Browse our categories:

Adventure
Collections
Contemporary Literature
Crime
Fantasy
Gay & Lesbian
Historical
Horror
Humour
Medical
Mystery
Paranormal
Psychological Thriller
Romance
Science Fiction
Thrillers
War
Young Adult
Non Fiction
Poetry - sole authored collections
Poetry - multi authored collections

Coming Soon

BeWrite Book Excerpts

Author Biographies

About BeWrite Books

Events

Free Download

BeWrite Books Blog

Contact Us

FAQs

OUT NOW

The running commentary in his head went something like this: And it's Thalidomide Kid from Planet Thalidomide where all the crooked kids live. Thalidomide Kid, coming up to the side shows at the Mop Fair where you aim hoops over things in the middle to see if you can win them, and he's stopping at this stall, Thalidomide Kid, looking at all the bright things in the middle and he's going to get a free go, the man in the middle is giving him a free go, and Thalidomide Kid's hoops land on the sticky brown earth in the moat bit, miles from the prizes which are like castles. And Thalidomide Kid's quoits never land where he wants them to land at school either. And it's Thalidomide Kid, who should have a side show all of his own, like at the circus where you see dwarves making a king's ransom. See this, Thalidomide Kid -- your mamma took something that shrivelled up your arms ...
     Don't you take no notice of names, Daryl Wainwright, his mum was always saying. Sticks and stones, Daryl, and don't you ever forget how me and your old man had to argue with the headmaster to get you into a normal school. We didn't want you going to that school for cripples no more. I says to him - your head - I says, my boy likes to do things for himself, see. It's like your dad said. Just 'cause you ain't got no arms, don't mean you're backward, Daryl. You can't be shut away from the world, we said.
     You've got to meet normal folk, see, because there ain't many kids that ain't got something for other kids to pick on, Daryl. There's the half-caste kids up the road get called nig-nog and spade, don't they, 'cause they've got a touch of the tar brush, but it don't stop them walking on past like nothing's happened, and there's Pauline's love child, gets called Fatty Arbuckle and Bastard Kid, and she ain't got no big brothers and sisters sticking up for her and when I was at school there was a girl with a port wine birthmark on her face and it was just the same for her.
     So his teacher had got other kids to help him, help him go to the toilet, like his brothers helped him at home. Of course, he also had his 'flipper clipper' things - so named by his dad - which were specially-made rods with spring-clips that acted like arms so he could do things for himself. His teacher even made him Milk Monitor for a term and he stuck at it, just to prove to her he could do it. But then he started skiving off up town with some of his brothers and sisters who found other uses for his hands, like pinching things, as was the family tradition, and he was a good bet. Thalidomide Kid was a good bet because he wouldn't get nicked. Store managers took pity on a cripple and let him off.
     I'll bloody crown you, Daryl Wainwright, his mum had said. So he was sent back to school; Thalidomide Kid was sent back to school, by which time he had a whole row of dark blue circles against his name in the register. Not like the lines of red ticks by the good kids. And his teacher wrote THALIDOMIDE on the blackboard and he got sixty-four words from it which was the most anyone got: dome, mode, hail, moth, lad, dim, dime, mail, male, halt, lid, lied, death, dead, die, died, diet, load, lead, loathe, toad, dale, deal, malt, aid, maid, ale, dial, mile, toil, oil, dirt, tide, time, lime, doe, hoe, had, mad, made, dame, mat, hat, hate, late, mate, mite, them, hem, the, date, ate, eat, dole, mole, laid, aim, hide, tale and tail spelt the other way, heal, head and toe - and lame -- though he couldn't quite get arm or limb from it.
     But if he could have conjured up his long arm, right here at the Mop fair -- abracadabra -- that would have really disarmed the candy floss man, ha ha, and Celia Burkett to boot.

He sensed it all about to reach a head one day over the Easter holidays when his mum and dad started fighting over something, which they'd been doing a lot lately. His mum swearing blind that his dad had broken his pact and started thieving again. His dad flatly denying it, but with a shifty look he'd never needed before when they were all in on the pinching.
     Of the Wainwright children, only Daryl and Vince were at home on the day in question. Without looking up from his motorbike magazine, Vince gave his youngest brother a signal as if to say, oy, kidder, come out with me. Daryl followed. It was the best thing to do when your folks were having a barney, so they went to the garage where Vince had still got his bikes, though their old man said Vince'd have to shift the bikes when he got 'the car'. At the moment this car was still very much a concept which was given an airing every week by their dad … When I get the car this will happen, when I get the car that will change. "When you get the car it'll be a bloody miracle," their mum said.
     Outside the garage, it was a warm sunny day, like a day in summer, and lots of the neighbours had disappeared to Weston-Super-Mare or to the country.
     "We'll take the bike out as soon as I get it fixed," Vince promised.
     But they spent the best part of the afternoon in the black of the garage with the smell of tyres and oil, the moments ticking by. Daryl watched while Vince worked beside a dim light, explaining what he was trying to do. Daryl pulled the chewing gum from his mouth as he watched, tilting his head back to stretch the gum down in a long line, before repeating the performance again and again, trying to beat his best efforts.
     "Bugger," Vince said eventually, at quarter to four. "I ain't gonna get it fixed in time. Sorry kidder."
     The brightness outside the garage hit them as they blinked the after-image of the dim light half way across The Beeches. Even the Red Arrows, when they roared overhead, were speckled with the after-image. Daryl tried to remember what his physics teacher had said about after-images. Something to do with the make-up of the retina, wasn't it? But his mind was soon turned to the right old ding-dong escaping through the open windows and doors as he and Vince returned home. Far from having calmed down, the roof was now being raised by their parents.
     "I want a divorce, Jimmy! I want a bloody divorce! All you've done since you've come back is lie, lie, lie. One lie after another." Their mum held out her left hand and with her right index finger counted off the fingers and thumb on her left with each accusation. "You've broken our pact. You've stole. You've not been down the Labour Exchange. You drink too much. And now you're not even denying a bit on the side."
     Their dad switched on the racing, oblivious to Vince and Daryl. "All you do is nag and henpeck, like butter wouldn't melt in your mouth. Like you ain't to blame for none of it."
     She frowned at him, a new cigarette lit to life. "Blame? What am I to blame for?"
     He waved his hand in front of his face. "Forget it."
     Daryl knew she wasn't about to forget it, she could be like a dog with a bone. In good ways, sometimes. Like the time she'd fought for him to get into the right school. "Come on, Jimmy. What am I to blame for?"
     "Well, that lazy bum, for starters." He pointed at Vince.
     Vince told him to piss off, before grabbing his jacket and disappearing out the back door.
     Eyes glistening with liquor, Mr Wainwright then turned his attention to Daryl. "And him." His mum said what about him? "Well, look at him. You made him into a freak just 'cause you had a bit of morning sickness."
     The emphasis he put on morning sickness was horrid and sarcastic. His mum's face puckered and contorted, her open palm spread over newly-sodden eyes. After a while she said: "I know. I'm sorry, Daryl. I'm sorry. They called it Distaval. They didn't know what it would do. It was just like taking aspirin."
     There was no-one else here to comfort her now but him. If he'd had his long arms, he could have put them round her like his old man should have been doing. Instead he stood between them, his back defending his mum, his front fuming at his dad.
     "Stop quarrelling, will you? It ain't her fault. She didn't know what those pills were gonna do, did she? I don't care, see. I don't bloody care. I'd rather have no arms than no legs. And there's some kids don't bloody have any, so I don't care."
     His mum stretched out her long arm then, but he pushed through it, out of the room, out of the door, out into the warm sunny evening where the next door neighbour's cherry blossom quivered, where families returned from their day out, where kids rode their chopper bikes round and round, and the echo of a football scraped along the ground and beat against the wall again and again and again, and Thalidomide Kid - Teekay for short - was off back to Planet Thalidomide where the trees had stunted branches and even the birds had Thalidomide wings and if you flew in a plane on Planet Thalidomide, it looked just like a VC10 but its wings were shorter; and there was a Thalidomide version of Celia Burkett there, with arms that mirrored his, who Teekay would get married to one day and they would have kids just like them, and it'd been a long time since Teekay had fallen off Planet Thalidomide and landed smack bang on the Long Arm Planet.
     Find out in next week's gripping instalment whether Teekay's mission to leave the Long Arm Planet succeeds.

All electronic books supplied in Adobeï™Acrobat™format. 
Refunds will be given at the discretion of the Company Management. 
Copyright © 2002 BeWrite Books. All rights reserved. 
Comments to: The BeWrite.net team