The boy who loved to write

Chapter 3

This is about to get interesting.

WARNING: Something big will happen in the next chapter.

The family walked back into the shack to get out of the cold. Leo was somehow feeling happier than when he was saying goodbye to Stanley. He guessed he was just happy that his father had forgiven him. His mum was stomping into her bedroom, tears in her eyes. Maybe the family was never going to be the same again, if his dad did die, then would this be how everyone acted around the house? Leo couldn't let this happen and instead focused on the fact that if his Dad did find gold, they could live in a nice big house somewhere, rather than what felt like nowhere.

A crash from his mother's bedroom brought him into the present. "What's wrong," he shouted at the top of his voice, "Are you alright." The door in front of him ricochet open and a furious woman appeared on the other side, "FIFTEEN YEARS, that's how long I've been with him and that idiotic man plans to ruin all of that with a trip to the death. I'TS STUPID. I don't care how poor we are, even if we are eating off the floor, that man, that man..." Out came some words that were highly inappropriate which reminded Leo of his antics the day before. "Calm down, I'm sure he'll come back," Leo couldn't even be certain of his own words, he sat his mum on the hallway chair and told her to take deep breaths. This was almost exactly how he had felt the day before and it felt strange for him to be comforting his own mother, it was usually the other way around.

"Bella," Leo shouted, his lungs had started to hurt. His sister came running in to see if anything was wrong. "Has ma broken down," Bella asked, staring at the limp body on the chair. Leo nodded, "Could you look after her?" The matter seemed to have been settled and Leo ran outside to have some fresh air.

Steam came out of his mouth and he could imagine himself as a dragon. He could see villages being engulfed in his flames, himself a terror to all civilization. Only one lone soldier could destroy him, and that soldier didn't even know about the big dragon for he was living in a poor shack with no one else in sight.

Leo sighed, even his stories were mocking him on how poor his family were. With sudden realization, Leo remembered that most of what the family used to buy food was his father's logging money. That meant that even if his dad did come back alive, the situation was only going to get worse before it gets better. He'd have to persuade Tony that he should work as a logger's apprentice or something for them to get enough money to survive. After all, Tony was the oldest and his mother couldn't do two jobs. Bella could do something, Leo thought, but then remembered that she had the job of looking after Daniel.

Leo looked himself up and down and sighed. He had a plan but didn't think it would come in handy so early. Leo ran down the steps and sat on top of his writing log. "Okay, Leo," he said to himself, "Let all your emotions out onto the page, and write." Leo had a tendency to put himself into other people's shoes before he wrote, this unfortunately meant sounding like a lunatic and talking to himself. He remembered all of the hardships he had faced that year -from being forced to do the laundry to his Dad's departure- and spent two tiring hours lost in the world of his imagination.

Two days later, Leo was begging his mum to be allowed to go ahead with his plan. "You haven't even read it yet! Come on mum, please..."

"I do not abide people selling at our doorstep and I am sure that our neighbors do not like it either," his mother was saying, "Plus, who is actually going to buy a story for that ridiculous price."

"But that's the thing, for us it is ridiculous because we don't have any money, for them it is below average, I'm sure lots of people would want to support us." His mother stared at him and frowned.

"Okay, but on a trial basis, if I have people complaining then we scrap this idea." Leo smiled in delight and jumped up to hug his mother. Soon he had his plan carefully drawn out on a piece of paper, he started to read out loud as he was relatively proud of it, "So first I go around asking for weekly subscriptions to my stories, one every week. Bella is going to help me collect bark to copy each story ten times for the villagers. Then I go around and deliver. Simple way to make money!"

Or so he thought.

The Sunday passed by in seconds, he was looking forward to delivering his bark stories so much that he even wrote extra on the first story to pass the time. It took a lot longer than he expected to copy it onto each bark but by ten o'clock in the evening, he was ready for the day ahead.

The sunrise woke Leo up or else he would have slept in due to the late night. Bella was already by the door, ready to see him off. "Good luck Leo, tell my friend, Tammy, that I approve of the story you're writing, that might make her want to buy it." Bella smiled and closed the door on Leo. He just hoped that the word hadn't gone around about his theatricals.

The air tasted bitter, but Leo tried to ignore it, all he could think about was if his business was going to be successful. The first house he stopped at sported a tall chimney stack and beautifully painted windows. He could see that this person was very rich and hoped that they might even pay extra for the book if they liked it. Leo stepped onto the front step and opened his homemade cloth bag. Inside were his bark stories. The knocker was majestic, and Leo felt small underneath the largely framed door. As if by magic the door opened and out stepped a tall, rather stern looking woman.

"What is it," she snapped. Leo stuttered.

"Ummm, well, I was wondering if you wold like to buy my book." He held up the bark to the woman's face.

"On a piece of bark! What is the world coming to," She shouted at him and slammed the door in his face. Leo wanted to sit down and cry. His enthusiasm had suddenly all disappeared, and he found himself dragging his feet to the next house. This one was slightly smaller, and he could sense children inside. A girl about Bella's age opened the door.

"Leo! your sister talked about you."

Leo was confused.

"Do I know you?" he asked. The girl looked embarrassed. He was starting to expect who she was but didn't say anything in case he was wrong.

"Oh. I thought Bella would have told you about me, my name is Tammy."

Leo relaxed a little and told Tammy about his book. She seemed to listen and take it in and in no time at all, Leo had found his first customer. "See you next week," he said as he walked away.