childhood

Discovery

Tom lay on the stringy little bed in his room , breathing hard. He had just done something he had thought was not possible except in fairy tales. "I'll try it again" ,he thought. He got up and took in a deep breath .
Extending a thin white hand , he pointed at a dice that lay a few feet from him.
For a few seconds , nothing happened. Then , suddenly the dice gave a small shudder and flew into his hands.
Tom felt strangely exhilarated , as if he had run a long race.

***

Some days afterwards -

There is screaming . Shouting . Bangs that echo. Suddenly Tom arrives. He sees Mrs Cole brandishing a stick , pointing it on an unmoving man across the room . In less than a second , she's upon him. She twirls the stick and says something . There's a popping sound and Tom feels as if his memories are being sucked from him.he doesn't remember this incident.

***

The same day -

Tom is lying on the ground , staring very hard at a twisting green snake in front of him. Slowly , carefully he tries to speak to the snake. Some hissing noises issue from his mouth and the snake quietly follows his orders. "Snaketongue ", he thinks to himself," that's what I am using."

***

A month afterwards , Tom can fully control what he can only describe as his 'magic' . He realised he can make other animals apart from snakes to follow his will to. Today he amuses himself by making Billy Stubb's rabbit turn cartwheels . Soon , he decides that he will make the rabbit kill itself as revenge against Billy for the fight they had.

***

A year later-

Tom is scared for the first time in his life . Mrs Cole had caught him making Amy Bishop do his carpentry work under the threat that he would make her hurt as he had a few days ago . The silly girl had confessed to Mrs Cole at the first chance she got and accused him of many things like killing the cat's kittens just because it scratched him and scaring all the children at the orphanage by making glasses fly in the air. Obviously these allegations were true , but their was no way that Tom would agree to that in front of Mrs Cole.
He was scared majorly because he was almost sure that Mrs Cole was onto him.He had caught her "walking by" his bedroom door seven - eight times a day and peeping through the keyhole at night . He felt as if she was trying to catch him in the act of performing his special feats.

***

One more year has passed has passed and Tom is now 11 years old -

There is a double knock at the door and a strangely tipsy Mrs Cole walked in with a strange man in weird robes.

" How do you do, Tom ", the stranger said extending his knobbly hand.