2
Tim’s Story
Tim awoke at 4 o’clock the following Monday morning, three hours before he usually woke up. It was the first day of school after the half term break and the first day back after my terrible accident. Tim, unable to go back to sleep, tiptoed past his brother’s room along to the kitchen, where he poured himself a bowl of cereal. As he sat down to eat his cereal, Tim contemplated what he was going to tell his friends later on that morning about the accident. A job he wasn’t looking forward to.
Later that afternoon, Tim glanced at his watch. The fourth lesson was about to start. Tim knew that during this lesson he would have to face Danielle, my girlfriend. Danielle was a petit girl who had the most amazing smile; she had short brown hair and was in the same lessons as Chris. He had managed to avoid seeing her all day, but as they were in the same group he couldn’t put it off any longer.
“Where’s Chris today?” she asked.
“Do you want the bad news first or the good news?” Tim replied.
“Bad news first.” she said thinking that this was one of Tim’s’ jokes.
“As you well know Chris is a dare devil! – it was an accident waiting to happen.”
“What! You’re scaring me Tim!” exclaimed Danielle.
“Here goes.” Tim went.
“It was about 12 o’ clock last Thursday during the holidays when Chris was dropped off at mine by his Mum. He wanted to have a go on the zip wire before we went to Horsham Fair later in the afternoon. He got on it ok but his landing wasn’t what anyone could have expected. He fell off the zip wire and landed on his head. The fall has apparently affected Chris’s brain.”
“Where is he now?”
“At the Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon”
Tim got to his feet to walk to his next lesson, leaving Danielle in a state of shock and unable to absorb what she had just been told.
Tim’s next lesson was English. Walking into the classroom he felt overwhelmed, in a state of shock himself.
“Tim, are you alright?” asked Miss Shales, the English teacher.
“Tim, what’s wrong?” Becky, one of the girls from the class asked.
Tim then broke down in tears and just stood there with everybody looking at him. They all stared at him with an expression on their faces that would only be achieved by placing a chilli in their mouths. Through the tears and sobs, Tim started to speak.
“You know your friend Chris; well he had an accident in the holidays…”
“How?” everybody shouted at once.
“He fell off a zip wire in my back garden and must have landed funny.”
Tim then continued to recall the story he had previously told Danielle and got a similar response. Understandably, the class only managed to get a limited amount of English work completed when the bell for break sounded. Tim walked out of English, feeling as if he alone had been given the arduous task of telling the school about me. He felt that the whole weight of the world was on his shoulders.
Tim still had all the cafeteria staff to tell and when he did they all burst into tears. The cafeteria staff were all usually filled with smiles, but not this time. After that he went to tell the PE staff. Tim was dreading telling them even more than the other teachers because I had such a good rapport with them. Then Tim told Mr Hay, the rugby teacher, and was surprised by his reaction.
“Oh well, you win some, you lose some.” Mr Hay said unsympathetically.
Tim then went and told Mr Raydon, another PE teacher, and was greeted with a more familiar reaction to the news. Mr Raydon was also moved to tears. When Tim told Alex about how unsympathetic Mr Hay seemed and how Mr Raydon was so emotional, Alex was puzzled about this too. The whole experience was quite draining for Tim, so he was relieved when he had finally told all the staff and was glad to be going home.
When Tim got home, his little brother Matt asked about me. He was unaware of how seriously ill I was.
Matt had long Blonde hair and was the youngest of the four offspring, I had played with him on his PS1 a couple of times, but never really got to know him
“How’s Chris? When is he free again to come round?”
“I don’t know yet” replied Tim.
Matt was outside cutting the grass near to where I had fallen. Tim looked down at the grass and saw the mark where I had landed, so he took the mower off Matt and tried to get rid of the mark. It wouldn’t budge.