that your cat?"

"Yes, miss."

"What's your cat's name?"

"Bobby, miss."

"That's a nice name. I've got a cat, too. He's called Ginger. Do you know why?"

"Is he ginger, miss?"

She smiled. "That's right. Well done."

Tom could smell her perfume. He carried on with the drawing.

"Are you feeling better now?" she said.

"Yes thank you, miss."

"Good," she said.

She rubbed his arm softly, then got up again.

He finished the drawing, then took out his Letter and Number books. That day he had 'E' and '5'. He copied them very carefully, looking at the red figures at the top of the page each time to make sure. When he'd finished, he turned back to the number '3' page to look again at how Miss Farnham had written the number. But that page had been cut out of the book.

He took the books up, staring at the floor all the way there and back. Then he took out his reading book and opened it at the page where he'd put his ribbon book mark. At one point he glanced over to Barry, but Barry was busy with his work.

At play time, Tom went to the boys' toilet and sat in the cubicle until he heard the bell ring again. Then he went out and joined the others as they lined up. He stood next to Colin as Barry was standing with Sanjay. Colin didn't say anything to him.

 

Tom began to feel more and more that the other children regarded him differently now. He felt differently towards them, too. He still didn't understand why it was that they accepted what Miss Farnham had said. Why couldn't they see for themselves that it was a number three that he'd written? It was up there on the clock above the blackboard. It was on the number poster on the wall, with the word written underneath it:

3

three

Couldn't they see that? Why hadn't someone said something about it? Why hadn't someone pointed to it, and stuck up for him? Why hadn't he done it himself by going over to the poster and showing it to her?

"There it is, miss. Three. It does go like that."

He'd never felt like this before. He'd never felt wrong in this way before - even though he was right.

Why couldn't anyone see?

 

He was soon joining in again with Barry, Colin and Sanjay in the playground. But Barry didn't play with him in class quite so often, tending instead to play with children on his own table. No one ever mentioned that day to him. But people remembered it, he knew. He could feel it in the way they still looked at him, and in the way they sometimes spoke to him - like he was stupid.

Then a few of them started calling him a name - Humphrey - which he didn't understand at first. Stephen, the big kid on his table, started it.

"Pass the pencils, Humphrey."

"Hurry up, Humphrey?"

"Humphrey Dumpty sat on a wall. Humphrey Dumpty had a great fall..."

And then one day he realised, when Miss Newman was reading a story to them about a camel called Humphrey, and people started looking at him and giggling. Humphrey the camel was called that because he had three humps.

It was the three. Hump-three.

Later, Stephen said to him "Where's your three humps, Humphrey?"

 

Tom also began to struggle with some of the lessons in class now. His reading and spelling were still good. But he couldn't understand sums in the way that they were shown on the blackboard - though he could usually work them out in his head. All the 'borrowing' and 'carrying' and 'paying back' seemed confusing to him. He didn't like Music and Movement or P.E. because he always felt awkward, and didn't like being looked at when he did the exercises. Sometimes, on warmer days, the class would go out to the playground and play Rounders, which he really hated. The other children all seemed to know the rules and know what to do - like they all knew a secret that he hadn't been told. If he was fielding, he usually missed catching the ball, and mostly threw it to the wrong person. If he was on a base and someone threw the ball to him, he never understood what he was supposed to do with it. If he was batting, he rarely hit the ball. He did hit it hard once, and everyone shouted for him to run, but he ran inside the first post and was called out. Stephen, who was the captain of Tom's team, came up to him afterwards.

"You're useless, Humphrey."

 

At home, Tom started spending more and more time alone, and not really wanting to go out to play with the others. They all did different things now, anyway. Matthew and Patrick and Salvatori all went to the same Catholic school, so they tended to stick together. In the colder weather, Tom would sit upstairs in the kitchen or the living room, where it was warmer, and play with his games or watch telly. If Bobby was in, he usually curled up on the settee, so Tom would sit beside him with a book, or doing some drawing. Tom especially liked those afternoons, when it got dark early and the room was cosy, and there was always the thought of Christmas coming again soon, and the school closed for the holidays. He wished the time would go faster so that it would get here quicker. Christmas, with its excitement and presents, and the special treats, and being at home with everyone there - with mum and dad and Russell and nan and Bobby. Just them and no one else. And those long days away from school when he could do whatever he wanted to do, with no one interfering or calling him names.

He felt happiest of all, being at home. He liked where they lived. He liked their house, with nan downstairs who he could go and see when he wanted to - to play card games, or listen to her wireless, or her stories about her childhood. She'd make him a cup of cocoa and give him a slice of her caraway seed cake. She called it her 'care away' cake.

"When I eat it, it takes my cares away," she said.

He especially liked it when they all sat and watched the telly in the evenings. He had lots of favourite programmes: Danger Man, and The Saint, and The Baron. And No Hiding Place and Z Cars - even though the were about the police, and he was still scared of policemen. Then there was The Avengers and The Prisoner. He loved The Prisoner, with the man being gassed unconscious and kidnapped, and waking up on a strange island and trying to escape from it, but always being chased back by a huge bubble that came out of the sea. The whole idea of it fascinated him. This man, trapped on the island and not knowing why, and everyone else there behaving weirdly. He loved the opening bit, too, with the exciting music and the man racing his car along a road and then past Big Ben - which wasn't that far away from where they lived. He'd been on a day out once with mum, and the bus had gone past Big Ben. He asked her if they could go there again, so he could see where the man in The Prisoner had gone, down into the tunnel in his racing car.

Another favourite was Lost in Space, and Tom quickly fell in love with Penny Robinson. He would lie in bed at night and think up ways that he could rescue her from the planet she was trapped on. And then, one Saturday, he went with mum and nan to see The Sound of Music at the ABC in the High Street - and he couldn't believe that Penny Robinson was in that as well. Afterwards, going home, he asked mum about it.

"How could that girl in the film be in Lost in Space, too?"

"They're not really lost on a planet, love. It's just a television programme. It's only pretending."

"So she's really on earth?"

"Yes, of course she is."

That gave him some hope. Perhaps he would see her for real one day, so he could tell her he loved her. And then perhaps they could get married, like mum and dad, and live in a house like theirs, with nan downstairs and a cat called Bobby.

And they could all be happy together, with no more arguments and upsets.

And he no longer had to go to school.

(continued)