One of Seven

Tommy was a five year old boy. It was a magical age; it’s the age where cars picked up tigers from the zoo and brought them all to a tea party in New York on his favourite train. He loved to play make believe and had a great imagination.

 

Tommy had six sisters; an eight year old; a seven year old; a six year old; a twin sister and then there were twin three year olds. He was outnumbered 6:1. The girls always monopolised the television but Tommy didn’t mind too much, he had his own imagination to have fun with.

 

He loved playing with whatever toy he could possibly get his hands on. It was hard in his house to have toys of his own. He got a dump truck for the Christmas just gone but the girls thought it was a great way to drive their Barbies around so they took it hostage. There were seven of them under eight and the girls took over the house. There were dolls and soft toys everywhere. Tommy wanted to play with cars and building blocks and toy soldiers, however, he had to find them before he could play with them. The girls were lucky because they could share but Tommy on the other hand wasn’t always in the mood for dolls and unicorns.

 

The day Tommy took the scissors from the forbidden drawer and cut the hair off one of the many dolls to make it look like the action figure was the day that he couldn’t find any of his toys. They had been taken hostage by his sister Rebecca. It was revenge; they say revenge is sweet but it got him five minutes on the naughty step. He thought to himself that it was worth it because he was certain the girls would not want to play with a doll without any hair and then he could pretend it was an action man.

 

However those five minutes were agony because he really needed a wee. He was crossing his legs waiting for the seconds on the timer his Mom, Sandra, placed on the floor in front of him to count down. Once the buzzer went he jumped up off the step before his Mom told him he could. He started to chant ‘I am the master of my own bladder!’ and like a bullet he went through the kitchen and straight for the bathroom like a demon possessed.

‘Where are you going?’ his mother shouted after him.

All she heard back an unmerciful sigh and the sound of urine hitting the white porcelain bowl.

She laughed to herself as she was giving out pieces of apple to the rest of her wild herd of children.

‘Sorry Mom’ she heard whizz by her as he sped back to the naughty step.

Sandra was trying to hold back her grin when she went over to Tommy to see if he understood why he was placed on the naughty step in the first place.

‘Why do you think you had to sit here?’ She asked.

‘Because I went into the forbidden drawer and gave Rebecca’s doll a haircut because she took my action figure and it was so unfair because he was my only one.’ He took a breath as did his mother because she was sympathised with poor Tommy.

‘Are you sorry for what you did?’ she asked.

‘Well yeah because I really really needed a wee so bad and you promised me an extra sticker if it was a dry week,’ he replied.

‘Ok so,’ Sandra giggled. ‘Say sorry to Rebecca and don’t do it again. Ok?’

‘Thanks Mom.’ Tommy jumped up and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He was such a sweet boy.

 

Sandra was always afraid Tommy would get so overpowered and overlooked by the girls and that he would feel left out. Whenever she tried to let him watch fireman Sam and Thomas the tank engine, the girls just screamed at the top of their lungs so she quickly had to change it back to Peppa pig for her own sanity. Because she was a mom of seven the last thing she needed was six screaming girls.

‘Sorry buddy,’ she rubbed Tommy's head, ‘I tried.’

Tommy said nothing. He hated it when the girls screamed too.

 

Tommy was in junior infants in primary school. Junior infants was a lot different to Montessori in the sense that you don’t get to play as much; that fact really killed Tommy because he loved to play. His saving grace was that his twin sister Michelle was in a different junior infants to him which meant he was free from all of his sisters for the first time in his life.

 

There was playtime for the first thirty minutes of every day. He was able to play with cars and trains and blocks and action figures without his sisters taking them. Not only that though, he had other boys to play them with. He made some good buddies and twice a day his class mixed with seven other classes and were allowed out to the playground together. He loved those few glorious minutes. He was able to run and jump and be free even though his sisters were there because he had his buddies to play with.

 

However, they were not allowed on the grass on a wet day, they were only allowed on the concrete. There were so many students that when it was wet the kids weren’t allowed run around because there simply wasn’t enough space.

 

On one particular wet day that they were confined to the concrete, Tommy had so much energy to expel that he was walking fast with his little buddies playing chase. The teacher blew her whistle at him. He turned towards her as she pointed her right index finger at him.

‘For the love of God teacher I was nowhere near running’ he replied.

He was taken to the side by the teacher and was told to sit on the step for the remainder of the break to think about what he said. Tommy didn’t know what he had done wrong but he took it like a man and did his time. He didn’t like the step. It was cold and slimy. A note went home with him that day in his journal.

 

Everyday Sandra collected three of her kids from school at 1:30 as well as Olivia, one her good friend Kate's daughters. They played for an hour waiting for Tommy’s two oldest sisters and Betty, Kate’s other daughter to come home. Neither mom thought it made sense to go at half one and half two to collect their little darlings because it just meant that by the time they had packed up the car after collection and unpacked the car upon returning home, they had to repack the car again. They said from day one that Sandra would do the half one shift and Kate the half two. It suited both families perfectly.

 

Everybody snacked at Sandra’s house when all the kids were home. As the kids were eating Sandra and Kate had time for a catch up. After the kids were finished their food Kate went home with Betty and Olivia and Sandra’s kids all took out their homework. All but the three year olds who obviously had none and Tommy.

 

Tommy never ever voluntarily opened his school bag because he just wanted school to be over when he got home so he could try to reclaim the toys his sisters had taken as they were doing their homework. Tommy would leave his bag in the car most days but especially if there was something bad in it like a note from his teacher. Sandra noticed this behavior and she on this particular day she sighed audibly and brought in the illusive bag.

 

Sandra took Tommy’s homework out of his bag and she was right, there was a note from the teacher in it.

‘Tommy, how was school?’ Sandra asked him, as she read the note.

‘Well that gobshite of a teacher made me sit on the cold step at break.’ he said.

‘Tommy Farrell watch your language please!’ Sandra said astonished.

‘Sorry Mom,’ he bowed his head and picked up his pencil.  

Sandra knew she couldn’t put him on the step for that because she said it all the time.

‘Why were you put on the cold step?’ Sandra enquired curiously.

‘Well me and Jimmy were in the playground and we weren’t allowed on the grass and we were just walking fast is all,’ he said as Sandra thought as to what to say to him about the nature of note. ‘I don’t even know what I did wrong.’ He expressed.

Sandra read the note again. It said that Tommy had used the lord’s name in vein.

‘For the love of god that could mean anything!’ Sandra said under her breath. She figured he already had a punishment for whatever he said and let the note be.

 

Tommy’s twin Mary was only took about twenty minutes to do her homework. An hour later and Tommy was still there. He was supposed to be copying the letter ‘c’ today and he had something to colour and reading to do. Sandra had to go over to him more than the others combined. She saw that his c’s were backwards. Sharon said he had done enough once the older girls had all finished their work and he was still sitting there. He beamed up at her when she said he could go and play.

 

Chris, Tommy’s father, came home from work early that particular day and kissed his wife and said hi to each of the seven kids. There were at least three of them hanging out of him. Sharon showed Tommy’s homework to his dad. He looked at Sandra who shrugged her shoulders. She went back a couple of weeks in his copy book and almost all of his letters were backwards.

‘Do you think he’s dyslexic?’ Chris asked his concerned wife.

‘I really don’t know.’ She answered.

 

When they had finished dinner the nine of them played some games and had a bit of craic before bath and bed. Before they tucked Tommy in they sat on the edge of his bed and asked him why he felt homework was so hard and why he was drawing the letters backwards.

His response was ‘Well I want to be the same as Daddy’.

Sandra didn’t know what he was talking about so she asked him what he meant.

‘You always say Daddy’s always backwards in coming forwards so I practice doing them backwards to be like Daddy,’ he replied with a big grin on his face.

Sandra was trying her best not to laugh when she asked him if he was able to do them forwards.

‘Of course I can Mom, that’s easy!’ he said and gave her and his father a big hug.

They both hugged their boy smiling at his answer.

 

When all seven kids were asleep, which was a team effort, Chris and Sandra turned in for the night themselves. They were talking about Tommy and what he had said to them about his letters.  Well if you heard the pair of them, they were almost crying they were laughing so hard. ‘Ssshhhhhh’ said Chris putting his index finger to Sandra’s lips. ‘You’ll wake them up!’ He giggled. They kissed each other good night and turned off the light with smiles on their faces.