Flour Babies - Anne Fine [52]
It was all over. The relief of it! He hurled another flour baby. And another. Because it had been a near thing, a very near thing. He’d really grown to love his flour baby. He’d really cared about her. But she wasn’t real! And so he was free! Free, free, free
The next flour baby caught on the light fitting and tore. Ecstatically, Simon lifted his face to the cascade of flour spilling down on him, and hurled the next flour baby harder. Why should he care? Hadn’t Mr Higham all but given him permission, after all? 7 don’t care if you kick the damn things to bits. Just get them out of here.’ And Simon had.
Kick them to bits, though?
Great idea!
He kicked one, and then another. Flour exploded all over. It billowed down the corridor in mushrooming white clouds. Each time he kicked another flour sack, more huge puffs of pure white transformed the dull corridor into a storm of snow, a dazzling blizzard – a glorious, glorious explosion.
The flour was drifting up the walls, and settling ankle-deep. Who cared? Not huge, white, flour-kicking Simon. There would be time enough to be responsible when he was older. When the right moment came, there would be all the time in the world to be a good father.
But not now. Not while he was so young. Not while he had the strength and power and energy to do anything, and all his horizons were giddy and bright, and wider than he could imagine.
Boot… Boot… As flour flurried and swirled in arctic chaos, Simon raised his arms to it in triumph. He wouldn’t make the same mistake as his father. Oh, no. He wasn’t going to pin himself down years too soon, and have to make the bitter choice between snatching back his own life, and leaving some child to dawdle down Wilberforce Road every day, talking inside his head to some crinkly blue-eyed father he’d had to make up all by himself, because the real one hadn’t stayed around.
He’d never do that. Never, never, never. He’d wait till he was ready. He’d take care. And then, one day maybe, when he felt like it…
Boot… Boot…
Flour rained on him. It ran all over him in rills and rivulets. It swirled all about him. He was a snowman, a yeti, a walking avalanche. Boot… Boot… He took all the petty frustrations of three weeks out on the tattered bags of flour. ‘Don’t leave her there, Sime.’ ‘Be careful.’ ‘Are you sure she’s safe?’ Is this what his mum was feeling all those years ago, when she dragged him down the club so she could let fly playing badminton one measly hour a week? How could he have leaned over the balcony nagging at her like that? How could he?
Boot… Boot… Boot… More bags split and showered flour. His mother was a saint. He’d take her flowers. He’d bully Sajid into lending some of his ill-gotten gains, and he’d take his mum a dozen red roses. She deserved them.
Simon dipped his arms elbow deep in flour, and, ripping the last few flour babies apart at the seams, he shook the flour all over. He was so happy, nothing could spoil it. They could give him detentions till hell froze. He didn’t care. An hour a day? Chicken-feed! Look at what he’d just escaped!
He couldn’t help it. He burst into song.
‘Unfurl the sail, lads, and let the winds find me
Breasting the soft, sunny, blue rising main –’
The strong voice rang out in the storm of flour. Scooping up more handfuls, he tossed them around him, white on white. Oh, lucky, lucky Simon!
Toss all my burdens and woes clear behind me,’ he carolled.
‘Vow I’ll not carry those cargoes again.’
The flour gusted round him like a good sou’wester.
‘Sail for a sunrise that burns with new maybes –’ Louder and louder he sang. He wasn’t trapped. He would be punished, but he wasn’t trapped. And there’d be time enough to be responsible.
‘Farewell, my loved ones, and be of good cheer.’
There weren’t many bits of sacking left now. The flour spread all the way down to the corner. A pity about there being nothing at all by 4C in the Science Fair. Still, never mind. At least they’d learned a lot.
The matchless voice soared.
‘Others may settle to dandle their babies –’
With one last kick at the