It was Ryan’s first day at school and he didn’t want to go. Not at all. He knew that as soon as he stepped into the playground, all the other kids would laugh at him. For a start, he’d never been out of the house in short trousers before and the pair that were hanging on his wardrobe door loomed down on him and had darkened the last few days like an eclipse. He had toyed with the idea of hiding them or even throwing them away, but he couldn't do it to his mother after ‘all the sacrifices’ she had made. The fact remained though - this would be the third school in as many years for Ryan and he didn't see how this one would be any different than the others. Kids were kids and kids were mean. It was a harsh, sweeping statement but one that Ryan knew to be perpetually true wherever he went these days.The short trousers were the icing on the cake, but there were other things he was not happy about either. His new military style haircut, the tiny room that he now occupied in their tiny house in the middle of nowhere, the embarrassing small yellow car that they now owned... it was all so far removed from what they used to have before Dad left. Even though his mother told him relentlessly every single day that it wasn't his fault, he knew that it was really. There was nobody else in their family whose fault it could be. At nine years old, Ryan had developed a guilt complex far in excess of his years.
He had taken so long over his cereal this morning, spooning the milk and letting it drip back into the bowl many times over, that his mother had eventually taken the bowl away and forcibly dragged him upstairs by the wrist to get dressed. After the statutory squabbling, huffing and puffing, Ryan finally conceded to parent power - “If you don’t get dressed, I’ll take you in your pants” - and put on the dreaded trousers. If it was possible to put a pair of trousers on badly, then Ryan achieved it with merit. They were a little bit turned to the left and he had even managed to screw up one of the legs so that it looked shorter than the other.
“Every other boy will be wearing them, it’s part of the uniform”, she told him as she straightened them out, but he didn’t care and certainly didn’t believe her. She ran her hand through what was left of his hair in a loving gesture before combing it again for about the fifth time that morning. It still sounded like the stupidest idea ever. What kind of school would make children wear short trousers when the term started in September?
To be fair, his mother had done her best to make it sound appealing. She had bought him a new lunch-box – the one that he wanted with Wolverine on it and had even gone so far as to include the occasional bribe with the addition of sweets and chocolate. Her biggest concession though had been the very dark glasses she had found for him on ebay complete with wraparound sides. There were times, even at nine years old, when he knew he was being exasperating for the sake of it. It couldn’t be easy bringing up a child on your own. He had heard that on TV once and he almost understood. James, who before they had moved, lived a couple of doors up the street, had a dad as well as a mother. Then again, James didn't appear to be a "bloody liability". If Ryan had been able to see, he might have thought he looked pretty good with his X-Men Cyclops style shades and haircut, but Ryan was as blind as a rock.
Most of the time.
Ryan’s mother finally got him in the car. Strapping himself into the front seat, he purposely 'looked' out of the window, ignored his mother and wondered if she could see the reflection of his sulking face. Obviously not, for she hadn’t said a word to him. Even the radio brought no joy to the car this morning. Sometimes they would sing together if it was song they both knew and those were the times when Ryan was at his best. Music put him in a different state of mind. Everything was calm when music played.
Ten minutes later – each one of them filled with the agonising silence of a family row - and they had almost reached the school. She pulled up far enough from the gates so as not to be noticed and sighed deeply a she turned off the engine and rolled her window down a couple of inches.
“Come on. You’ll be fine. It doesn’t matter if they laugh at you. I’m sure you’ll find some friends who are just like you and eventually you’ll find some other kids to laugh back at – that’s what happens at school. You’ll have a great time.”
“Mum - I'm never going to find any friends who are just like me. There is nobody else 'just like me'!"
“It will come honey. I chose this school because they said it was a good place for kids who are different. Do you want me to take you in. I promise it will be OK.”
Ryan knew she meant it this time – she reserved that tone of voice for those moments when he had taken her all the way to the edge. He felt around the footwell and picked his cane up off the floor. He hated it and was looking forward to day when he could have a dog instead but they didn't allow dogs in schools, so the cane it was.
For all her nagging, Ryan’s mother thought he looked very grown up in his uniform with his school tie and his little cap (which was another thing he hated but had actually forgotten about until she put it on his head at that very moment). It had been a rough few years and this was a landmark event for both of them. She had meant to take a photograph. Maybe tomorrow. She wished she could let him know that simmering just below the surface of her impatient demeanor this morning, was no small mountain of pride. Her beautiful baby hadn't quite turned out as any of them had planned but she still loved him more than life itself.
"Come on. I'll walk with you to the gates."
Ryan didn't say anything but got out of the car knowing full well he was never going to get out of this. As they walked through the gates and into the playground (for she could be just as stubborn as he), his mother grimaced at the words he was whispering to himself. Muttering almost silently under his breath as he had many times before, he chanted:
“Please don’t laugh at me, please don’t laugh at me, please don’t …”
She was beginning to feel a little guilty, but this was something they had to get over otherwise all hope would be lost. They had almost reached the steps that led up to the main building – the sacred point at which parents stopped being in charge and school took over. She had watched the other parents many times over in her last year of scouting - standing every day in the same spot as they waved their kids goodbye or welcomed them back with a smile. There were lots of other new parents and kids here whose eyes were also filled with trepidation. For once, she felt as though she wasn’t totally alone. Ryan was standing very close to her still when she heard the galloping of small feet coming up behind her.
“Ha ha! Look, I told you he was weird.”
Three young boys – maybe in the year above the Ryan – were standing in front of them, pointing at Ryan, who was still chanting his mantra under his breath.
“Hey freak! Why don’t you go back where you came from!” yelled the ugliest of the trio - and he was really ugly - loud enough for almost everyone in the playground to hear.
“He's a freakazoid!”, taunted the next in a high pitched tone that made him sound a lot more feminine than his troll-like frame actually was. It hadn't occurred to Ryan that they were winding him up and there was no way they could actually see behind his glasses to discover exactly what it was that he was hiding. The third boy however, who was evidently more curious, went and stood right in front of Ryan and took the glasses clean off his face to get a good look at what a blind kids eyes really looked like.
Ryan, who obviously didn't see this coming, swept into panic mode. He stopped chanting his mantra and switched to another. The words came out so fast, they hardly even registered in his head:
“Oh please no. Not today, not now. Please no, not today...”
But it was too late. The wasps that had lived in his eye sockets since the day he was born, left their nests and took flight. It was a sight to behold. What appeared as a great dust cloud twisted above Ryan’s head like a tornado as a deafening hum took over the playground. The loudest boy - the instigator of the sudden drama - stood very still as he wished with every wish he had left that everybody was looking at the black and yellow twister and not the wet patch that was pooling around his hooves. Then he began to run.
With the boy screaming like a banshee, the wasps – possibly 600 of them - pursued him across the schoolyard. He zigzagged across the playground and around in circles, but boys were not put on this earth to outrun wasps. Not even boys who were half boy, half zebra. They tangled up and buried themselves in his hair, invaded his open necked shirt and burrowed deeply into his blazer pockets. Some went up his trouser leg, others crept into his ears, but none of them stung. Some of them even managed to evade his swishing tail to settle at that end of him, waiting for the word.
Then the world went very quiet as the boy passed out beneath the year two classroom window, from which two teachers watched nervously with the windows shut. The other two boys had also run off, but in different directions.
The ugly boy, whose even uglier father was waiting in the car watching the action unfold, opened the window a slither and shouted; “Run!” He waited until the boy was but an arm’s length from the car and opened the door. The boy dived onto the passenger seat and the door was slammed shut behind him. But wasps are not stupid and not so easily outwitted. Some invaded the engine through the ugly over-sized grill on the 4x4, while the others went to find a way in through the exhaust system. The boys quick thinking ugly father gunned the engine and the exhaust battalion were spewed out onto the street, but it was too late. The first troops had found their way into the air conditioning system and were in the car, doing what wasps do best.
They gathered around the boys mouth and some loitered in his schoolbag close to his lunch. A dozen or so began to explore his nostrils as he had sat there screaming with his lips sealed tighter than if a dragonfly had flown past and sewn them shut. Now, he sat paralysed with fear not knowing what to do for the best. If he had been able to move, he would have seen his ugly father proving himself to be a very brave man by diving out of the car and leaving his son to fend for himself.
Meanwhile, the third boy had taken refuge on the climbing frame. Boys can be pretty stupid sometimes - even those of a troll-like size. You can no more out-climb a wasp than you can outrun them. The wasps buzzed around his head and they seemed content to circle him for the time being, although on closer inspection he would have found that they had also begun to congregate around the leg holes of his short trousers. The more he batted at them, the closer they seemed to come.
For only the second time in his life, Ryan was able to see again. Tears rolled out of his deep brown eyes and down his face with happiness. The only thing he was capable of was to look up at his mother as though it was the last time he might ever get the chance. Kneeling down she hugged him tightly and whispered:
“It’s OK, everything is going to be OK.”
Ryan hugged her back just as tightly and said
“Really?”
“Really. I think we had better call them back don’t you? I don’t think there will be any more laughing at you for the time being.”
“You promise?”
“No. I don’t make promises I can’t control, but I think there’s been enough excitement for one day.”
“Can I look at you a little bit more?”
He pushed his mother away slightly and held her at arms length while he gazed deeply into her eyes.
“Love you”, he said with a grin.
She returned his smile, hardly able to see her son for the tears that had gathered and replied, “Love you too kiddo.”
Ryan took a deep breath, clenched his fists and summoned the wasps back to him. They seemed reluctant for a moment, enjoying their new found freedom but eventually, as surely as they had left, they returned to their twin nests. The playground was wrapped in a stunned silence. Nobody looked at Ryan or his mother, but very silently, they began to file into the school as the bell rang as if on some God given cue.
“You’ll be fine now. Go on. I’ll see you at 3 o’clock,” she said, handing him back his cane.
“Ok. See you later.”
Picking up his lunchbox and bag off the floor, he followed the other children up the steps, hoping his mother wouldn’t notice he was no longer wearing his cap. He was the last one in, but just before he went on to begin his first day at school, he turned and raised his glasses just an inch or so, spilling out a couple of hundred of the wasps who knew exactly what they had to do.
Silently pursuing the car in which the ugly father rode, they entered through a now open back window. Silently, they all sat on the back of his seat, just below the headrest and waited for a sign. If there was one thing that Ryan despised more than the cross he must bear, it was a father who was never around when his kid needed him.