Page 1 of Like Fathers, Like Son
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Blaze (aged ten)
Thenewhousewasn’tquite as cool as our old one. Our old one had nobody around it for miles, and it was bigger than this one. I still had my own room though, so that was something. I didn’t want to share with my baby sister and brother.
Ember was pretty cool as a sister, as long as I didn’t touch her stuff, but at seven and a half, she was hardly going to stop me. Ash, our little bro, was almost five, and an annoying little shit.
I’m not supposed to say words like ‘shit’, but my dads do, so why shouldn’t I? They said a lot of crazy stuff to be honest, and they could really wind mum up, until she’d threaten not to let them have her. I had no idea what that meant, because men owned their women, right? That’s what daddy Gray told me. Actually, he said he owned daddy Doryandmum.
The one exciting thing about our new house was neighbours. We had actual neighbours now, and as I looked out of my new bedroom window, I could see one of them in the garden. She was so pretty, with hair as red as fire. I wondered if she’d play with me.
She looked lonely to me, and my parents said we’d moved so ‘the kids could socialise’. I thought it had more to do with that lady they took me to see. The one who said I was showing a disturbing lack of understanding of human emotions and consequences. Consequences for what? Daddy Gray taught me how to make fire. It was so pretty, and powerful, but there were no consequences as long as we were careful.
“Oi, Blaze, whatcha doin? Ooohhh spying on the neighbours already, eh? That’s my boy.” Daddy Gray ruffled my hair, and I pushed him away with a grimace.
“I’m not spying, but she’s got hair like glowing flames.”
Daddy Gray chuckled as he leaned on the window ledge beside me.
“Yeah, kid, she really has. Maybe we should go set another fire tonight, what do you say? I know a place I’d love to see burning.”
“Jesus, Gray, don’t keep taking him to burn things.” Daddy Dory was standing behind us, hands on his hips as he glared at my other daddy. They’d argued earlier about something, and I had no idea what it was, but mum was pissed at both of them, because she hated being pregnant. I think we had a big enough family already, but daddy Gray was always telling her that ‘we need to put more babies in you’.
“Dory, Blaze likes arson just like his daddy. Do I stop him creeping on people, just like his other daddy likes to?”
“Fuck’s sake! We’re supposed to be doing better than this. We moved here to try and fucking mainstream our kids, before they turn out worse than us. You think you could actually help us with that?”
“What, before one of them kidnaps a pet? Oh… hang on… you’d probably approve of that, right?”
I liked the idea of having a pet, so I eagerly listened to them, but none of it made any sense in the end, because they sounded like they were talking about people. People as pets? I didn’t think people were supposed to be pets… were they?
Anneka (aged thirteen)
We had new neighbours, and typically none of them were close to my age. The oldest was ten, and that meant they were kids, right? I’m thirteen now. I’m a teenager, a grown up. I’m old enough to stay home by myself now.
I was sunbathing in the garden, in my new tube top and shorts, and feeling so grown up wearing a bikini for the first time ever. Mum didn’t want me dressing too, oh, what was the word she used… oh that was it, she didn’t want to ‘sexualise me’ because I was still a kid.
That hurt, because being thirteen meant I was a teenager now, and not a kid anymore.
“Hi.”
I lifted my head from the lounger, and searched for the source of the unknown voice.
“Who’s there?”
“Blaze. Uh… I’m looking at you through a hole in the fence.” My eyes darted straight to the knothole on the wooden fence. He was looking through the hole?
For some reason, that made me feel a little weird, but I took a breath and sat up, checking my tube top hadn’t slid down, because my boobs hadn’t really grown properly yet.
“Blaze? That’s a strange name.”
I walked over to the fence, and stood on a bucket to lean my head over the top. He lifted his face and fixed bright blue eyes on me. His hair was so pale blonde, that it gleamed in the sunlight, but his eyes, they were strangely blue. Intense. That was the right word, I was sure of it.
He grinned up at me, and I found myself smiling back.
“So Blaze… how did you get a name like that?”
He shrugged. “Daddy Gray likes fire, so we all have silly names like that.”
