About The Boy


A momentous day for Boy. The Thursday that starts his exams. He opts for walking to school, maximising fresh-air time.
‘You’ve revised for this,’ says me, in pep talk mode, ‘you’ve trained, like Rocky, you can do this!’
He puts his fists up. He is ready. He goes out of the door, punching like a montage shot. This is mainly to humour his mother.

When he was barely three, sat in an aeroplane, Mum showed him the white view from the lozenge shaped window.
She tells him, perfectly straight faced, to look out for polar bears.
‘That’s not snow, Mum,’ says the Boy, carefully breaking news, ‘That’s cloud.’
Girl’s laughter bounces off the window, squeals round the plane like a tiny monkey.

‘I can do this!’ Punch, punch, smile hovering at the polite edge of patronising. Dog studies him, as this may be a new signal for imminent walk around fields. Clouds thicken, and if I were looking for a sign, this would not be ominous. 


Comments

Jeremy Bates said…
That's touching. I think it's really nice of parents to take the time to motivate their kids. Hope the 'boy' did well.
Amanda Heitler said…
Empathy. My son is also starting his personal exam hell. He is prepared but does not appreciate any maternal input whatever. My job is to stay clear and make welsh rarebit at 11pm.
Suze said…
Absolutely lovely.

'lozenge' = perfect.
Lynn Proctor said…
hope all goes well!
Lisa Southard said…
Boy reports, 'Yeah, it was okay.' This is a good thing. If he says 'Hmmm,' it is time to worry.
Amanda- I like how you have worked out the parameters of your role. Deep breaths!
Suze- The association of plane windows and lozenges arose whilst squeezing a sweet in my mouth on descent- my ears don't like this bit of flying.
Suze said…
Yawning helps. Though perhaps a bit of chiclet or a scrap of sweet in the right shape, more so ...
Teresa Cypher said…
Parenting--the greatest job on earth..Wait. Maybe it is grand-parenting...but parenting is a close second! Hope he did well, Lily! :-)

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