“Stop that Travis! We’ll be late for school.”
I tried my best to
hurry up but it wasn’t easy – this was why we had to set off early – my OCD
about not walking on the cracks in the pavement – but today we’d managed to
oversleep and therefore we were running late and I was freaking out... “But I
can’t walk on the cracks!” I wailed.
Mum rolled her eyes,
no doubt in response to yet another one of her son’s freaky superstitions – God
only knows where I’d picked them up from – I think Mum thought I secretly
trawled the internet for new and exciting ways to give her a mental breakdown.
Or maybe it was me who was having a mental breakdown, who knows... I was almost
eleven, in my last year of junior school and I was quite aware that I was kind
of different to the rest of my classmates – for starters I was streets ahead of
them at maths and science – secondly I didn’t find it all that easy to makes
friends – I had one really close friend, Gabby who I spent most of my time with
– mostly everyone else avoided us – we were the freaky kids – too clever and
too weird to be mates with. Whatever...
Mum grabbed me by
the arm and pulled me across the road towards the school building. I lost my
footing a little as we reached the other side of the road and I stepped on a
crack. Letting out a yowl of total horror, I stopped and stared at her, “Look
what you made me do!” I screamed, “I’m gonna have such bad luck all day now,
Mum! And it’s all your fault!”
She shook her head
with a little sigh and stroked my hair away from my forehead. She leaned down
and kissed my forehead and then steered me gently towards the school gates,
where Gabby was waiting patiently for me. I attempted to smile at her as I
wiped the tears from my eyes that had sprung up out of nowhere. “No, you’re
not,” Mum said firmly but gently, “You’re going to ace your maths test and
you’ll be top of the class – you’ll see.”
This, of course she
knew with absolute certainty. I wasn’t only freaky about cracks in the pavement
and black cats and ladders – and God help me, Friday the 13th – I was
also freaky about numbers. I have no idea how, but I could just do maths
without even thinking about it.
I grinned at her, “I
am, aren’t I?” I said joyfully; instantly forgetting about my earlier distress,
“Thanks Mum,” I flung my arms around her and gave her a big hug, “I’ll see you
later – you will be here, won’t you?” A feeling of dread swept through me. I’d
stepped on that crack, after all – that definitely meant something bad would
happen today. Maybe she’d forget to fetch me...
She nodded firmly,
“Of course I will, honey – I’d never leave you stranded...”
No. Of course she
wouldn’t. My mum loved me. She’d never leave...
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