Read Being Small for Free Online Page A
Authors: Chaz Brenchley
we really did have no secrets from each other and nothing private to ourselves; which only made it all the more important that our presents were separately wrapped and labelled, his and mine.
No big boxes, but the carrier bag was half the size of Santa’s sack, if not so fatly stuffed. I drew out all the contents and arranged them in two piles; as usual, mine was larger and his felt more expensive. I quickly got a pattern running: one from my pile, one from his, one from mine again and then a drink, a word with Mum, repeat. That way I could spread out the disproportion, not to be left with half a heap for me and no further interest for him.
There were books, of course, there were always books. Books were half the furniture of my life. Second-hand furniture, for the most part. There was Greek and astronomy for me, the poetry of Robert Lowell and Gerard Manley Hopkins, all of last year’s Whitbread winners – those bought new in paperback, to keep me au fait with contemporary tastes, she said – and a random selection of charity-shop crime. Those last would be deliberately hit-and-miss, all part of her campaign to teach me that it was good to pass things on, okay to throw them away. So far, the lesson wasn’t taking. Even the bad books I hung on to, along with all my childhood reading, all my elementary textbooks, everything.
For Small there was just the one book, as he’d never learned to read. I used to enjoy reading to him, but my mother found it hard going to persuade me now, though she did persist.
Just the one book, then, but a fat one. “ Le Comte de Monte-Cristo ?” I murmured, gazing at her, as neutral as I could manage.
“Your accent needs work,” she said crisply. “I can listen in sometimes, to correct you.”
“Every time, then, or I don’t start.”
“I can’t promise that, with shiftwork. You know I can’t.”
“That’s okay, I’ll read in shifts.”
She frowned at me, and sighed, and said, “Your poor brother. I’ll try, Michael. Open something else.”
Summer clothes for me, jeans and T-shirts in bright mother-colours, with ostentatious logos that weren’t quite right, weren’t at all what they were hoping to be mistaken for. For Small something better, a pocket electronic chess game. It looked twenty years old and maybe older, but the batteries were fresh and all the pieces were there. Who cared if the logo was missing and the plastic cover had a crack in it, the hinge was held together with gaffer tape and the edges were worn shiny? Not us.
“It’s got an ‘undefeated’ level,” my mother pointed out, like a challenge.
“So’ve I.”
“I know. That’s why Small needs to practise.”
It was true, my little brother never had beaten me yet. I made the ritual protest, “That’s just an excuse, to give him the best presents.” She said, “Of course it is, I don’t need telling that,” and I went on cheerfully unwrapping, with the odd gloating glance back at the ChessLord.
That was prime, the prince of presents, but the last of mine had its own happy talent. It was light, it lay in the palm of my hand, it gave a little metallic jingle as I tossed it palm to palm. We don’t play guessing-games, my mother and I, so I said, “It’s the key.”
“Open it and see,” she suggested, smiling with a hint of smug.
So I opened it, and of course it was the key to our new lodgings. I had a collection that had been growing for six or seven years now. My mother always had one cut for me, so I saw no need to give it to our landlord as we left. Each one came with its own key-ring and fob, as a treat and a distinguishing feature; I could remember which key belonged to which house, all the baker’s dozen of them with all their hoarded, sordid histories.
A couple of the fobs had my initials on, carved in wood or etched in steel. Others were pretty things, polished stone or silver plaitwork. One wasn’t a fob at all, it was a beaded leather string for wearing round my neck.
No big boxes, but the carrier bag was half the size of Santa’s sack, if not so fatly stuffed. I drew out all the contents and arranged them in two piles; as usual, mine was larger and his felt more expensive. I quickly got a pattern running: one from my pile, one from his, one from mine again and then a drink, a word with Mum, repeat. That way I could spread out the disproportion, not to be left with half a heap for me and no further interest for him.
There were books, of course, there were always books. Books were half the furniture of my life. Second-hand furniture, for the most part. There was Greek and astronomy for me, the poetry of Robert Lowell and Gerard Manley Hopkins, all of last year’s Whitbread winners – those bought new in paperback, to keep me au fait with contemporary tastes, she said – and a random selection of charity-shop crime. Those last would be deliberately hit-and-miss, all part of her campaign to teach me that it was good to pass things on, okay to throw them away. So far, the lesson wasn’t taking. Even the bad books I hung on to, along with all my childhood reading, all my elementary textbooks, everything.
For Small there was just the one book, as he’d never learned to read. I used to enjoy reading to him, but my mother found it hard going to persuade me now, though she did persist.
Just the one book, then, but a fat one. “ Le Comte de Monte-Cristo ?” I murmured, gazing at her, as neutral as I could manage.
“Your accent needs work,” she said crisply. “I can listen in sometimes, to correct you.”
“Every time, then, or I don’t start.”
“I can’t promise that, with shiftwork. You know I can’t.”
“That’s okay, I’ll read in shifts.”
She frowned at me, and sighed, and said, “Your poor brother. I’ll try, Michael. Open something else.”
Summer clothes for me, jeans and T-shirts in bright mother-colours, with ostentatious logos that weren’t quite right, weren’t at all what they were hoping to be mistaken for. For Small something better, a pocket electronic chess game. It looked twenty years old and maybe older, but the batteries were fresh and all the pieces were there. Who cared if the logo was missing and the plastic cover had a crack in it, the hinge was held together with gaffer tape and the edges were worn shiny? Not us.
“It’s got an ‘undefeated’ level,” my mother pointed out, like a challenge.
“So’ve I.”
“I know. That’s why Small needs to practise.”
It was true, my little brother never had beaten me yet. I made the ritual protest, “That’s just an excuse, to give him the best presents.” She said, “Of course it is, I don’t need telling that,” and I went on cheerfully unwrapping, with the odd gloating glance back at the ChessLord.
That was prime, the prince of presents, but the last of mine had its own happy talent. It was light, it lay in the palm of my hand, it gave a little metallic jingle as I tossed it palm to palm. We don’t play guessing-games, my mother and I, so I said, “It’s the key.”
“Open it and see,” she suggested, smiling with a hint of smug.
So I opened it, and of course it was the key to our new lodgings. I had a collection that had been growing for six or seven years now. My mother always had one cut for me, so I saw no need to give it to our landlord as we left. Each one came with its own key-ring and fob, as a treat and a distinguishing feature; I could remember which key belonged to which house, all the baker’s dozen of them with all their hoarded, sordid histories.
A couple of the fobs had my initials on, carved in wood or etched in steel. Others were pretty things, polished stone or silver plaitwork. One wasn’t a fob at all, it was a beaded leather string for wearing round my neck.