A few hours later, he had a cast on his arm. He tapped it with his fingers. They hadn’t been to a doctor. Thomas had done it himself in a hotel room. He gave him a marker to draw on it, then left him while he went to buy food and clothes. Until Thomas had come back, he hadn’t been sure that he would.
“Do you understand why I took you from the house?”
He nodded. If he’d stayed, he’d have become a fire bird too.
“I can give you a home, look after you, teach you.”
The boy was frightened to ask but he still did. “Will you hurt me?”
There was a pause before the man answered. “I’d never deliberately hurt you.”
“They hit me.”
“They shouldn’t have.”
“Now they can’t.”
“No.”
“Thank you for saving me.”
For a moment, Thomas looked sad, then he nodded. “Life will be very different with me. I’d never strike you in anger. But some things I might ask you to do could get you hurt. You’d have to work hard. There’s a lot to learn but the rewards would be great. The job you’d eventually do would be difficult but you’d be doing good.”
He didn’t understand.
“However, I don’t believe in forcing a child into anything. As young as you are, you have a choice. When we reach our destination, you can decide whether to live with me or with people who’ll be paid to look after you.”
It wasn’t hard to decide. Thomas would look after him because he wanted to, not because he was being paid.
“I want to stay with you.”
Thomas smiled. It was the first big smile from him that the boy had seen. It changed his face.
“You and I are family now,” Thomas said. “We won’t lie to each other. You must be loyal to no one but me. In return, I will always look after you.”
“I’ll look after you too.”
Thomas smiled again. “Unless I tell you not to.”
“Unless you tell me not to,” the boy repeated.
I am Jack.
I am Jack.
I am Jack.
Ten years later
Two
Jack hadn’t been in favour of going to school. It had never been an option in the six years before he’d met Thomas, nor for the ten years following. Thomas had been the best teacher anyone could have. But now Thomas was insisting on school, and Jack didn’t say no to him. Though he was quite prepared to argue his case.
“Why do I have to go? At least explain that.”
“That you need to ask confirms it’s the right thing to do.”
Jack was used to Thomas’s enigmatic answers but he still hadn’t figured the why out about school. Not yet. He’d made up some story to get Jack admitted to the sixth form at a place with a good academic record, pulling some of the strings he always seemed to have dangling. Jack had still needed to take a test set by the school. With no formal exams to prove his competence, it was the only way to prove he could cope with the work. Thomas had shown Jack the email saying ‘Fishbourne Academy is delighted to welcome Jack Steel to the sixth form’. And that was that.
