Little Tim, Big Tim Read Online Free Page B

this position it’s quiet painful and blood is oozing out of our bottom. Little Tim sits on the dirty brown carpet and starts crying.
    ‘I promise I won’t get angry so we don’t get in trouble today,’ Troy declares as he thinks he is to blame for Little Tim’s eruption of tears. I just don’t want any more pain, so I reassure Little Tim and tell him to go and find our shoes outside and return to the kitchen as ordered.
    We sit at the kitchen table, looking out the window at a tree bare of leaves. Dad and his friend discuss church activities that they have been involved in recently. Money changes hands. It’s a lot more money than the cost of two loaves of bread. These people live in two worlds-the hidden one and the one they present to the world.
    A small bird lands on the leafless tree and looks directly at us. The sound of Dad’s conversation starts to fade as I wish to be a bird and fly away from this human existence. The animal kingdom, birds and nature are the only source of sanity I want to be involved with.

BAKING
     
PETER
     
    It must’ve been a big pay-off because nothing happens to us outside of what goes on at home for a long time. I’m in the third grade, the happiest period of my young life. Troy is controlled and will only come out of the dark place, his cupboard, when asked. Little Tim is starting to resurface more and more. As Peter, I start the third grade. I can’t be a bubbly joyful little kid, but Little Tim can and his refreshing demeanour brings favour to us.
    The other children refer to us as the teacher’s pet. We don’t care, and we are pleased to find someone who cares about our existence within the miserable reality in which we find ourselves. At the end of the first term Little Tim feels safe to re-emerge, so I give his body back and return to the Dark.
     
LITTLE TIM
     
    It’s strange at first, getting used to some toys and clothes I have never seen before. The house we live in is cold. I go downstairs to the kitchen; I use my sense of smell to navigate around the strange rooms and hallway to find it. All of my family except my Dad are there and are looking at me strangely; I have a bewildered look on my face.
    ‘Areyou alright weirdo? ’ my eldest sister asks.
    ‘Come here Tim, warm yourself by the fire, you look like you’re frozen,’ my Mum offers generously.
    This interaction isn’t what causes my bewildered look. My response to the sight in front of me is that I hardly recognise any of my family. It must’ve been six months since I have seen them (as Little Tim) and their physical changes frighten me. They are all taller and their facial features have also changed. I feel small and puny—even my younger brother James and younger sister Dorothy seem to have grown up quicker than me.
    Once I’m warm and have breakfast, I run upstairs to get my homework for school and run back to the kitchen to do it by the fireplace. It’s really Peter’s homework and I will need him to explain the work I don’t understand.
    Everybody else has disappeared to enjoy their holiday activities. Mum asks,
    ‘Why are you doing your homework on the first day of the holidays ?’
    ‘I need to understand the work.’
    ‘Can I help? ’ she offers.
    I’m shocked but accept her offer. She explains the mathematics that I don’t understand and have never seen. She praises me when I finally get it right after countless times of getting it wrong. She questions me,
    ‘Why are you finding this work so difficult, when only a couple of weeks ago you knew the solutions? ’ I look at her and say,
    ‘I just forget lots of things Mum, I’m sorry, ’expecting some repercussion for being dumb. What she says next startles me. ‘That’s okay son, I forget things too. ’
    Did she just then explain that she too loses time and forgets things she has learned, the same as me? My little mind tries to reason that maybe when she is nasty, she doesn’t remember. Her demeanour doesn’t change. She’s