The Omen

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I was lost in thought, lost in tiredness, my legs ached and my stomach grumbled. The waitress had warned me when I’d ordered my burger and chips that it would take up to 20 minutes and she had not been wrong. Well she had, it was now 21 minutes since I’d ordered but I’d made a commitment now, I was too tired to go anywhere else.

I busied myself with my iPad, simultaneously checking the football scores and trying to write a story.  I wondered if to write about the waitress, she had that wonderful Slavic beauty, all straight lines and points, that made me think that there must be some angles playing with my heart.

I became aware of someone standing over me, I looked up expecting to see the waitress with my food but instead I saw an 11 year old boy standing there observing me like something out of the Omen films.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Hi,’ he said back and stood there silently, waiting for me to say more.

Just as the silence was becoming unbearable he spoke again.

‘You teached me today.’ He said. I was in Croatia doing demo lessons, teaching 12 year olds some English, not very well by the sounds of things.

I recognised him now, he’d been in the first class of the morning, on the right, three rows back. A good lad, keen as mustard if not as sharp.

‘Oh hello,’ I said, my teacher voice back on. ‘Did you enjoy the lesson?’

‘Very much.’ He said and then silence again.

‘And how was the rest of school?’

‘Good.’ he said. ‘It was my birthday.’

‘Oh happy birthday,’ I said but he didn’t look like he was in the mood to celebrate.

‘And what are you doing here?’ I looked around for a parent but could see no obvious candidates.

‘I followed you,’ he said like it was the most normal thing in the world for an 11 year old to follow a 44 year old foreigner.

‘You followed me?’

‘I saw your hotel key card this morning and waited for you. I followed you.’

‘Why?’ It was my turn to go all-monosyllabic.

‘I liked you. you we'e funny’ He said. ‘And I don’t want to go home. I thought you might help’

I am sure this is any teacher’s worse nightmare. We all know there are kids who are scared to go home and we know we’ll help if we have to, but deep down we all hope it is not us they turn to.  But my nightmare was made worse by the fact I was a foreigner, in a strange town. What would this look like? Would anyone believe this kid had come to me? Or would they assume I was kidnapping him, how would I explain this without speaking the local language.?

The waitress appeared with my food.

‘You hungry kid?’ I don’t know why I said it in my best Archer Stanley voice, but I did.

He nodded.

‘Eat this,’ I said. His eyes lit up. ‘And you want a coke?’ He nodded again.

The waitress went back to the bar and I followed her. I knew her English was good, so I decided to enlist her.

Her smile as she listened to my story almost put me off my flow. She nodded in all the right places.

‘My friend works for social services,’ she said. ‘I’ll call him.’

I chatted to my new friend while we were waiting for the barmaid’s friend to arrive. He told me his name was Marco. I asked him about home, he told me his dad was gone and his mum was sad; too sad to move, too sad to care. It broke my heart listening, but I tried to smile. I told him a man was coming who could help and things would get better. He smiled, it wasn’t a real smile, it was a brave one; there was far too much sadness in the eyes for a twelve year old.

The man from the social services bounded in to the café, he looked like a chunky Ed Sheeran and had a smile as wide as 3^rd Avenue. After I had written my email down and told Marco I was always online, ‘Ed Sheeran’ took the young man off my hands and promised to take him home and to investigate the problems. The boy with sad eyes waved as he left, leaving me with a heavy heart cheered only by the waitress lightly touching my face and smiling at me.

Two weeks later I got two emails within two minutes of each other. The first was from Marco telling me his mum was seeing a doctor and slowly getting better. They’d gone out for a walk and she’d even smiled. The second was from the waitress telling me she’d confirmed her flights and would be arriving on Saturday. Two happy endings.