Edmond and the Tiger (Fiction)

Edmond tiptoed down the darkened stairs in his pyjamas, clutching the banister and feeling the creak in each aged plank of wood beneath the bare soles of his feet. The hall was bathed in a soft moonlight and as he reached the last step he took a deep breath and put his food down on the floor. Nothing happened. The housemaster, a terrifying, buzzard-faced figure Professor Mr Moore did not appear, nor did his dour and equally terrifying wife. After a second Edmond padded quietly across the floor, past aged pictures hanging on the walls that showed haggard faces of head masters long passed, and cricket teams long graduated.
Along he went, until finally he stood by the huge bolted door to the outside world and turned slightly so that he was facing a small alcove set into the wall. Even with no electric lights he could see the eyes, bright orbs of orange glass caught by the moon. The head of a tiger, mouth open in a last silent, angry roar faces him from the safety of a glass fronted case smeared with the handprints of Edmond and others.
‘Hello Henry’ he whispered, smelling the musty smell of the dead animals fur as he presses his small nose against the glass, ‘I couldn’t sleep, so I came to see you.’
It was no different from any other night, for there was little space in a dorm of eight snoring, farting boys for one who couldn’t sleep. Always, as the others were tossing and turning, consumed by dream, little Edmond would lie under his white duvet with eyes wide open until he was sure they were all asleep. Then, climbing softly from his bed he would sneak down the wide stairway and stand engrossed in one-way conversation with the stuffed animal head until he couldn’t keep his eyes open and he was forced to retire upstairs.
‘School was hard today’ Edmond continued, ‘Mr Whelks got me in trouble because I was picking my nose in prep, and Poppy Morgan came into the dorm and told us to stop jumping on the beds and throwing pillows.’
As he looked at Henry he caught his reflection in the glass of the display cabinet. He saw a seven-year-old boy with wavy blonde hair and owlish eyes wrapped in a huge blue dressing gown, hardly tall enough to look in the display cabinet without standing on tiptoes.
He stared at the tiger with inexpressible longing, and for a moment scrunched his eyes tightly shut, willing the huge animal to come alive and bound out of the case and curl up on the end of his bed. It didn’t, so after a moment he began talking again,
‘I had Mr Prufrock for Latin today, we call him cabbage because he smells strange, and he hit my fingers with the ruler because I was looking out of the window. He has hairy fingers and one big eyebrow, so sometimes they call him The Ape. Also Henry, I tried Semolina today at lunch but I didn’t like it and I had to throw up in the flowerbed but Charlie, the old gardener with the glass eye, got angry and said rude words… I think they were rude words. Oh, and Mummy rang, I miss her…’
This last he brushed over quickly, worried about bursting into tears because he knew one should never cry near a tiger, because they were the bravest animals of all. ‘I skinned my knee in cricket, but we still won…’

As he stood talking a slightly older boy of perhaps eleven, a prefect badge clipped onto his dressing gown, approached down the stairway and stood looking at Edmond for a second, shaking his head. After a few minutes he walked down and tapped the other child on the shoulder, grimacing slightly as Edmond jumped and turned around with huge mournful eyes, sensing punishment for his actions.
‘You know you can’t be down here Edmond’ the boy said, not unkindly ‘you’ll wake everyone up.’
‘Sorry Jack’ Edmond replied, ‘I was talking to Henry’
‘Well’ Jack smiled, ‘you can always sneak back down tomorrow when I’m not looking, ok?’
‘Yes Jack’ Edmond nodded and quickly padded back towards the stairway, leaving Jack alone to talk to Henry.