John Verry, Page 2

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  Do you think he is a little stereotypical? Measuring himself, and having his favourite movement going for 6 minutes and 45 seconds? I warned you that I didn’t quite have him. But wait… there is something else I want to show you. I suppose it is the psychologist in me, wanting to show you his childhood.

  During the summer holidays, when he was seven, John ran away from home. It had been while reading the seventh book in the Adventures of the Famous Five that the thought came to him. He appeared to be missing out on an important part of his childhood. While he acknowledged that in the book it always seemed rather spontaneous, the thought of leaving his room weighed heavily on his mind. That night, when his mother came into his bedroom to set the dinner table, he started to probe her with questions. What was the world outside like? Was it cold? How did people eat? His mother answered all his questions as she lay out the places for herself, John and his father. By the time John’s father came in carrying the dining chairs, John had exhausted his mother’s knowledge. After sitting up and saying grace, John turned his attention to his father. When, during the first course (soup), his father scolded John for not placing his napkin in his lap, as he had been told a hundred times, John made up his mind. He would do it. He would run away.

  John sat very quietly for the rest of the meal, making his plans. They said their prayers and the plates were cleared away, his parents dismantled the table and took it back outside. When they had finally finished their daily visit, John set about writing up his lists.

  Food was easy to obtain. Every night for the next week, John thoughtfully placed his napkin in his lap, and while his parents were distracted with conversation, he smuggled his dinner rolls into it. By the end of the week, he estimated that the five rolls he had stolen would keep him for three days, which should be long enough.

  The equipment on the other hand, was harder to get. John decided that he needed an atlas, and knew that his father had one in his study. Putting these two pieces of information together, John felt that he had to get himself into his father’s study. However, he found that whenever he got to his bedroom door, he could not bring himself to cross over it. It was only with thoughts that in a few days he would be leaving it anyway and going much further than his father’s study, that he managed to throw himself over the boundary and leopard-crawl his way down the hallway.

  After one week he had meticulously found and stolen everything he needed, as well as making sure that his favourite underwear had been washed.

  The night before, he carefully sat down on the floorboards of his room and checked each item and action off his list. He got up to rearrange the pile of things that he would pack, and went to his closet to get out all the clothes that he would be wearing. He lay them neatly over the chair. The little blue jacket first, as he would be putting that on last, then his shirt, pants, socks, singlet and then finally his fire-engine red underwear. Looking at the clothes laid out gave him a small shiver of excitement, but a greater feeling of satisfaction. However, he discovered that in spite of all his preparations and lists, his stomach muscles still would not unclamp, and while he knew that he would need all his strength for the journey tomorrow, he could not sleep. He lay awake looking up at the glow-in-the-dark solar system that his father had bought him, trying to slow his mind and stop it going over and over the lists. In the early hours of the morning, he finally dropped asleep.

  He woke up just a few hours later. Listening and hearing not a creak in the house, he quietly got out of bed. Walking with determined steps he crossed the cold floorboards and crept to the chair where he had carefully laid out his clothes. He stood there for a moment, little goose-bumps forming on his bare flesh. Quickly he pulled off his PJ’s and jumped into his fresh underwear, a shiver running down his back. He had to hop while putting on his white socks, but managed not to fall over. Once he had his pants and singlet on, he spent more time on his shirt, carefully doing up each button. When he got to the bottom, he realised that he had missed one up the top, so carefully had to redo them all, his little fingers starting to tingle with the cold.

  Dressed and ready, he then moved onto his supplies. He had packed his small backpack with the bread rolls he had stolen, the atlas and his water bottle that he had been given for his birthday. Standing in the dark, with a slight ache in his stomach and a small thought for his mother, a tear started to run down his white cheek. He quickly brushed it away. He didn’t have time, the tear wasn’t on his list.