Uncertain Future - 1. UF Chapter 1

Life finally started to look a lot better for me, after having to struggle the first eighteen years of my life. I am the oldest of two boys of a single mother who did her very best to give us a happy life, even if it was a big struggle most weeks. My younger brother is Toby, and with him being 12 years younger than me, it was often me that was left to look after him from a very early age, including having to change his nappies, until he was finally toilet trained at 18 months old.

I woke up at 6am each morning, showered and dressed; by that time Toby was awake and is in need of a nappy change plus a warm bottle of formula milk that Mum prepared, before she left for work, before I woke. Once Toby was fed and dressed it was nearly 6.45am. I grabbed Toby’s day bag with fresh nappies, two changes of clothes and two of his favourite picture books, plus my own school bag I took Toby down stairs to our neighbour Mrs Denning, who mum paid to look after Toby while I’m at school.

Once this was done, I raced down the street to the nearby grocery shop, where I have a part time job for an hour each weekday morning starting from 7am, and again in the afternoon for two hours starting at 3.45pm. Plus I work on Saturdays from 9am till 2pm. Mostly my morning job is to help the owner, Mr Schwartz, to set out the stock ready for the day’s trade, swept the floors, wiped down the benches, plus I took a delivery to an elderly gentleman on the way to school. In the afternoon after work, I collected any grocery order that my mother had telephoned through to Mr Schwartz, and I took it directly home.

Once the shopping is put away, I dashed down stairs and collected Toby from Mrs Denning at 5pm. I gave Toby a light snack before I left him to play in the lounge room with his toys, while I started to prepare dinner and work on my homework on the dining room table where I kept an eye on Toby.

At 6pm I bathed Toby and with a fresh nappy, I dressed him in his pyjamas. Mum arrived home soon after I placed Toby in the lounge again, to finish off making dinner. This was the routine that began 3 months after Toby was born when Mum returned to work after 4 months maternity leave. She worked as a legal executive secretary for a small legal firm in the city. After I announced to Mum that I managed to get a job with Mr Schwartz, mum had arranged with him that my wages are to pay for the groceries that we bought from his store three days a week.

What mum didn’t know was that only just over half of my wages went into paying for groceries at a very heavily discounted rate, and that I was still getting some money at the end of each week which I hid away in a small cake tin that Mr Schwartz no longer needed. In the first year, I had saved over $1400, and for me as a 12-year old that was a heck of a lot of money.

On the weekends Mum would often be working on Saturdays from 8am till 1pm, which meant she could sleep in for an extra hour, but not for me, as it was my responsibility to take care of Toby when she is at work, so most Saturdays I would get up at 6am as usual and get myself and Toby prepared. However, on Saturdays it wasn’t such a mad dash to get out the door. I would let Toby play with his toys or watch cartoons on the television in the lounge room, while I cleaned up the house, making regular checks on Toby to make sure he wasn’t getting up to mischief.

On some occasions, I wouldn’t find him in the lounge room and he would hide somewhere, and would make noises to make me try and find him. Often, he would giggle so much, it was easy to find him. It was a game he enjoyed when he got bored with his toys or the cartoons. After finding him, I often abandoned the cleaning, and spent some time reading him a book; I always made different voices for each character in the book, which he loved listening too.

At 8.30am I would deliver Toby to Mrs Denning, and head off to work, making my way down to the grocery store at a leisurely pace as I wasn’t needed until just before 9am on Saturdays. I was kept busy checking the invoices against the stock that has arrived, restocking the shelves, and adjusting the numbers of each item on the inventory cards, to match with the extra stock that has arrived.

Mum and I usually arrived home at about the same time on Saturday afternoons, with me collecting Toby with groceries in my spare hand, and from that point Mum would take over looking after Toby as she did in the evenings on weekdays after I had served dinner. On Sundays, I had a day off from everything, Mum would take care of Toby the whole day, and on most Sundays, they would go down to the park mid-morning. I would usually climb out of bed at about 9am, as Toby is usually making too much noise for me to sleep any longer.

After a shower and dressing I would have a late breakfast. I would pack a backpack, full of water and snacks before I jumped onto my second-hand mountain bike, and head off for a long ride, often returning in the late afternoon, feeling happy and relaxed. At the age of 14, I was given a $2 an hour pay raise, and given more responsibilities, with a lot more office work, as Mr Schwartz reluctantly invested in a computer.

Since he had no idea how to use it, it was left up to me to transfer all information in the stock cards, as well as entering all the figures for the day’s takings, plus any costs taken out for power, water, taxes, wages, and invoices from trades work. I also spent time behind the counter learning to serve customers, and operating the till. As a precaution to avoid errors, I placed a note pad beside the till to jot down each transaction, in case a customer enquired about me making an error.

When Toby reached 3 years old, he was enrolled into a play group, which he attended three days a week. So instead of dropping him off at Mrs Denning’s, I would drop Toby off at the playgroup on the way to school, and in the afternoon, for an hour while at work, Toby would sit in the back office playing with his toys, while I worked on the computer. Mrs Denning would collect him from me and take Toby to her place for the remainder of the day till I collected him after I had completed work.

When I turned 16 years old, I was given a $3 pay raise, so I am now earning $14 per hour, and I was as busy as ever in the store. On Saturday’s I now started at 8am and finished at 3pm. I often spent a lot more time with serving customers, as Mr Schwartz was starting to slow down a bit more due to the huge work load, with the store getting a lot busier each year. I had recently asked Mr Schwartz to help me to open up a Savings account with the local bank, as I now had over $11,500 stashed in my cake tin, and I was afraid that it would get stolen.

Mr Schwartz acting as my Guardian happily assisted with the process of opening up the account, and the bank teller was quite surprised when I informed her the total amount that I would be depositing. When the teller looked at Mr Schwartz, he grinned and nodded that this was the correct amount. With Toby now aged 4 years old, he attended Pre-primary 3 days a week, were a lot of his playgroup friends were also attending, so he had no problems settling into the new environment.

At school, I was doing reasonably well, I had B+ on average with all of my main subjects, and the previous year as extra subjects I took up business studies, computer studies and theatre studies with the first two I continued into year 11. I avoided sports as best as I could, only doing the required Phys Ed classes twice a week, in the afternoon after lunch. I had friends at school, but no one really close, as I had no time after school or weekends to socialise much, with family and work responsibilities.

Although one of the guys in my class, Mitch Devries, who’s the captain of the hockey team in winter and captain of the tennis in summer, as well as been talented in long distance running. He’d discovered my interest in regular Sunday bike rides, and he often tagged along, just for the challenge. We didn’t talk unless it was necessary, and he seemed to be happy to just follow behind me, stopping when I did to look at some point of interest or to have a drink and snack break. I guess I was happy with the company, and it didn’t worry me that we didn’t talk much, as we hardly knew each other anyway.

There was usually one day a month that he didn’t join me in a ride, and I sometimes wondered why, and my query was answered on the Easter Sunday morning, as I rode through town on my way towards one of my favourite bike routes, and I spotted Mitch dressed in a suit and tie, preparing to walk into the local Presbyterian church to attend the Easter Service.

He saw me ride past and I just nodded to him, and kept going to let him see that I had seen him but didn’t want to embarrass him any more than he was. During the ride that day, I started to think more about Mitch and what else that I didn’t know about him, and I made a mental note to ask a few other class mates a bit more about him. With it being a holiday I had to wait till Wednesday before I could do that as we have a 5 day Easter break, just one week before the 1^st Term holidays begin.

I didn’t know who to ask, and so I made a point of watching who Mitch sat next to in class and talked to during the morning and lunch breaks. That person was Natasha Jervis, who always seemed to be at his side, and it wasn’t till Thursday afternoon, in Business studies class that I had my chance to ask her since he didn’t have this class. Luckily, she sat directly behind me for most of my classes for this subject.

I wrote a short note that I would pass onto her, sometime in class and I took my time thinking about what to write down, before I passed the note when the teacher wasn’t watching, “Mitch has been following me on bike rides most Sundays, did you know this? Saw him attending Presbyterian Church last Sunday, he seemed embarrassed that I saw him there, do you know why?”

With my head turned to one side I can see Natasha’s reflection in the window, and I saw her pick up and read the note, before hiding it in her bag? She didn’t say anything to me or write a response, which I was a bit annoyed about, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

The next morning, I found a note had been slipped into my locker. I placed it into my pocket and decided to read it at morning break time, when I could have some privacy away from any nosey busy bodies who wanted to know everything about everyone. As I sat under a tree well away from everyone else, I took a deep breath before opening the note. “Mitch said it was ok to tell you. Sorry but I had to check with him first.

He said he likes you, and he enjoys the almost weekly Sunday rides, which I did know about as he tells me where you guys have gone to and what you have seen. He said he was really embarrassed that you saw him in his suit. I was there too, but I was just inside the door, and I saw you ride past too. His parents are very strict with him, but allow him to go riding with you as long as he attends church at least once a month.

I had to give his parents a good reference that you’re a good person that you study very hard with good grades, but not very sports minded like he is, LOL. Mitch is a very talented singer, and the church would like him to sing with the choir more often, but he keeps saying he has a prior arrangement with a school friend. Please don’t hurt him, he’s a very gentle person inside.

Be patient and try to talk to him sometimes, when you are on your rides, as he really wants to get to know you better.” I was a bit puzzled with the last paragraph of the note, and as I looked up from reading, I saw Natasha in the distance watching me reading the note, and she saw my puzzled expression, then it suddenly hit me what she meant, and I smiled and nodded to her just as the bell rang.

I noticed that Natasha was often looking at me, for the remainder of the day, during the lunch break, she and Mitch were sitting together whispering to each other, and she would take the occasional glance in my direction, during the last class of the day and the week, Natasha dropped a note in front of me as she walked past to take her seat behind me. The teacher was busy writing on the board, so I took a quick look. “We look forward to seeing you at usual place at usual time on Sunday, N & M”. I crumpled up the small piece of paper tightly and placed it in my mouth and started chewing it, and was a bit startled when the teacher spoke up,

”No chewing in class, get rid of it”, and I swallowed the note straight away, glad that the teacher didn’t know that it was paper and not chewing gum. The remainder of the day at school was uneventful, and I headed home at the end of the school week, glad that it was over. Once mum was home I was able to relax more, not having to worry about Toby, and retreated to my very small room to relax and listen to some music on my small cheap stereo and headphones, until I eventually fell asleep, having changed out of my school & work clothes right after dinner was over.

I woke up at 6am the next morning to the sound of my mum calling me, as there was an urgent telephone call for me, dragging myself out of bed; I made my way to the telephone located on the kitchen breakfast bar. Once the call was over I headed to the bathroom for a quick shower, dressed and while I was gulping down some breakfast, I explained to Mum that Mr Schwartz was ill, and that he required me for the full day, starting with opening up the store.

Mum told me that she wasn't needed at work today so she would take care of Toby. With a kiss on mum’s cheek and hug to Toby I was out the door and on my way to the store. As I had been instructed, I went around to the back yard, where I made my way through the back door, which had been left open for me, and on the small table there was a note with my full name on it, which made me chuckle a bit.

"Wesley Amos Devonport Esq, Hi Wes sorry to do this to you, but I need you to run the whole shop for me today, as I have been ordered to stay in bed by the doctor. My neighbour came by earlier, when she didn’t see me up and about at 6am, and she called the doctor straight away, she will by coming by later to feed me some lunch and to check on you. I know that you can manage on your own; if you have any questions just write them down and my neighbour - Mrs Jorgen will deliver them to me when she comes over. Regards, Mr S".

I took a deep breath and thought for a moment what I needed to do before opening the store at 7am, I looked up at clock in the passageway, and it read 6.42 am, so I raced down the passage to the back door of the office, passing by the living areas of Mr Schwartz’s home. From the office to the left is the main store room and entry dock for deliveries, a passage way between the office and store room leads to the shop, with a small staff kitchen and bathroom and a walk-in fridge opposite the store.

Once I checked that the walk-in fridge, and the other fridges and freezers in the store are at the right temperature, I swept the floor and began to do some shelf stocking, cursing myself for not doing it yesterday after school, and soon it was time to open the store, with already two regular customers waiting by the door. The day was fairly smooth running, with many issues that I couldn't handle on my own. When Mrs Jorgen called in at 9.30, she had a fresh batch of freshly cooked scones, and a hot cup of tea for me. She went to see Mr Schwartz while I finished my morning tea and served more customers.

When Mrs Jorgen returned half an hour later, she informed me that she would be back at lunch time to bring our meals, and she said that Mr Schwartz had received a number of telephone calls from customers who said that I was doing a marvellous job running the shop on my own. After lunch, Mrs Jorgen came into the shop to help me to restock the shelves, and asked me to show her how to do things, in case Mr Schwartz was not well enough on Monday morning, and for the rest of the afternoon Mrs Jorgen and I happily worked together until closing time, when Mrs Jorgen went home to prepare a meal for Mr Schwartz, and I worked on closing down the store for the day.

By the time I got home at 6pm, I was exhausted, and Mum had dinner waiting for me. After dinner, I played with Toby in the lounge room for half an hour before heading to my bedroom where I took off my work clothes and climbed into bed and promptly fell asleep. The next morning, I didn’t wake up until almost 11am, which I was surprised about as usually the noise of Toby playing wakes me up, dragging myself out of bed, I found no one home, and spotted a note on the kitchen bench from mum, "Gone to the park with Toby, to let you get some sleep, Love Mum".

I smiled at the note before making my way to the bathroom for a long hot shower to try and work out my sore muscles from all the work yesterday. It was while I was in the shower that I remembered that today was Sunday, and that I was meant to be out riding my bike today with Natasha and Mitch tagging along. Since I didn't have a contact number for either of them, there wasn't much I could do about it, so I just spent the rest of the morning relaxing in the lounge reading a book.

After lunch Toby had his usual afternoon sleep, while I finished off my school home work, and did some more reading. When Toby woke up we went outside to play in our small back yard before returning indoors when the weather changed we returned indoors where I read some stories to Toby while Mum continued with the house work and prepared that night’s dinner.

When I arrived at school the next morning, having already spent two hours at the shop, helping Mrs Jorgen prepare to open the store I was met with the meanest looking expression from Natasha, and Mitch who was sitting nearby was looking down towards his shoes. Not wanting to get into an argument with them, I went directly to the library to wait out till the first bell rang. For the remainder of the morning I was getting a constant glare from Natasha and it was getting me into a real bad mood.

I knew why she was doing it, but it was not my fault that I couldn't contact them to let them know I would not be there for the Sunday ride. At lunch time, I was cornered by Natasha as I was at my locker, with her getting right into my face. "Natasha, I suggest you stop with that attitude, as it is getting very annoying, and while you are at it get the hell out of my damn face," I said to her quietly so no one else could hear me. Quite by surprise Natasha took half a step back, before swinging and punching me quite hard in the stomach, forcing me to collapse to the ground and trying to catch my breath.

When I looked up next there was no sign of Natasha, and a few people were looking at me as I sat up and leaned against the lockers, and eventually stood up to close my locker. I was in no mood to face Natasha again, so I decided to skip lunch, and I headed outside to get some fresh air. About ten minutes later I was startled when a voice started to talk to me, it was Natasha's other best friend - Nicole, who saw everything that happened at the lockers.

"She has quite a good right hand punch eh... I gather that it was because you didn't turn up for the ride on Sunday?" she asked to me quietly, and there was a long silence before I realised a few things. "So you know about that eh? Well since I didn't have any of their contact details, and that I had to work a whole 10 hours on Saturday because my boss was ill and he was relying on me, I guess that’s a good enough excuse for Natasha to glare at me all morning and then wallop me in the stomach for no apparent reason," I said sourly before standing up and walking away to find another place to sit on my own.

I decided to take a seat at the back of the remaining classes for the day, where I knew there was always a few spare seats, and the teachers didn't comment or make me return to my usual spot. The last class for today was study, which I usually spend in the library doing homework, but today because of Natasha’s actions, I elected to leave school early, so I could help Mrs Jorgen in the store. Although she was surprised to see me early she was thankful that I had, as it was very busy and by the looks she was struggling to cope.

I found Mr Schwartz in his lounge room, laying down on the lounge, covered in a number of blankets, watching television with the volume down low so he could listen out for Mrs Jorgen, if she had an enquiry. I took over in the store, while Mrs Jorgen and Mr Schwartz had some afternoon tea in the lounge room, and I called Mrs Denning to let her know that I would be collecting Toby later than usual, because I had to remain at the store.