Tom Houghton by Todd Alexander Read Free Book Online

crying before she got home from work, forcing my body to get all that sadness and frustration out before Mum would be able to detect that it was in there. Thoughts of her throwing her arms around me to help soothe my pain were pushed violently aside, as I pinched at my folds of fat, often until I bruised my own skin. Lana could not be dragged into this, she had enough problems of her own, and who in the world was I to add to those? Kids were predictable and now it was my turn to be the brunt of their jibes. The first time it happened, I’d been legitimately shocked. Surely they weren’t speaking to me? I must have misheard, or they must be mocking someone else. Is that how the world saw me? My only hope was that, soon enough, they’d move on. I just needed to be strong for a bit. It wasn’t that hard to ignore them if I just pretended to be someone else. An actor in a play, perhaps. They were just saying their lines by memory and none of it was actually about me, Tom Houghton – I was just a character. The real Tom Houghton would be respected, no, revered ; everyone admired the real Tom Houghton.
    Simon Harlen thought he ran the school. He was one of the biggest kids in my year. His voice was already deep, hair grew thick along his arms and legs and a black caterpillar lay menacingly across his top lip. It wriggled every time he spoke. His parents had taken him out of school for six months to travel around Europe and that never happened to a kid from Seven Hills. The European holiday meant that Simon had repeated a year and he revelled in being more mature than all the other boys. Those legs of his were all hard and wiry with fur, and all the other boys marvelled at them, but I’d asked him whether I could touch them and this had begun the name calling and teasing. He’d let me touch them, though – that was the thing I could not understand. The sensation was foreign, like those boxes at the animal farm you’re asked to stick your hand in, never knowing what you’ll find hidden in the darkness.
    Since they all turned against me, I generally liked to keep to myself outside of class. At lunchtime I chose one of my obscure places to pore over a magazine or book, usually taking notes, scribbling away in my torn and tattered notepad, which I made sure I kept secret from the other kids. My favourite spot was behind the wall at the far end of the concreted area. Kids pelted balls against the bricks and tried to catch or hit them back again, or tossed marbles, hoping the hard ground would not conspire to make them roll further than they should. But on the other side of the wall there was a small space between the bricks and a wire fence and if I chose my moment just right, there was enough of a gap for me to squeeze into and disappear for the remainder of the break.
    I would go to just about any length to avoid Simon Harlen. I would walk the long way round if I saw his group sitting on the row of wooden seats that connected the infants and primary schools. I’d made that mistake only once. ‘Tom-girl,’ Simon had called relentlessly. ‘You a boy or girl, kid? Coz I wouldn’t know. Hey, Fitz! Check out this kid!’ And all the others in the group had laughed heartily to encourage him to go further, delve deeper into his bottomless barrel of taunts. Their yelling had been so confronting that a small amount of urine had escaped from my penis and I panicked for the rest of the day that I smelled like piss and they’d turn even harsher against me.
    During sport, it wasn’t uncommon to have a ball smack me in the back of the head, or have a strategically placed leg stuck out in front as I ran, so I fell flat on my face. For weeks they’d done the old one-kid-crouches-behind, other-kid-pushes-from-in-front scenario. I just picked myself up, dusted off my hands and the seat of my pants and walked away. What was the point in standing up to them? I couldn’t fight