Jellybeans (CH01 Draft 02)

Chapter One

They were the first thing David saw when he opened his eyes on Monday. The sun blinked good morning to him through his blinds and poked lazy light-fingers at his desk, highlighting the contents scattered across the top. Shining, surrounded by a swarm of angelic dust motes, was a small pile of jellybeans. Ordinary-looking jellybeans in a variety of colours – more black and red ones than yellows though – and David smiled because his mom had remembered that he didn’t like the taste of the yellow ones at all. He closed his green eyes, as it was still just those few early moments of the morning that were a little bit too early to wake up, and when his mom came in to wake him for school five minutes later the jellybeans were gone and the sun’s fingers were on the floor making fun of its disarray.

“What happened to the jellybeans?” He rubbed crusty sleep from his eyes and turned his head towards his desk.

“What jellybeans?” Ruth Sparks pulled the duvet off her six-year-old son and poked him in the ribs as he curled his gangly legs up to his chest. “Up, up. Up.” David giggled as she poked him, and once again she marvelled at the wonder that was her first-born.

“The ones that were on my desk a few minutes ago, the ones you put there.” David sat up; his sun-streaked red hair sticking up at angles no geometry teacher could name, and crossed his legs beneath him. His pyjama pants were about ten centimetres too short in the leg, and Spiderman crinkled at the knees. “They were there.” He raised his right arm and pointed around his mother to the desk, now fully awash in sunlight, where a few pencils and some stray cars resided.

“It’s not polite to point David.” Ruth looked behind her. “And there are no jellybeans on your desk.” She patted his head in a useless attempt to flatten some of the hair – it would need a wet comb before it sat still. “Breakfast, now, before the cereal gets soggy.” Briskly she walked from the room, her short frame leaving precision in its wake, leaving the smell of lavender behind her. David slid to the edge of his bed, further crinkling poor Spidy, and let his legs hang over, feel swinging in the air, while he propped his body forward with his hands as if he was about to dive off the bed. His mother was right, there were no jellybeans. A dream, it must have been sleep playing tricks with his eyes. He hopped off the bed in a burst of energy and ran barefoot through to the dining room where his cereal was waiting.

David hated cereal. He hated bread crusts and ham and pickles too. Truth be told, he was a very fussy eater. There were many things he did not eat, good or bad for his system, and mealtimes were always a battle between parents and child. His dad was already at the table, silky black boxers clashing horribly with the pale legs that ended in thick black socks. David could see his dad’s big toe poking through a hole in the right foot and looked down at his own feet in comparison. Wiggling his toes on the tiles, he wondered if he should have put on slippers.

“Go put your slippers on.” Thomas’s voice was still froggy from sleep and the words came out harsher than intended. David scampered off and was back in what seemed too short a time to really count for anything, feet ensconced in Bob the Builder. He took his place at the table and watched his father spoon cereal into his mouth in a robotic movement that betrayed his level of tiredness.

“Eat your cereal.” David looked at his mother, her short red hair brushed neatly and clipped back in a simple knot. It looked fancy to his young brain – his mother was a princess – and he wondered how she always managed to look so beautiful. The simple diamond studs in her ears, an anniversary present from her husband, twinkled like stars in the heavens and, to David’s young mind, his mother was a queen bedecked in the finest of jewels. Her green eyes, a shade darker than her son’s, did not blink as his lush gaze met hers, and all she had to do was raise an eyebrow to cause him to begrudgingly look back at his bowl and pick up his spoon.

“Don’t play with it. Eat properly.” His father’s dark brown eyes were clearer now that the first cup of coffee was gone from the overly-large mug. His eyes were almost as dark as the remnants of coffee in the mug, and this tickled David’s imagination as he thought of people made from different types of food. He giggled as he imagined his dad with coffee eyes and maybe sour gummy worms for hair. “David!” Blinking away the imagined image, David saw the irritation creeping across his dad’s pale face and quickly dipped his spoon into the bowl. The cornflakes were soggy.

Each grain of cereal was slowly spooned up and then the spoon was given a rest on the side of the bowl. It was a Bob the Builder bowl; blue like his slippers. David fidgeted with his fingers before picking up the spoon; it did not feel right in his hand, it didn’t fit. It was like a right-handed person trying to use left-handed scissors. The spoon rose on a wooden arm pulled by a shaky marionette string, until it was level with his face. He watched the flakes swimming in the sloshy milk and his stomach gave a protesting twitch. Slowly, at a snail’s pace, the spoon moved towards a mouth that stayed resolutely closed.

“David!” His dad’s admonition startled him into dropping the spoon straight back into the bowl. The milky flakes spilled all over himself, the table and the floor, and his mother closed her eyes trying to find patience before getting up to fetch a cloth. David’s brother, Samuel, laughed and dropped his own spoon on purpose, causing their father to wince. David looked at the mess and then up at his dad, eyes brimming with tears of frustration and worry. Thomas’s lips briefly curled into a snarl before righting themselves into a neutral position.

“Eat what’s in the bowl.” Thomas growled at his son in frustration. David bowed his head over his bowl as the remaining flakes took on a salty, snotty taste. Ruth returned with a dishcloth and wiped the liquid from the pine table before it caused water spots. She lifted David’s bowl and wiped his placemat before placing the bowl down again in front of her son. The flakes clinging to his pyjamas she picked off one-by-one until only the floor bore witness to the mess. Bending down to gather the last flakes and milky streaks she heard a small whisper. “I’m sorry.” Turning her head slightly to the left she looked at her son mumbling into his bowl. She gently squeezed his knew and then caught the last few escaping flakes with a quick sweep of the cloth. Standing, she brushed off the knees of her pants and readjusted her maroon shirt so that once more it lay unwrinkled across her torso.

“Right,” Ruth said, placing the cloth on the table, “I’m in a hurry this morning David. Please finish up quickly.” She looked at her other son, and her husband. “You too love.”

David gulped down the remainder of his cereal as fast as he could – the faster he went the less he could taste – and Sammy smiled as he copied his older brother. His father scowled across the table until the bowl was empty, and then Thomas just gestured his head towards the door. Fearing repercussions for spilling his breakfast, David scarpered away from the table and went to brush his teeth. He put the smallest amount of toothpaste possible onto the brush – another taste he couldn’t stand – and began brushing. The bristles felt funny in his mouth and he rushed through the job, only to find his mother standing at the bathroom door watching him. She held out her hand and, defeated, he handed her the toothbrush. She pasted it and then he stood there with his mouth open as she brushed each and every tooth he possessed with the same ferocity with which she attacked the grime in the oven. Gentle, yes, but ferocious too. She grabbed a comb and wetted it under the tap, before attacking his hair. He winced at the knots that came under the wrath of the comb, but eventually his hair lay flat, neatly combed to the side. “Clothes.” She instructed him as she gestured towards his room.

It was David’s last year in pre-school; he was in grade R and would start ‘big school’, junior primary, grade one, the following year. Today he decided he would wear his black jeans and red Spiderman t-shirt. He was already putting on the t-shirt when he remembered that he had forgotten underwear, so everything came off again. Again he was half-way through covering his torso when he realised his underwear was on backwards and was really uncomfortable. Off came all the clothes again, and this time they went on properly. He had just pulled his head through the t-shirt when in walked his dad, fully dressed in faded jeans and a grey t-shirt with a large caricature of Yoda on the front. He also wore sturdy ankle boots; Thomas needed the support for his ankles.

“Aren’t you done yet? We need to go.” David tried to explain the problem with the underwear, how it had been forgotten and then it wasn’t on correctly, but was cut off. “Where are your shoes?” David looked at his floor, scattered with Lego bricks, toy cars and stuffed toys. That was a good question, because there were no shoes on his floor. “Why aren’t you looking?” Thomas was starting to lose his patience and so David scurried around his room like a rat in a maze. Eventually he found the right shoe in his toy box and the left underneath his bed. Face flushed in triumph he held them up. Thomas merely grunted, a lock of black hair flopping over into his eyes, and grabbed the first pair of socks he could find from David’s drawer.

“Not those socks, I don’t like those socks. They make my feet itchy.”

Thomas’s hand twitched slightly, but he returned the socks to the drawer and grabbed another pair. Finally David was dressed, his bag found, his message book signed and they were all out the door to start their day of school or work, a few minutes later than normal – which was the normal way of things in the Sparks household.

In David’s room a delicate hand with polished pearly nails appeared and scooped a handful of jellybeans off of the desk. Both the hand and the beans disappeared.