Mommy and Daddy started to fight when I was three.
Every day, when I woke up, they shouting at each other a lot. But I'd go into the room and they'd both go really quiet and give me some food. We didn't have a lot of food; sometimes I'd be really hungry. Daddy says that he used to live in a really nice place, with more than three rooms, but Mommy looks at him all mean because she doesn't believe him.
Mommy loves me a lot; sometimes I think she loves me too much. She smothers me when she hugs me and when I have twigs in my hair she combs out every strand so slowly I start to wiggle on the stool. Then she sees I'm wiggling and combs faster. It became a game and by the end we'd both start laughing. Daddy came back home once and saw, and he took Mommy by the arm and went into their room and made loud words that didn't sound good.
That was when they started fighting, and I think it was about me. I snuck into the room once and I heard "But, the boy doesn't-" and then there was a big thud sound and Mommy started to cry. I ran away into my room before Daddy saw me. I didn't like leaving Mommy, but I was so scared that I couldn't help it.
Daddy likes me too, even though he tries not to show it. His eyes crinkle at the edges like plastic wrap when he smiles, even if his teeth don't, and he does pat me on the head sometimes. I liked him back too, because when Daddy is in a good mood he bounces me up on his shoulders and pretends to be a horse, and crawls around the room with me on his back. It's fun.
But as I got older and older, my parents got more and more unhappy. Daddy stopped giving me horseback rides and Mommy didn't play the wiggle game with me. I tried to make them happier-I gave them more hugs and I brought back fresh flowers to put in a chipped blue jug that sat on our table. But no matter what I did, Mommy looked at me like she was going to cry and Daddy got meaner and colder.
One day, while I was sitting on our little balcony, a pigeon sat on the railing. It looked at me like he had a question and I started talking to it.
"Mr. Pigeon, I'm worried about Mommy and Daddy. They're not happy with each other and they keep arguing and Daddy hits Mommy, and-" I talked to Mr. Pigeon for a long time, and Mr. Pigeon didn't move for a long time. When I was done, it flicked its wings and said, "Don't worry, kid. 'Least you're not a slave."
"Oh, but you seem very free to go everywhere, Mr. Pigeon." I said back to him.
"My name's Bartimaeus, kid. I'm waiting here until dusk, when my Master calls me." Snorted Mr. Pigeon. I'm not sure how he snorted with a beak, but he did.
"Oh. Okay then, Barti-Barta-Mr. Pigeon."
"Oh, fine. I'm going to have to stay here for another hour or so, so can you at least shut your yap and let me think?"
"Sure." I said, happy because Mommy and Daddy had already gone out to work. I got left alone a lot these days.
After a long time, I started to get bored. So I asked Mr. Pigeon who his Master was.
"None of your business, boy." he said. Then he plucked up his feathers and looked at me all curious. "What's your name?" he asked.
"I can't tell you!" I chirped. "Mommy says that I have to forget my name as soon as I can!"
The bird looked startled, and then he sagged. "Ah. One of those, then."
I didn't know what those were, but Mr. Pigeon sounded like he was saying a bad word. I felt really sad and unhappy because I didn't like being lumped together with those.
"I'm not!" I said, starting to cry. "I'm not a those!"
Mr. Pigeon looked at me and I don't think he was very sympathetic. Another pigeon flapped down next to him and looked at me, made a rude noise and kicked Mr. Pigeon. He said something and Mr. Pigeon hopped over to me.
"Nice talkin' to you, kid. Maybe I'll see you again-maybe you won't be a those." He took off with the other pigeon and left me alone on the balcony.
A few days after that, Daddy told me that he loved me no matter what, because I'm his son.
I think that maybe Daddy does all the things he does because he's unhappy, not because he's angry.
One day, Mommy woke me up and dressed me in my favorite patched shirt and overalls, but she wouldn't tell me where we were going. Daddy went with me too, and I held both their hands. I was so happy that they weren't yelling or crying or hitting each other that I didn't notice they were completely silent.
They took me down into a really clean part of London, using the Underground and some buses. It was amazing! We were going so far away! I kept talking to them about all the things I saw when I could, because so many new things were happening I couldn't take it in.
"Look! That pigeon looks like Mr. Pigeon!" I said to them, pointing at a bird that was pecking at the ground near our bus stop. "I don't think that birdie is as mean as Mr. Pigeon, though."
Mommy looked away and I couldn't see her face, but Daddy said that he was sure that Mr. Pigeon was a very nice fellow, just misunderstood. I decided to go along with Daddy, because I guess that having a Master was a very hard thing to bear, even if I didn't know what a Master was.
All my thoughts about Mr. Pigeon and his Master made me forget about talking, so I spent the last few minutes of the trip and the walk up some shiny marble steps in silence, thinking very hard about these things. Mommy let go of my hand when we went in and walked over to talk to a scary lady who was dressed so neatly she looked like she'd been starched. Scary Lady was behind a desk, and had a bored sort of look on her face.
"Why is-" I tried to say, but Daddy shushed me. Scary Lady looked at me and pointed with shiny fingernails to a big, black wooden door. I stumbled through, and when I was in the room, Daddy knelt and hugged me.
"It was for our next child." I could just barely hear him whisper, choking on his sobs.
"We were going to do it so that we could provide so much more for our next child, but, Nathaniel, it was so hard; so hard, going through the motions, trying not to love you even though you were ours."
The words were curling darkly, thickly around and around in my mind, and I felt like the bottom was dropping out of my world, sucking all of the happiness out of it.
"It disgusted your mother, but it was all we had left, this one scrap of hope. I'm sorry, Nathaniel...Me and your mother love you so much, and if it could've been different at all-"
"You're leaving me?" I didn't want to say it. It would forever break that fragile, beautiful glass bubble that surrounded me, protecting me from the world. When I heard Daddy's response, I knew that I wasn't ever going to pick up the pieces again.
"Yes."
He stood up, and in desperation I clung onto him. He shook me off, pain evident in his eyes. Someone took hold of me as I screamed after my Daddy, my Mommy, Mr. Pigeon, the nice lady next door, the man who used to sing real loud in the floor above us, anyone, save me, please save me, I didn't want to be here, I wanted to be in my home, my home-
The person who was holding me back from the door relaxed and I wheeled around, wanting to hurt this person who didn't let me run to my parents. The person was Scary Lady, and she sat me down at a wooden table and asked me questions.
I didn't want to answer questions.
I ran to the door as soon as she let go and pulled with all my strength, ran out into the big room where I'd last seen Mommy and Daddy and-
They weren't there.
Scary Lady's name was Anita. She told me to forget my name. I told her that my name was specialler than hers and that it was the only thing Mommy and Daddy left me.
She slapped me.
I went on to answer her questions, and I started to cry after Anita was done and gone, because it was the first time anyone had ever hit me before. No, Daddy or Mommy had hit me, but hers felt worse because she didn't care if it hurt or not. I was so scared that as soon as I started to cry, I buried my head in the cushion of a chair to make myself stop.
After only a few minutes, a great man strode through the door. He had an amazing wispy white beard and thunderous eyebrows, swirling black cloak and slightly stained black pants. He wasn't nearly so mean-looking as Anita, but I was still afraid, so I didn't say anything. I still focused on Daddy's eyes, on Mommy's warm hand as it slipped out of mine.
The great man told me that he was going to take care of me from now on.
I felt like this was a dream, and Mommy and Daddy would be there when I woke up. Mr. Underwood's wife, Mrs. Underwood, gave me cookies and talked about a lot of things. Mrs. Underwood is a very nice lady, not like Anita. She asked my name too, but she asked it a lot nicer than Mr. Pigeon or Anita so I told her.
"Nathaniel's a nice name, a wonderful name." she said to me, and she said it so nicely that I started to cry again, because she reminded me of Mommy.
When I woke up the next morning in my new bed, I started to weep into my new soft pillow in my new soft bed in this new house that was so much bigger than my old one but so much emptier of love.
Skippable Author's Notes.
I often thought about Nathaniel's parents; I wondered how they had lived with a child all the way until he was five and cold-heartedly sold him off. However, I realized that they had to be human, too, not just some crapsacks who decided to procreate for money, so for the last few days I've been wrangling with this, trying to figure out how to portray the parents as both assholes and yet human at the same time. I don't think I succeeded with the assholes part.
/Edit: Microsoft Word apparently does this thing where it saves all the edits you make. I didn't know this.