Avoiding Alpha

“Timothy! School!” Tendra called. In her hand was a plate and butty box. “Sit down, eat your breakfast.” She placed the plate down in front of the little boy that came running into the kitchen.

“Thanks Tendra,” He called, bacon butty, he loved Friday’s, other days he had toast or cereal but Fridays Tendra cooked for him and he loved it.

                While he ate Tendra went about cleaning the worktops, checking the fridge and writing a list of food needed. She picked up his little bag that had an action figure on it - showing off how young the lad was. He was seven; year three at school and learning his times tables. He was doing fairly well but he didn’t like maths. It was always a chore to get him to do his maths homework when they gave him worksheets to do.

                She checked his bag, made sure his homework planner was in it, his reading book, homework sheets and pencils. Lastly she placed his butty box at the top and zipped it up. All ready for school. His exercise book was showing how old he was growing to be. His hand writing was legible now. His work was getting more scientific, less childish in its explanations and of course, he was getting tested now. He was learning to remember what he was taught, and he came home gushing with information.

                School for timothy was no longer playtime, it wasn’t all pretty pictures and intricate games, now it was knowledge and he was coming to see how that meant survival in this world and he soaked it up like a sponge. Tendra couldn’t help but smile as he grew and also sit down and wonder where the time was going. Seven years had flown by. A lot had happened. And he was everything to her. She lived for him. She protected him, she looked after him and it was for his benefit she worked long hours. She spent all her money on the house, the food, boys clothes and school uniforms, all for him. All for Timothy; but she was not his mother. She was his big sister and at nineteen years old she should have been going to university, she should have been out partying with friends, she should have actually had some friends more to the point but she didn’t. Her life was Timothy and she cared for him like her own son while their father was out. And that was always the better option.

                If her father was away he didn’t frighten Tim and she didn’t get hurt.

“Tendra, are we going?” Such an innocent voice she couldn’t help but smile down at him.

“We are, have you got your bag?”

“Got it!”

She grabbed her keys and walked with him out of the door locking it behind her. They then began their half hour walk to the primary school before Tendra would go to work. She hated it, she was a cleaner and spent her days going to various  pubs and clubs and cleaning up, beer splashes, peanut and crisp crumbs, and the worst? – puddles of sick. It was not her desired job but it was one that paid the bills. She would do anything for Tim and the lad needed to eat. God knew her father did not pay for her. He spent his money on drink, gambling and women. She hoped one day the police would arrest him for creeping about on the street corners looking for vulnerable women but as of yet no one had caught him buying women for the night. Or the hour more to the point.

                Tim’s little hand was threaded through her own and she clutched at him, looking at him, reminding herself why she got up in the morning. It was his smile. It got her every time. That cute little child’s smile that just screamed innocence. And she would keep him that way as long as she could.