A New Term By Jonah
We're once more at the Norwich City Technology College with Simon. Not that there is any such place. None of the people in any of my stories are real. Many of the places are, though the people attached to them aren't, but none of the schools are real either. There are some things you don't want to inflict on real people or institutions by writing stories about them. Although I invented most of the people in this story, one of them - Garret - is the invention of another author - of Jacob Lion in the United States - as are some characters that only get a mention. I want to thank Jacob for his kind permission to use his characters in my story. If you've enjoyed my previous stories from 'A Letter from America', to 'On Sea and Sand', I hope you'll enjoy this one. if you do enjoy it, please spare a thought for the kind man who published it for you. Nifty doesn't charge you to read these stories, and he doesn't charge us authors either, but it does cost money to publish them. He bears this cost from his own pocket and from donations via https://donate.nifty.org/ . Please consider donating.
Chapter 1.
Barry Close was a bright boy, but he hadn't had the best start in life. He had been placed into the care system after his parents had exposed him to the attentions of a violently abusive paedophile posing as a minister of religion. His father had gone to prison, as had the abuser. Barry had been fortunate to find foster parents immediately, in the form of two gay schoolteachers who were already bringing up two boys only slightly younger than Barry -- at least, I think he was fortunate, but I can hardly claim to be a disinterested party.
It was the last day of the Summer holiday.
"How," I asked, "do you expect us to find your school things if you keep them buried under that mountain of books. I know you love books and, ordinarily, I'd approve but, isn't the place for them on your bookshelf?"
I knew there was no need to raise my voice. I'd learned how to get a boy's co-operation without doing that.
"Sorry, I'll go up and move them," said the boy.
"Good idea," I replied. "It'll mean you can find your books more easily too."
I collapsed onto the settee next to my partner as Barry trotted upstairs.
"What are the other two doing?" Garret asked.
"The same as him now," I replied. "I don't know why he thought I was going to do it all for him in the first place."
"Probably because he's Barry. It's a pity we couldn't have got him into St Oswald's as well".
"Yes, I know. The teaching staff at the CTC leave a lot to be desired".
"Idiot", he replied. "You know I didn't mean that".
"Well, if it had been our job to place him, we probably could have." I replied . "It's a pity we couldn't adopt him like the others. We could have done better for him than Social Services could. The CTC isn't such a bad place."
"Well, you should know. It certainly won't be what he's been used to."
"This isn't what he's been used to, but he's settled in well. It's just a pity that the fact that his dad won't always be behind bars, and his mum won't be on the register forever, means that he isn't up for adoption."
"Daddy..."
"Lloyd..."
"Can we get the train out after tea if we get all our school things ready before tea."
"You said that as if you were trying to make a bargain."
I knew he wouldn't know what to do with that. It doesn't do to discuss parenting techniques with your children. It isn't something that interests them. It certainly wasn't something that interested Lloyd. What did interest him...
"Does that mean we can get the baby deltic out after tea?"
"So long as Dad and I are quite satisfied that you're ready for tomorrow."
"Yes!" said Lloyd as he thundered back upstairs.
I turned back to Garret.
"You know you'll have him all day and every day from tomorrow?"
"I've had him for the past two years," he replied. "The only difference is that now I won't have the other two as well."
"No, but I'll be getting Barry for RE, English Language and Engineering Drawing. That should be interesting."
"Yes, you can teach him to draw bits of steam engines."
"I doubt I could teach him much about that. Are you going to start tea while I nip up and see how they're getting on?"
"Do you think they need you to do that?"
"Now that Lloyd has made it a condition of being allowed to run trains, they do," I replied.
Their room, as always, was spotless. There was no sign of the pile of books I had seen on Barry's bed earlier. That the rest of the room was pristine was mostly down to Philip. The boy was obsessively tidy and I had never seen him other than spotless. If either of his siblings left something out of place, they would soon hear about it. Lloyd was never the tidiest of boys until Philip came to live with him.
"Barry, turn your bed down so that it's ready for you to get in it. It'll get aired that way."
It was a wonder Philip hadn't told him to do that. I would have asked if their school things were ready but, on each of the three desks was a neatly folded pile of clothes and a school bag sat on each chair.
"Shoes Philip?"
The boy said nothing but slid open the door to his under-bed storage space. I should have known. The other boys were usually barefoot and left their shoes by the side of their bed, but Philip was barefoot more often than the others and was content to dismiss his shoes from public life for evermore.
"You might as well take them out from there. You'll be needing them after tea."
"Ohhhhh!"
"Nobody is riding the train barefoot. All that sharp ballast flying by, inches from your toes, could easily land you in hospital."
The pout disappeared. Suddenly his neatly combed blond hair crowned a beatific smile as he relocated his shoes.
"The other ones Philip. You don't need your school shoes to play trains."
I could have saved my breath. If Philip had worn his best shoes, the ballast would have parted to make way for them rather than scuff his shoes. Philip was like that. The boy would have climbed Ben Nevis in his Sunday best and come down again looking as if he had taken a stroll to the corner shop - not that we had a corner shop. Philip's favourite games involved rough-housing. He favoured games that ended with him getting tickled. If his opponents didn't pull off his shoes and socks he would kick them off himself, giggling uproariously as he got rolled on the floor. Did he ever have a hair out of place afterwards? Don't ask silly questions.
It didn't take long to get our tea eaten and the boys sent upstairs to collect their shoes. I trundled down the garden to open up the signalbox and unlock the engine shed. By the time Lloyd came out to fire up the baby deltic, I had the shed open and the signal cleared for him.
By the time Garret, Barry and Philip came out to enjoy the September evening sunshine, Lloyd had the locomotive coupled to the train and was on the main line ready to take on passengers.
"Daddy", said Barry.
"Not riding the train Barry?"
"I will in a minute.".
A question was obviously coming - this was Barry after all.
"If the block section is from the last stop signal to the first stop signal...".
"Are you trying to apply the Absolute Block system to this railway Barry?"
"Ummm..."
"This signalbox doesn't work Absolute Block or any other sort of block system because it doesn't have any other signalbox to work to. If we wanted to be finicky, we'd call it a shunting frame rather than a signal box".
"Oh! So there isn't any block section?"
"There'd be no point. If we had to have a block section it would be the whole railway, except for a little bit of track the thickness of that signal post. Now why don't you go and get on the train".
Barry was just being himself. I couldn't see his real parents appreciating that, if indeed he'd ever had the courage to be himself around them.
A couple of hours of railway operation took us up to an early bedtime.
Following hot chocolate, all was calm and still.
"Have you noticed how calm and still it is?" Garret observed as he climbed into bed beside me.
"No. Go to sleep, then it will be."