I Like Your Bow-Ties, Mr Day By Jo Derrick
Davey was haunted by the question. It crept into his dreams like spikes on barbed wire. It stabbed his bare legs and prickled his ear lobes. Day-in, day-out he lived with the question. His vision was obscured by the bold question mark hovering on the horizon. It followed him wherever he went.
"Davey? Are you daydreaming again?” his teacher would ask, waving his Maths exercise book in front of his face like a drooping flag.
“Sorry, Miss,” he’d reply.
Davey was always sorry. He knew when to apologise. His mother told him he was a polite, sensible boy.
“Davey, aren’t you going to clean your plate?” his mother asked most days.
The question had blunted his appetite. It snaked between the pink clematis which covered the garden fence, the apple tree and the pergola like a blanket of snow. The question made him thirsty for fresh water in a mountain stream.
“Davey, you won’t be late again, will you?” the newsagent asked yesterday morning. “I’m running out of patience and there are other boys who’d happily do your job.”
Davey hated upsetting people, especially adults. He didn’t do it on purpose, but he seemed to have a knack for it.
The question had punctured his bike tyres and wormed its way around the handlebars, curling through his bike chain and tripping him up every time he put his feet down at a road junction.
“Davey, do you love me?”
The question slithered into his thoughts when he was singing along to his favourite Queen song. Don’t Stop Me Now was the best record he’d ever bought. He played it over and over in the bedroom with the mauve painted walls and the brown skirting boards his mother cleaned with Vim.
“Davey, you have to choose,” his grandmother told him every Saturday when he went for tea.
She gave him pikelets dripping with butter and strong tea with three sugars in a dainty cup, which was special, because it was part of her Royal Albert china set. He loved its fragile pale blue colour and the delicate ferns painted on by someone with a steady hand. Sometimes him and Nanna had Welsh Rarebit, which was just cheese on toast, his dad said on one of his rare visits.
“Do you love me, Davey? It’s a simple question.”
Sometimes he’d stay the night at Nanna’s, lying awake in the rickety bed with the heavy electric blanket in the draughty room at the back, trying to digest the fatty food he had for tea and hoping the cheese wouldn’t make him have bad dreams.
“Choose, Davey. You haven’t much time left, son.”
Which one to choose?
It wasn’t like trying to decide between Spangles and Opal Fruits or between The Dandy and The Beano.
“Do you love me, Davey? Do you?”
He loved them both. So, so much. How could he decide? His mother and her floral pinny, baking his favourite chocolate cake and giving him the best birthday party ever with the matching green glasses and jug for the squash. Or his father in his green galoshes, patting him on the back when he caught his first fish and taking him to the chippy for his tea.
“Who do you want to live with, Davey? It’s up to you.”
But he didn’t want it to be up to him. Why couldn’t they choose? Why couldn’t that nice lady in the black car choose? Or Mr Merriman, the newsagent? Or Miss Clough, his Maths teacher?
His mum loved watching Question Time on TV. It was a new programme. Davey couldn’t understand the appeal. A panel of people arguing and trying to decide which party was best and who should be Prime Minister with people jeering in the audience. Still, perhaps they could decide who he lived with?
Davey tried to block out The Big Question, which seemed to be growing bigger by the minute. The tall, bold question mark that stood in his way, as he picked up his new Parker pen and the notepad he’d bought with his paperboy wages from Mr Merriman.
Dear Mr Day, I like those bow-ties you wear. I was wondering....
Copyright Jo Derrick 2012
"Davey? Are you daydreaming again?” his teacher would ask, waving his Maths exercise book in front of his face like a drooping flag.
“Sorry, Miss,” he’d reply.
Davey was always sorry. He knew when to apologise. His mother told him he was a polite, sensible boy.
“Davey, aren’t you going to clean your plate?” his mother asked most days.
The question had blunted his appetite. It snaked between the pink clematis which covered the garden fence, the apple tree and the pergola like a blanket of snow. The question made him thirsty for fresh water in a mountain stream.
“Davey, you won’t be late again, will you?” the newsagent asked yesterday morning. “I’m running out of patience and there are other boys who’d happily do your job.”
Davey hated upsetting people, especially adults. He didn’t do it on purpose, but he seemed to have a knack for it.
The question had punctured his bike tyres and wormed its way around the handlebars, curling through his bike chain and tripping him up every time he put his feet down at a road junction.
“Davey, do you love me?”
The question slithered into his thoughts when he was singing along to his favourite Queen song. Don’t Stop Me Now was the best record he’d ever bought. He played it over and over in the bedroom with the mauve painted walls and the brown skirting boards his mother cleaned with Vim.
“Davey, you have to choose,” his grandmother told him every Saturday when he went for tea.
She gave him pikelets dripping with butter and strong tea with three sugars in a dainty cup, which was special, because it was part of her Royal Albert china set. He loved its fragile pale blue colour and the delicate ferns painted on by someone with a steady hand. Sometimes him and Nanna had Welsh Rarebit, which was just cheese on toast, his dad said on one of his rare visits.
“Do you love me, Davey? It’s a simple question.”
Sometimes he’d stay the night at Nanna’s, lying awake in the rickety bed with the heavy electric blanket in the draughty room at the back, trying to digest the fatty food he had for tea and hoping the cheese wouldn’t make him have bad dreams.
“Choose, Davey. You haven’t much time left, son.”
Which one to choose?
It wasn’t like trying to decide between Spangles and Opal Fruits or between The Dandy and The Beano.
“Do you love me, Davey? Do you?”
He loved them both. So, so much. How could he decide? His mother and her floral pinny, baking his favourite chocolate cake and giving him the best birthday party ever with the matching green glasses and jug for the squash. Or his father in his green galoshes, patting him on the back when he caught his first fish and taking him to the chippy for his tea.
“Who do you want to live with, Davey? It’s up to you.”
But he didn’t want it to be up to him. Why couldn’t they choose? Why couldn’t that nice lady in the black car choose? Or Mr Merriman, the newsagent? Or Miss Clough, his Maths teacher?
His mum loved watching Question Time on TV. It was a new programme. Davey couldn’t understand the appeal. A panel of people arguing and trying to decide which party was best and who should be Prime Minister with people jeering in the audience. Still, perhaps they could decide who he lived with?
Davey tried to block out The Big Question, which seemed to be growing bigger by the minute. The tall, bold question mark that stood in his way, as he picked up his new Parker pen and the notepad he’d bought with his paperboy wages from Mr Merriman.
Dear Mr Day, I like those bow-ties you wear. I was wondering....
Copyright Jo Derrick 2012