Chapter 1

Timothy Mark Ibbotson had a problem. At the tender age of ten he had lost the will to live. There just did not seem to be a point to it anymore and his only concept of a future was making it home every evening after school. It was an effort of will that took him away from home in the mornings and he was getting tired of it all.

It wasn’t that he was a bad student and it wasn’t that he had enemies. No, it was a lack of friends that was one of his problems, along with constant harassment from the schoolyard bullies. If he had been a weed he could have understood it, especially if he had been like John Stansfield, the usual boy he was paired with for class projects. John was a good few inches shorter than Timothy with an ‘elfin’ face that earned him the nickname of Jackie. Mind you, Jackie was not as bullied as the other misfit in their class. Jason Atkinson was as tall as Timothy but very slim, wore his hair as long as his mother would allow and would, if pressured, answer to the name of Janice.

To say that they were targets was an understatement. Timothy sometimes felt as if there was a roster system which the bullies, Bruce, Tommy and Geoff, had a set of cards from which they drew the one for the days’ fun. There wasn’t anything so violent that the bullies were reprimanded, just the odd push and shove, stealing of books that somehow turned up in unlikely places and just a general lack of consideration that the three of them had any feelings.

When he had arrived at this school Timothy, with his brother Brenton, had moved into Worcester with their parents from a small village when their father had been offered a good job. He had been years as a long-haul driver and was now a logistics manager for another company, the move being needed to be closer to the depot and did come at the perfect time as long hauls into Europe were getting more difficult after the Brexit result. Their mother worked at the local library, part of a complex known as ‘The Hive’ and they usually had plenty of books to read as long as they kept them clean.

Brenton was a couple of years older than Timothy and had started in the class Timothy was now in. It was the last year before the exam that could see you going to a grammar school if you passed. In Brentons’ case that was a vain expectation and he now attended a place that most would call a ‘comprehensive’ where his whole class were becoming adept in mischief, mayhem and some minor criminal activities.

Timothy had started out well, doing his homework and being interested in everything he studied. It had only been the onset of the harassment that changed things for him and he still tried to do his best but his heart was just not in it any more. He thought that his fate would be his attendance at the comprehensive alongside his brother and the three bullies and that his future looked very bleak indeed. He often thought that his only salvation would be to ingratiate himself into the bully group. Maybe he could trip Jackie or Janice up or do something else that would stop the constant fear.

He had two more terms to come up with something but every time he had the opportunity to do something nasty he froze, unable to be so despicable. Today had been a case in point. He had seen the bullies ganging up on Janice, calling him a faggot and a queer. Timothy only had a fleeting idea what the meanings of these words were, as far as he was concerned Jason looked the picture of health. He could have joined in but stayed back until Bruce and his cohorts had left and then went up to Jason to see if he was all right.

When Timothy left school that afternoon he was grinning at being able to steer clear of the bullies well enough so that they had picked on Jason. He was in enough of a dream that he didn’t hear two of them come up behind him and Bruce pushed him into a group of bushes as they passed. He heard them laugh as they ran on, leaving him scratched and wallowing in his own pity.

As he went to try to extract his body from the jumble of branches his hand fell on something that felt different. Stopping for a moment he pulled it out from under a pile of leaves and held it so he could see what it was. He had to laugh as he looked at a four- inch long Unicorn plush toy. It was very dirty but he could see bits of pink showing through. The yellow horn and the big blue eyes were very evident, though, and he kept hold of it as he slid out of the bushes, retrieved his satchel and carried on his way home.

Before he got to his door he had put the toy in his satchel. He now had something he could take to school and give to Jackie or Janice, proving once and for all that he was one of the strong guys. Maybe then Bruce would stop teasing him and treat him with some respect. At least, that was his idea. He walked into the kitchen where his mother was making their dinner. She took one look at him and ordered him to get undressed and into the shower. When he was drying himself she came in without knocking and dabbed antiseptic ointment on his scratches.

Once he was redressed in his pyjamas and dressing gown he sat doing his homework until he was called to the dinner table. His parents knew enough to say nothing about his scratches but his brother made some very nasty remarks about his pussy of a brother. He was almost in tears when his father stepped in and stopped the baiting. Back in his room he finished the homework and took the stuffed toy out of his bag and hid it in his sock drawer. Tomorrow was Friday and he thought that it would be better to give it on Monday morning, to get the full week out of it. He would put it on Jasons’ desk in the maths class.

He brushed his teeth and pretended to say his prayers while his mother looked on and then she sat on his bed and asked about the scratches. He was unable to tell her the truth so just said that he had got them climbing a tree. She told him not to do it again and turned the light out as she left the room. He was starting to wonder if his mother had some sort of magic powers that looked into his soul on the occasions but put it to one side as he rolled on his side and went to sleep.

He was being feted by the bullies and welcomed into their gang when his dream evaporated and he opened his eyes to see the Unicorn standing on his pillow, not six inches from his nose, the bright blue eyes seemed to be looking directly into his soul, just like his mother. He said “Hello, what are you doing here?” and the Unicorn said “I am watching over my new owner who seems to be very sad.” He thought and said “I think you are right about that. I don’t like being sad but that seems to be my fate.” The Unicorn said “You, alone, are the master of your fate. It can be moulded only by you. If you let others direct you then your life would be a waste. By the way, I am called Rosalie, what’s your name?”

He said that he was Timothy Mark but his nickname at school was ‘Info’. He had been given it at the end of the last school year when one of the bullies had seen that his initials were T.M.I. The Unicorn tut-tutted at the stupidity of youth and then asked him “Tomorrow, when to go into the bathroom, would you please take me with you and wash me. I feel so dirty from being under that bush and would love to feel good again. You can put me on your windowsill, behind the curtains so your mother doesn’t find me. That way I can dry off and look out on the world again.” With that, the Unicorn faded and Timothy carried on with his dream, only now it a little more positive. In this dream he was standing in a line with John and Jason and they were waiting to enter the grammar school for their first day. He knew, in the dream, that the bullies were all off at the comprehensive and would not bother him now.

When he did wake up he looked around to find the Unicorn and finally found Rosalie in his sock drawer where he had put her. ‘Her????’ He thought ‘how do I know her name is Rosalie?’ Nevertheless, he took the toy with him when he went into the bathroom. After he went to the toilet he filled the sink with warm water and put enough soap on his hands to work up the lather. He dunked the toy and worked on it with the lather until the pink was showing brightly and the water was a muddy brown when he pulled the plug. He squeezed it as dry as he could and when he went back into his room he put it on the ledge so it could look out into the back garden and soak up some sun. Once he had dressed he felt a bit silly. Fancy taking orders from a stuffed toy!

That Friday was a really good day. All the bullies were playing truant to miss the maths test that they were totally crap at anyway. Timothy sat next to John in the playground during the morning break and asked him if he would like to get together with study sessions after school; something that had always been there to do but that he had never really thought of it before. At lunch he was beckoned by John to join him and Jason. John said that he had spoken to Jason in the English class and that Jason would like to join them. Jason said that he had a big study room at home and that he would ask his mother if they could use it. He would let them know on Monday.

Timothy and John walked part of the way home together and talked about a plan to get through the exams in September of the next year, right at the early part of the first term. John had spoken to his parents more and told Timothy that the big grammar school conducted special exams at the end of November. They were both pretty bright if they put their minds to it so it was, so they thought, doable. John had the idea that if they stayed together during school days it would make it hard for the bullies to pick on one alone. He had the idea that it may make the bullies do something so bad it would bring them to the attention of a teacher.

When Timothy got home he made sure that he checked the Unicorn out before sitting to do his homework. It was where he had left it and did look a lot cleaner than before.

Marianne G 2021