Chapter 10
“Mummy?”
I slowly tiptoe into my mum's brown office.
Yuck. I wish she had chosen a prettier colour. Like green.
She’s sitting at her computer, glasses on top of her head, wearing the green polka dot top she loves so much. She is smoking like she usually does when she's here. The smell always burns my throat, but I persevere with it when I want to see my mum.
I come up next to her, my short body barely reaching the top of her desk.
“Mummy?” I whisper, tugging gently at her shirt.
“What?” she snaps, blowing some smoke in my face, which makes me cough a few times. I use my small hand to waft it away from my face. “Hurry up, Alexander. I don’t have time for you,” she says, as she carries on typing away at her computer.
Her and Daddy are always using them, but whenever I ask to play on it, Mummy always says no. Daddy said that for my sixth birthday, he’ll buy me my very own computer! I’m so excited!
“Look what I drawed for you!” I squeal, holding up my picture of green people next to a house.
“Is me, Daddy, and you!” I point at each person I drew as I explain.
I’m so proud of my drawing. I even made the sun green!
I know that it’s not the colour of the sun, but I wish it was. It’s such a pretty colour.
One day, when I buy a house, I’m gonna paint it all green and plant all green trees around it!
“Very nice. Now go away. I’m busy,” she says without taking her eyes off the screen.
“But you didn’t even see,” I whimper.
“Get out, Alexander,” she says angrily and pushes me with her foot towards the door.
“Ow,” I mutter. She always kicks me like this when she’s busy and wants to get rid of me.
I look down at my drawing, feeling sad. I drew it especially for her. She doesn’t talk to me that much anymore. I wanted to show her how much I love her. Maybe then she would play with me.
A tear falls from my eye, and I wipe it away with the sleeve of my cardigan, running out of her office and slamming the door behind me. I crouch next to the door and wrap my arms around my legs, letting my eyes cry.
I don’t understand why Mummy won’t talk to me. I don’t know what else I can do to show her I still love her.
She’s been saying that I’m annoying and that I have a problem. I don’t have any problems. I just want to spend some time with her. I’ve been really wanting her to cuddle me like Daddy does. But whenever I try, she pushes me. I’ve had marks on my shoulder from it before.
She tried to take all my green pencils yesterday, but Daddy stopped her. He said that I’m just a kid. Which I’m not. I’m really big.
They got into an argument again, so I coloured some drawings of dogs in green until I fell asleep. When I colour, I don’t hear the noise outside my bedroom.
“What’s up, buddy?” Daddy crouches beside me in his suit. His tie is off, which means that he’s back home from work for the day and not just for lunch.
I hand him my drawing that’s now wet from my stupid eyes.
“Oh, that’s a lovely drawing, Alex. Is that us next to our house?” Daddy smiles at me, and it makes me smile.
I nod at him, wiping my runny nose on my sleeve.
“I love it, Alex.” He ruffles my hair. He always does that, and it makes me giggle because it tickles.
Daddy brings his fingers to my face, wiping the tears from my cheeks.