The Three Thorns (2 page)

Miss Illingworth gave Benjamin a patronising smile and handed him his personal belongings in a torn paper bag.

“Good luck.”

Leaving him in the hands of Mr. Jennings, the hard woman made her way to the borstal’s front gates.

Mr. Jennings led the way toward the front doors of Gatesville. The grim building looked more like a prison than a standard home for unwanted boys.

Benjamin studied the long corridors ahead. The ghostly place proved to be bleaker inside than out, and the musty smell was strong enough to make his stomach turn.

When they reached the first floor, a prefect in charge of reporting misbehavior greeted Mr. Jennings and took Benjamin’s bag of belongings from him.

“Johnston, take this one to his room, then show him around,” Mr. Jennings said quietly.

“Yes, Sir.”

Once Mr. Jennings whistled his way down the stairs out of sight, Johnston tossed Benjamin’s bag of belongings back to him. A toothbrush, a hat and a moth-eaten scarf scattered across the floor spilling out from a piece of maroon silk cloth when the wet paper bag tore apart. Dropping onto his hands and knees, Benjamin wrapped up the items in the cloth, and then scrambled onto his tired feet.

Johnston tilted his head once the strange golden crown and snake emblem on the cloth caught his eye.

“What’s that?” he asked rudely, pointing at the emblem.

“It’s mine, my minister gave it to me,” Benjamin said, clutching the cloth tight to his chest. It was the only thing he could think to say. He was unclear as to what the emblem stood for, but he knew the maroon cloth was important, for it was all he had that held a clue to his beginning.

As they walked down another corridor, Benjamin’s heart began beating in his throat. He felt sick and nervous. Butterflies had fluttered in his belly ever since he met the horrible Mr. Jennings, and the growing tension he felt refused to leave him. He felt like crying when he noticed the crammed bedrooms along the corridor. All he had ever wanted in life was for someone to love and care for him. He had truly believed that one day he would be placed with a loving family like the other children of Woodson County had been.

Now his dream was over. Benjamin was abandoned in Gatesville; alone and sad at eleven years of age.

“This is your room. Mr. Porter will be here shortly to show you the curriculum, he can show you around,” Johnston said bluntly.

Benjamin tried to mutter the words ‘thank you’ but stumbled when all he could see was the back of the boy’s head leaving him alone in his room.

Everybody within the old compounds of Gatesville seemed to be cold and uncaring like Miss Illingworth. It was a borstal, an orphanage for grown boys and funded by the government to keep orphans and teenage runaways off the dangerous streets. All the boys in Gatesville had either been abandoned at birth or taken into government care after their parents’ death. But there were a few that found themselves placed in Gatesville by a court of law for misbehavior.

There was one boy in particular who caused Benjamin to be so fearful that he started to have reoccurring nightmares about him. The boy was the same age as Benjamin. His name was Tommy Joel.

The most frightening thing about Tommy was his eyes. His left eye was a natural sky blue and his right eye was hazel green. He used to tell the other children that he’d received his piercing blue eye from a gypsy’s curse when he was little. Telling them the truth about being born with a genetic characteristic was all too boring for him (as well as embarrassing).

Tommy was forever telling stories, especially to get out of trouble. He loved making up fabrications to impress and frighten the others. Most of the boys believed his stories and followed him around like they were his apprentices. He was undoubtedly the leader of the pack.

The very first time Benjamin crossed Tommy Joel’s path was in the playground a week after his arrival to Gatesville. Benjamin was sitting next to the rusted fences, which had become the usual spot he chose in order to be by himself and furthest away from the other children. And there he would sit, gazing out into the distance across the wet docks of London.

It was 1912, and London hadn’t changed much in the eleven years since he had been abandoned. It remained a cold, filthy place. But even its grim appearance was a better view than the Gatesville building behind him.

As he nibbled at his last sandwich, a small stone unexpectedly grazed the side of his forehead. The sharp stinging pain woke him from his daydream and made him look over his shoulder. He knew right away the nature behind the fired attack and it didn’t surprise him when he noticed three boys, much bigger than himself, walking toward the fences, including Tommy Joel, his friend Jimmy Donald, and the brash prefect George Johnston.

“Hey, you!” Tommy shouted.

Benjamin’s heart raced as he froze on the spot.

“What’s your name, pip-squeak?” Tommy asked in a broad, harsh, cockney accent.

Benjamin found it hard to utter a word and nervously dropped his sandwich. “Benjamin,” he mumbled.

The other boys immediately mocked his name, but Tommy looked hard at Benjamin, examining the cut on his forehead. Tommy turned to the boys on either side of him who continued giggling.

“Shut it,” he snapped. “So, you’re the new boy?” he asked, turning his attention back to his victim.

Benjamin looked intensely at the bully.

“Are you gawking at me?” rasped Tommy. The bully’s eyes appeared even more bizarre up close, which fascinated Benjamin, for he had never seen such an extraordinary feature in a person before. Not realising that he’d been staring, he swiftly looked away.

“Well, what are you staring at, oddball?” Jimmy interrupted.

“Nothing,” Benjamin replied, avoiding eye contact.

“This is our spot now,” said Tommy, pointing his finger at Benjamin.

Without hesitation, Benjamin picked up his sandwich from the grass and slowly walked past the three boys, keeping his head down and eyes to the ground.

George Johnston handed Tommy a field rat and using great stealth the odd-eyed bully placed the rodent inside Benjamin’s lower coat pocket the moment Benjamin passed him. The other boys started to snigger while Benjamin walked off, ignorant of what he carried with him.

Benjamin disliked Tommy but he also envied him. Tommy Joel was everything that Benjamin Brannon wasn’t and everything Benjamin Brannon wanted to be: bold, brave, popular and respected.

Even though Benjamin longed for the same adulation Tommy received, he never looked up to Tommy’s bullying ways, nor did he seek Tommy’s notoriety. Benjamin was confident in his own way. He was aware of his own strengths and weaknesses. Showing no weakness in the face of punishment was one of Benjamin’s many strengths, but even that didn’t make him feel more at ease at Gatesville, especially now that he had a notorious bully on his back, watching his every move.

After lunch, Benjamin made his way to the main classroom for the eleven to twelve year old groups in Gatesville. The government had recently offered jobs to unemployed teachers who were sent to work in struggling borstals, teaching two compulsory subjects of English and Mathematics to the underprivileged. Gatesville’s staff had no objection, for the classes kept most of the boys out of trouble…somewhat.

Benjamin followed the long line of boys into the room and sat at the front of the class, far away from Tommy and his gang who usually sat in the back row.

Class began, taught by Mr. Porter, the very odd-looking mathematics teacher. He was a large rounded fellow and spoke in a voice so low it could put the most energetic soul to sleep.

“Let’s begin, shall we?” Mr. Porter yawned. “We are going to start with long division today.”

Mr. Porter began to write numbers on the black board while everybody in the class copied his instructions onto their books, giving a long sigh. Everyone was putting pencil to paper except for Tommy Joel and his sidekicks, who were preoccupied making paper airplanes.

Benjamin was unsurprised to realize he had no pencil. Most of his stationary had been stolen from his room since he had arrived at Gatesville, and even if he had a sharpened pencil at the ready, he was already lost because he had never been taught mathematics. Panic set in, and his heart raced. If he told the truth to Mr. Porter, the rest of the class would surely laugh at him. Everyone in Gatesville would brand him stupid, a long-term taunting he could not afford to let happen, not this early in his stay.

Benjamin started to sweat. He looked around the room, which seemed to be getting smaller by the second.
Maybe I have a pencil in my coat pocket,
he thought to himself. When his fingers reached into his coat pocket, he could feel nothing but damp fluff that had gathered due to natural wear and tear, until his left hand tried the other side. Nothing but fluff again…at first…then something moved. Something alive!

As he dug deeper to find out what exactly it was that his fingers touched, he felt the sharp stinging pain of a bite.

“Get it off!”

The entire class, including Mr. Porter, stared in shock at the fat black rat that dangled from the tip of Benjamin’s index finger—its tiny teeth locked deep into the skin.

“Good Lord,” gasped Mr. Porter, fixing his spectacles onto his round face to get a better look. Benjamin gave his hand one mighty shake that flung the black rat across the room, to the top Mr. Porter’s gray hair.

“Benjamin Brannon, you are in deep trouble, boy!” Mr. Porter shouted, trying to grab the rat. But the rodent was too quick and agile for the large man. It leaped onto the teacher’s desk, startling another boy at the front of the class who shooed the rat off it. Mr. Porter scattered a stack of pages onto the floor in an effort to detain the rodent under a pile of paper.

At this point, all the boys in the classroom burst into hysterical laughter at Mr. Porter’s feeble efforts. Benjamin looked around the room while the class pointed at the flustered teacher and a sudden relief came over him, which turned into excitement. He couldn’t help but smile, for this was nothing short of a victory. Tommy and his pals couldn’t have foreseen such an unexpected outcome in Benjamin’s favor. They had hoped the rat would have terrified Benjamin or at least make a fool out of him. Instead, their planted rodent had turned Benjamin from the vulnerable weakling into a comical classroom hero.

Tommy Joel was the only boy in the class who refused to laugh. The bully glared at Benjamin, oozing hatred and jealousy.

Mr. Porter tried to shift the pile of papers he had scattered onto the floor using his foot to reveal the rat, but it bolted too fast for him to spot and headed for the door. The laughter and cheering for the rodent was suddenly broken by a loud and unexpected stamping sound. The class gasped.

Standing at the doorway was Mr. Jennings, and under his foot was what remained of the rat. At that moment Benjamin felt nothing but sorrow for the poor creature. Mr. Jennings shot his accusing eyes at him. Popularity contests didn’t matter to Benjamin now. All he could do was stand still and take whatever punishment was coming to him.

“Go to the caretaker and get something to scoop that mess up!” Mr. Jennings shouted, pointing at the dead rat. “Five lashes for that boy when he comes back,” he added, turning to Mr. Porter.

As Benjamin walked out of the room he noticed a small boy with white curly hair sitting in the middle of the class. The peculiar boy gave a pleasing smile and nodded his head at him respectfully. With one simple nod back, Benjamin had made his first friend at Gatesville Borstal Home for Boys.

Benjamin did not see the strange looking boy again until later that night. Stepping into the cold corridor beyond his living quarters, he caught a glimpse of the white haired boy near a window at the very end of the walkway. The moon glowing off his hair silhouetted him like a ghost.

The boy held something dead in his hands before raising it high above him to the moonlight. Benjamin noticed the lifeless tail of the motionless creature hang down between the strange boy’s fingers. Moments later the furry creature stirred, awakening from its death before the boy let loose the rat in his hands. It was the same rat Mr. Jennings had killed, for the distinguished markings on the creature were identical.

The rat bolted up the long corridor toward Benjamin, sticking to the skirting at the bottom of the sidewall until it reached his feet and crawled over them.

It felt too real to be a dream. Benjamin gazed back toward the corridor to address the strange boy, but he was gone.

Staring back at the rat, Benjamin giggled nervously in amazement at the living miracle. “You’re not going to bite me again are you?” he asked, slowly stepping back into his bedroom doorway, hoping the rat would not follow before successfully shutting the rodent out.

Time seemed to go by slowly after that incident. He had spent only a month at Gatesville, but it felt a lot longer. Unfortunately his new glory didn’t last either. Eventually Benjamin became just another face in the hallways while he searched every day for the mysterious boy with the white hair, checking different classrooms and Gatesville’s rota.

He longed for the day of his sixteenth birthday when he would be legally free from the guardianship of Mr. Jennings and Gatesville altogether. But Benjamin wasn’t willing to wait five years for that day to come. He couldn’t. With a zealous desire for freedom growing inside of him, Benjamin planned his escape.

Benjamin sat alone in the dinner hall one day. The walls were painted the most morbid colors imaginable. The top half of every wall around the canteen was a light shade of gray, the bottom half a cracked layer of dark green. The dire colors suited the mood of every soul in the borstal.

Benjamin looked just as miserable, staring at the dark brown stew that filled half his bowl. Thoughts of his old orphanage, Woodson County, ran through his mind. He never thought that he would miss his old home so much, especially the kind minister who regularly visited him.

Suddenly, a splat of the dark brown stew exploded onto his front collar, severing his train of thought. Benjamin glanced up to see none other than Tommy Joel and his two sidekicks, Jimmy Donald and George Johnston, laughing at him from a table opposite his. At first Benjamin thought Tommy was responsible but soon realized that George was the culprit holding the dirty spoon in his hand.