TOMMY TIPPETT - THE FIRST 1800 WORDS

Here you are the first 1800 words of my book, Tommy Tippett (I still haven't got a decent title). Almost finished the edit and it will then be ready for the next stage.


Any comments, advice or direction would be appreciated.

Tommy Tippett is a little bastard! This wasn’t Tommie’s opinion but those of some of the boys at his school and up until a few days ago Tommy didn’t even know what a bastard was. If he had to hazard a guess at the words meaning he would have to say it meant a small boy with curly hair. That made sense because that is exactly what Tommy was.

So Tommy went to the one person he could always rely on to give him good advice and the meaning of things………his grandfather.
“Granddad what’s a bastard?” Tommy posed this question to his grandfather who was sitting back on the long lounge chair reading the racing pages of the newspaper.

Granddad lay the paper down on his lap and looked over the top of his glasses. “Isn’t it one of those birds, you know the ones that look like vultures and live in Africa? Granddad looked at Tommy hopefully to see whether this answer would suffice.

Tommy thought about this for a while. He knew that granddad was a notorious practical joker and tended to tell as many untruths as truths so Tommy always had to think long and hard before he accepted any answer from granddad. He didn’t really think the boys at school would be calling him after a bird that lived in Africa.


Tommy gave his grandfather a smile. “No it’s not granddad.”


“Oh, maybe your right. Let me think on that for a moment.” Granddad started to massage his chin deep in thought. “Perhaps it means you’re a little boy who hasn’t got a father.” Granddad looked at Tommy with a set of bushy, raised eyebrows that relayed their owner’s sincerity.

“Really?”


“Absolutely! Would your granddad lie to you?” Granddad gave Tommy a sad and forlorn look of hurt.

“Yes.”


“Well sometimes my stories get a little mixed up but not this time. No go on off you go and do something and leave your granddad alone he’s trying to find a few winners at Randwick tomorrow.” Granddad picked his paper up from his lap, gave it a vigourous shake and went back to reading the form guide.


Tommy wandered off deep in thought. Armed with the knowledge of what bastard meant Tommy wasn’t sure if the boys in the playground were being nice or nasty. So what, he didn’t have a father, it wasn’t such a big deal to Tommy.
Tommy was about to give this problem some more serious thought when he caught a a flash of movement toward the back of the house. “Ace,” he called. Not sharply or authoritvely just his normal tone. “Come here boy,” and around the corner trotted a huge German Shepherd dog his tail wagging furiously. The dog trotted up to Tommy and pranced and dipped around him excitedly.
“That’a boy Acey.” Tommy could never resist wrapping his arms around the dog whenever he was near. People used to call Ace a bear or a lion he was so big.


He was black and gold. The black was like dark licorice and the gold looked like the sun when it disappears over the horizon after a long, hot summer’s day. The dog’s paws were oversized, more like the hoof of a horse than a dog’s paw.


Tommy knew because of Ace’s size most people were scared of him but they didn’t know what he was like. Mum called him a big pussycat, whilst Tommie’s granddad called him a big buffoon though Tommy didn’t think he looked at all like a monkey but that was just granddad coming out with another of his curious sayings or observations.


Tommy let go of Ace and the dog sat and looked expectantly at Tommy. Even sitting Ace was as tall as Tommy so they looked each other squarely in the eye.


“Ace do you know that I am a little bastard?” The dog slobbered and looked at the boy adoringly. “Well I am. It means I haven’t got a dad, but I don’t care.” He gave the dog a hug and sat back to think some more.
What bothered him about the comment was not the bastard part; no what bothered him was being called little. He wasn’t that small at all he was about the right size he though for a six year old boy.


Tommy thought that there wasn’t really all that much special about him at all except for his mop of curly, golden hair. A ragged mop that lay tangled and twisted across his head. No amount of combing or hair oil could keep this hairy rabble of curls in place. As soon as a comb was applied to Tommie’s hair one of two things normally happened, either the teeth of comb broke or the combed hair would flatten for an instant before springing back to life and doing what it wanted to do.

He did remember his mother saying that she liked his eyes. She said that Tommie’s eyes were as bright blue as the outback sky on the sunniest of days and when she looked into her son’s eyes she could see fun and laughter and just a smidgen of mischief and adventure. She said the brightness in his eyes that could be spotted on even the darkest of nights.


“Like a cat?” Tommy asked his mother.


“Well something like that,” she answered.


His mother said that it wasn’t the sort of brightness that shone in the dark like spotlights. It was she said more about the brightness of a good soul filled with imagination and the joy of life.


Tommy looked at his dog. “Ace I remember mum telling me that I had a dad once, but he went away. I can’t remember where he went though.” A perplexed look had come over Tommie’s face as he tried to think where his father had gone. Ace, sensing that something was making Tommy feel uneasy plonked a huge, hairy paw on his lap in dog sympathy.


Tommy tried and tried to formulate a memory of his father, but nothing would come. He knew he would have to try even harder if he was to remember and to do this he would have to lie down and close his eyes as this always helped him think.


Tommy stood up and moved into the lounge room to see if granddad was still lying on the old, battered lounge. He was gone, though the outline of his body was still imprinted on the threadbare, burgundy fabric.
Tommy plopped himself down on the lounge, laid back and closed his eyes to facilitate thoughts and memory. Ace laid on the carpet beside the lounge, positioned in such a way that he could rest his big head on his paws but still see Tommy.


It took a little while for Tommy to get into the right thinking position on the lounge which was still warm from granddad’s body. Random thoughts fluttered through Tommie’s mind as he closed his eyes. A thought about a coveted slingshot that he wanted and then another thought about what they were going to have for dinner.


He decided that it was very comfortable lying here on the big lounge. It was a piece of furniture that he had always liked because it was sturdy and secure and allowed him a prime vantage point to watch his favorite television shows.


But probably the best thing that he liked about the lounge was top secret. It was a secret that he had only shared with Ace, the one person, or dog he could trust with such information.


Just by chance Tommy had discovered that if you pull off the lounge seats and poke your hand down the back of the lounge you sometimes find money. Sometimes you find things that were better left undiscovered.


Tommy actually felt a little guilty about this treasure trove and on a particular day when he found a handful of shinny coins behind the lounge he was almost tempted to tell his Mother about his good fortune but at the last moment he decided not to. His mother had more than enough to worry about and surely didn’t want to know about a money producing lounge chair.


Tommy thought long and hard about this money and pondered on where it came from.


Perhaps, he thought it was the place where the tooth fairy stashed all of its cash. It made sense to Tommy, tooth fairies were pretty small and they wouldn’t want to fly around carrying loads of heavy coins so they would hide it somewhere.
Of course this presented Tommy with a morality problem.
What would happen to him if he was caught stealing tooth fairy money? Would he never again receive money from the tooth fairy or would something worse happen. Perhaps a tooth fairy had magical powers that could turn Tommy into a bug or perhaps a girl.

He was so worried about this possible outcome that he nearly put all the money back. At the last moment he decided not to as he figured out that tooth fairies are incredibly smart and would surely find a better hiding place than behind an old lounge. This all made complete sense to Tommy.


So if tooth fairies were not responsible for leaving the money, who was?


So after a lot of thought and regular consultations with Ace he decided that the money came from farts. Tommy had once heard a grown up say, “he was so scared that he shit bricks.”
So if a grownup can shit bricks surely they can fart coins?


Actually he had seen his granddad sitting on the lounge and from time to time he would raise his backside a little on one side and let out a fart. Now sometimes the fart was over in an instant with no more than a tweeting sound that was hard to hear.

Tommy thought that that little fart was probably granddad creating a small coin like a thrupence or a sixpence. But sometimes granddad lifted his backside and let out a long, loud thunderous fart that sounded like a roll of thunder. This would be the time that granddad was farting out a bigger coin like a shilling or a two shilling piece.

Unfortunately granddad didn’t sit on the lounge very often and was very careful about his farting because if Tommie’s Mum caught him she would growl at him and say things like, “Dad that’s disgusting, or “you dirty old man, not in front of Tommy.”


But Tommy didn’t mind at all, as now he realized that granddad’s farting lead to coins being deposited behind the lounge.


Tommy often wondered if it was only his granddad that could fart coins, or if all adults could do it. Tommy would have liked to ask his mother but he didn’t dare because his mother had very strict rules about farting protocols.


She stated that you shouldn’t fart at all and if you had to you should leave the room, the house and if possible the very street in which they lived. Of course, ladies didn’t fart. According to Tommie’s mum it was only men and small boys who farted though Tommy was sure that he had heard girls at school farting but couldn’t be sure.