A is for Advent: A Three-Year-Old's Perspective

F is for Fury

Whomever says children are innocent and seraphic clearly hasn't met Daniel.

Timmy can hear his brother from the church crèche, where he sits calmly wheeling a small wooden bus back and forth across his knee. Daniel's screeches don't stop, and naturally, this becomes much more interesting than a wooden bus. Timmy stops it at the top of his knee. Usually Mum has intervened by now, he thinks. Maybe Mum isn't even there. Maybe that's why Daniel's screaming.

He must investigate. 

He stands and walks to a doorway of the auditorium. The service hasn't started yet. People are still trickling in from the entrance foyer. Daniel is still sitting with Mum's backpack on the chairs lining the back wall, where she'd put him. Where they sit every week, once the singing starts. Mum's not there, but Daniel doesn't look distressed. 

He looks angry. 

His toddler hands grip the chair's armrests. His face red with fury, his jaw stretched low to accommodate an unhinged bellow. And then another. And another. And they keep coming.

Then Timmy sees Mum.

She's inching further into the room, distancing herself from Daniel. Pressing herself against the wall, looking everywhere, anywhere. Not at Daniel. But he's looking at her, and he screams.

Other grown ups are looking back to Mum and forth to Daniel and back again. Most of them are smiling, or giggling. Old stooped ones are putting their hands over their ears. Or just one hand, if they're leaning on a stick.

"He's not mine!" Mum calls to nobody in particular. 

Daniel screams.

This is fantastic. So much better than a bus.

Timmy waits for it all to change. He waits for Mum to race back to Daniel, growling. He waits for her to start screaming back at him, throw him over her shoulder, and stomp outside.

It doesn't happen. Another lady sidles up to Daniel. She passes him to one of her daughters—one of the girls who love looking after Timmy and his brother—and, distracted from making his emphatic point, Daniel is quiet.

Well. This is much less fun.

Mum sees Timmy then, and seems delighted to see him. She starts to walk to him, but Timmy backs away, then turns and runs back to the crèche. There's nothing left he's interested to see, and nothing he's interested to be told. He has a wooden bus to get back to.

The rest of the morning is less eventful, and by the time Timmy has finished his bowl of crackers and biscuits from the lady in the kitchen, he hopes Mum is still happy to see him. He has something important to ask.

He sees her standing by the grownups' morning tea table. She's holding a cup of coffee, and finishing off a delicious-looking muffin.

It's not fair. Grownups' food is always better than children's food. Every week after he comes in from Sunday School, Timmy gets a bowl of crackers and biscuits. They're alright, but they're not grownups' biscuits. He never gets chocolate ones. Well, rarely. Which is the same as never. And right now, Mum is swallowing the remains of a muffin that looks soft and pale, and Timmy's sure he saw raspberries in it.

"Mummy?" he asks. He going to be as polite as he can, he decides. That tends to work.

"Yes, darling?" she says.

So far, so good. Timmy reaches up and points to the remaining soft raspberry-blessed muffins. "May I has some that, please?"

Nicely executed. Surely Mum won't resist.

"No, darling," she says, as though she's not being mean, and gently takes his outstretched hand. "Those are for grownups."

She hadn't even thanked him for asking nicely. Timmy fumes. His fury at the injustice simmers under his skin, and then bubbles up to his throat. He can't stop it. It's too strong. Besides, nothing happened to Daniel when his angry came out.

"NO!" Timmy says. He snatches his hand back and folds his arms. He decides moving down to the floor to lie flat on his belly can only emphasise his displeasure, so he does that, too.

Someone who doesn't have any idea how to fix problems gives him an origami boat they've made out of that week's notice sheet. As if it's the same as a raspberry muffin. Timmy takes the paper boat and throws it as far from him as he can, which turns out to be not far, but it makes a point, so it'll do.

Timmy hopes Mum will give him a muffin just to stop his display. She tends to do a lot to keep him happy when other grownups are around. She doesn't like scenes. Whatever scenes are.

She's letting this ride out, though. Like with Daniel's. She's not walking away, but she's not giving him a muffin, either.

Timmy's angry has all gone. Now he's just bored. And the muffins are gone, anyway. He stands and crosses his arms again. He frowns for good measure, and stomps away from Mum and from the morning tea table. 

Whomever says children are innocent and seraphic clearly hasn't withheld raspberry muffins.