Narrative: Peering
Feb. 4th, 2011 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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scriptoresCharacter(s): Terry Boot
Rating: G
Setting: Prologue, London
Info: Character development narrative.
Peering
Mum is a bit of a space cadet, free-spirited and scatterbrained and entirely lost in her own little world most of the time, which tends to get her pretty lost when she's trying to participate in everyone else's world, too. When he's little, Terry can't remember staying in any given flat for more than a year because Mum can't keep a job or she can't find a job or her latest business venture doesn't work out or she forgets to pay bills or the person they're staying with just can't take it anymore. They spend a lot of time living with family between leases and roommates but his grandparents, aunts and uncles can't really handle them for long, either, and they get passed from hand to hand every week or two until they find somewhere else to go. Every so often, they wind up staying with the man who is supposed to be his father but even Mum knows that those times are too awkward to last because Geoff is too settled and Mum's bad at settling and the little boy stuck between them just spends all of his time reading as soon as he learns how because that's the best way he can think to stay quiet and safe and out of the way when Mum starts packing the bags and boxes and they're moving again, again, again.
Primary school is a chore to survive, he switches from one to another so often. It's not the studies that are the problem, of course. Terry is a smart one, usually at the top of his class, if not so far ahead of them that his teachers struggle to keep him awake and involved on a daily basis. If anything, his studies are just scratching an itch, leaving him open, wounded and raw in the eyes of his classmates, and he's not the best or most eloquent when it comes to handling how his peers show their disdain.
He doesn't make friends. Sometimes he talks to the other students who are in his position, the ones who are seen as too smart for their own good, but they don't do much together, rarely meet to do anything at all outside of school. Occasionally, there are group projects but it gets harder and harder because everyone else seems to have extra-curricular activities while Terry is too reasonable for that sort of thing, knows that there's no point when he can't be sure how long he's going to be around anyway, and he's fine with that, really. At least he thinks he's fine with it, says he's fine with it, until he realizes that everyone is starting to look forward to secondary school except for him. Secondary, where there are more students and more subjects and more clubs and more things to do, where you can really start to bond with those friends you've made and make more friends as you go.
Then an owl lands on the lamp outside the door of the little house where they're renting the basement while Mum works a tea shop and tries to get her knitting business off the ground. Terry can see the bird out his little window and he knows it sees him because it stares at him and thrusts its head forward, an envelope held in its beak. This is for you, it seems to be saying. Would you come take it already so I can go catch that mouse that keeps scurrying by? He doesn't go outside, of course. In fact, he stays closed up in his room, shade pulled, peeking out from time to time over the next 24 hours, only to find it still there, still staring, looking patiently perturbed each time that it spots his eye glancing over the sill.
Mum thinks it might be hurt. Terry thinks that, no, it looks just fine. Still, Mum decides she should check on it and goes out, cooing at it, talking to it. Just like everyone else in the world, the owl tilts its head at her, drops its burden on her once she's close enough to catch it, swivels its head around to peer at her son one last time and flies away. She doesn't take it personally, doesn't seem bothered at all, and simply comes back inside, grasping the letter in one hand, holding it out to a confused little boy as she tells him, as if it's little more than a keen new idea for the post to be delivered by typically nocturnal bird, "It's for you."
Rating: G
Setting: Prologue, London
Info: Character development narrative.
Mum is a bit of a space cadet, free-spirited and scatterbrained and entirely lost in her own little world most of the time, which tends to get her pretty lost when she's trying to participate in everyone else's world, too. When he's little, Terry can't remember staying in any given flat for more than a year because Mum can't keep a job or she can't find a job or her latest business venture doesn't work out or she forgets to pay bills or the person they're staying with just can't take it anymore. They spend a lot of time living with family between leases and roommates but his grandparents, aunts and uncles can't really handle them for long, either, and they get passed from hand to hand every week or two until they find somewhere else to go. Every so often, they wind up staying with the man who is supposed to be his father but even Mum knows that those times are too awkward to last because Geoff is too settled and Mum's bad at settling and the little boy stuck between them just spends all of his time reading as soon as he learns how because that's the best way he can think to stay quiet and safe and out of the way when Mum starts packing the bags and boxes and they're moving again, again, again.
Primary school is a chore to survive, he switches from one to another so often. It's not the studies that are the problem, of course. Terry is a smart one, usually at the top of his class, if not so far ahead of them that his teachers struggle to keep him awake and involved on a daily basis. If anything, his studies are just scratching an itch, leaving him open, wounded and raw in the eyes of his classmates, and he's not the best or most eloquent when it comes to handling how his peers show their disdain.
He doesn't make friends. Sometimes he talks to the other students who are in his position, the ones who are seen as too smart for their own good, but they don't do much together, rarely meet to do anything at all outside of school. Occasionally, there are group projects but it gets harder and harder because everyone else seems to have extra-curricular activities while Terry is too reasonable for that sort of thing, knows that there's no point when he can't be sure how long he's going to be around anyway, and he's fine with that, really. At least he thinks he's fine with it, says he's fine with it, until he realizes that everyone is starting to look forward to secondary school except for him. Secondary, where there are more students and more subjects and more clubs and more things to do, where you can really start to bond with those friends you've made and make more friends as you go.
Then an owl lands on the lamp outside the door of the little house where they're renting the basement while Mum works a tea shop and tries to get her knitting business off the ground. Terry can see the bird out his little window and he knows it sees him because it stares at him and thrusts its head forward, an envelope held in its beak. This is for you, it seems to be saying. Would you come take it already so I can go catch that mouse that keeps scurrying by? He doesn't go outside, of course. In fact, he stays closed up in his room, shade pulled, peeking out from time to time over the next 24 hours, only to find it still there, still staring, looking patiently perturbed each time that it spots his eye glancing over the sill.
Mum thinks it might be hurt. Terry thinks that, no, it looks just fine. Still, Mum decides she should check on it and goes out, cooing at it, talking to it. Just like everyone else in the world, the owl tilts its head at her, drops its burden on her once she's close enough to catch it, swivels its head around to peer at her son one last time and flies away. She doesn't take it personally, doesn't seem bothered at all, and simply comes back inside, grasping the letter in one hand, holding it out to a confused little boy as she tells him, as if it's little more than a keen new idea for the post to be delivered by typically nocturnal bird, "It's for you."
