Dialogue Prompt: "I think I broke him."
"I think I broke him." I looked down at the blue and white porcelain soldier, my bottom lip sticking out as I examined his shattered arm.
"Oh, Daniel, that means we have to buy it now!" Mum groaned in exasperation, scooping up the pieces of the soldier and tugging me by the arm towards the counter. "Silly boy, I told you not to touch anything!"
"I'm sorry, Mummy," I whimpered as tears began dripping down my cheeks.
"It's fine," Mum scoffed. "We're leaving, though. Honestly, I can't bring you anywhere without you breaking something."
"It's okay, ma'am," the elderly man at the counter smiled to my mother. His arm was in a pale blue cast, but there were no signatures on it. If Mum wasn't there, maybe I would have offered to sign it. His eyes crinkled up when his mouth smiled, and his eyebrows went really low. He was smiling at Mum, but he was looking at me. "You can have the little guy for free."
"Oh, thank you so much," Mum sighed at the man. She tugged harshly on my arm. "Say thank you to the man, Daniel."
"Thank you," I said up at the man as he kept smiling at me.
"That's okay," the man said, nodding to the soldier as Mum shoved it into my hand. "That porcelain doll is very special. You keep him safe, won't you?"
I nodded profusely, looking down at the soldier. His little arm was hanging by the strings inside him, and his blue Navy uniform was torn where the porcelain smashed. But he was still smiling, his proud face grinning up at me with delicate blue eyes. I looked back up at the old man, nodding again. "Of course I will, sir."
"Good," the man smiled.
"I don't like that man," Mum complained as she rushed me outside to the car. "Don't speak to him again, okay? He gives me the creeps."
"I think he was nice," I mumbled as I did up my seatbelt, the soldier laying on my lap.
"He gave you a free toy, Daniel," Mum sighed as we drove away and the radio began buzzing out monotonous news stories. "People don't give away free toys unless they plan to do bad things."
I sighed, looking down at the soldier in my hands. I wished Mum could see people the way I saw them. Some people were just nice.
~
"Daniel!"
Mum was shouting up the stairs again.
"Daniel!"
"Coming!" I called back, throwing my comic book down on my bed and getting up to tend to her. The toy soldier that I was given years and years before was stuffed into my bedside drawer, almost completely forgotten.
"Daniel, make dinner," Mum instructed as she sat in front of the TV.
As I watched the television over Mum's shoulder while we ate dinner in silence, a news headline flashed up on the screen. 'Toy shop owner has unexpected heart attack.'
The reporter went on to explain that the owner of illustrious Mr Hoffmann's Home of Toys had unexpectedly passed away without explanation the night before. Mum continued to eat, unfazed by the headline, but the cogs were already whirring in my brain.
I excused myself and jogged upstairs, turning my room upside-down as I searched for the toy soldier that I remembered the old man giving to me around seven years before. I found him in the drawer of my bedside table, his arm still broken and hanging from a string. His face looked less proud now, more defeated and with less colour. And right across his chest, there was a rough tear in his blue uniform, and the porcelain of his chest was shattered.
