Scared

Chapter 16

John's huge eyes were following every movement of the woman in front of him.

"Mummy?"

Julia Lennon sighed, turning around.

John was scared of mummy's look. Mummy was always shouting when she looked like that.

The woman roughly picked him up, holding him like a sack of potatoes, making him whimper as his right leg bumped against the doorframe as she walked into a bedroom.

The bedroom was bare but of the necessities and the double bed.

She unceremoniously dropped the child on the bed, before falling dead weight next to him, almost falling on him.

John whimpered. Mummy was sleeping already, but it was barely 9 pm.

His belly growled and he had to curl up, hugging himself to ease the bites of hunger.

He stepped off of the bed, before carefully walking downstairs, one hand holding the wall so he wouldn't topple over.

He was cold, he was hungry, everything throbbed and kind of hurt.

He grabbed Spottie the dog, his favourite stuffed dog.

He couldn't sleep without it. He wasn't going anywhere without it.

It was John's best friend. At school, no one wanted to play with him, so he would play with Spottie, hugging it and inventing stories with it.

Hugging Spottie and snuggling into his mummy's side, John fell asleep, trying to stop feeling so hungry.

"Hello?"

"Hello, is this Mary Smith?"

Mary Smith, better known as Mimi, furrowed her brows in wonder.

She putted down her purse as she just got home from work and gripped tightly the phone, holding it close to her ear;

"Yes, this is Mary Smith. Who am I talking to?"

"This is Dovedale Primary School. We're calling for the whereabouts of your nephew, John Winston Lennon" said the young woman speaking on the phone.

Mimi gulped. Had something happened to John?

She hadn't seen him in a few days, her sister, Julia, claiming the boy was busy.

"Yes, has something happened?" she asked nervously, twirling the cord of the phone in her hand.

Why would John's school call her? If something happened, they would have called Julia, not her.

"Mrs. Smith, your younger sister, Mrs. Julia Lennon, had signed you as the person allowed to pick John up from school and to know John's academic growth" she continued.

"Yeah, please keep going"

She heard a sigh. "Ma'am, we tried to call miss Julia, but she hasn't been answering. Teachers has reported us John has been having deep troubles keeping up on school work"

Mimi gulped, "Troubles?" she knew John was a bit behind in things such as his speech and fine motor skills.

"He has troubles in a lot of things: he's 6 and he doesn't speak properly. He has trouble writing and holding pencils and pens in his hand. But the most concerning thing is that he's severely underweight" she said. Her tone was almost slipping from professional and was taking a tone of pity.

"I'm...I'm gonna go check on them...on him" she whispered.

As soon as she was off of the phone, she grabbed her hat and coat, quickly running to the car.