The Weight of the World
by Harry Harris
Tom had never been inside this Church before. They moved to town on the first Monday of the year. He had said goodbye to his friends at his old school, loaded up his Christmas presents into the car and driven with his little brother and mother through the night, waking up when the lazy winter sun yawned a big breath of light into his sleep covered eyes.
A new town meant a new school, new friends, and this new Church. Tom had liked going to the old Church. He liked singing the songs and hearing the stories. He liked the fading colour of the windows and how when light broke through them onto his mother’s face her skin would look like rainbows. He liked the statue of Jesus on the wall, his big, thick arms open wide, his honey coloured eyes looking lovingly back at him. The three places Tom felt safest were his bedroom, his mother’s arms, and Church.
But this Church was new, and it made Tom jittery. On that first Sunday he tried hard not to go. He refused to get of bed. His mother came in with his breakfast and his mug of milky, sugary tea and he cried. He said he’d had a nightmare, and that he didn’t know why but he absolutely, definitely couldn’t go to Church, unless it was the old Church. He thought this was very clever, as he knew that the old Church was out of the question, although remembering this made him sad.
“Why are you worried little heart?”” Tom’s mother whispered to the lump of duvet that she assumed Tom was curled up under, threads of steam from the tea filling the lines underneath her weary eyes. “Is it because you’re going to talk to the Priest?”
“Uhm duunt wurrnt tuuh geeuuurh,” Tom mumbled from beneath the blanket, which his mother gently unfurled from above him.
“Where’s my brave boy?”
Tom said nothing. His mother had tricked him, she was clever like that. He was very brave. Last week a moth had flown into his bedroom and frightened his little brother, but he wasn’t afraid. He waited for the moth to land on a surface and trapped it with a cup, sliding his maths homework underneath it and letting the moth out the window. Tom’s mother repeated:“Where’s my brave boy?”
Tom smelt the sweet, sugary tea and felt calmer. He sat up, straightened out his pyjamas and took the mug with both hands.
“There he is,” she whispered. Tom sipped the tea and hoped he’d not made his mother too cross.
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