Chương 75: Book3; Chapter 74; Too much to handle

During the months of travelling, they did come across places where people didn't have too much to eat, so maybe it was the same here. However, to her surprise, when Blake's mum opened the fridge, it was full of food — much more than would be needed just for two people. So maybe there were more people living with Blake and his mum.

"My name is Ren," she introduced herself, taking a seat at the table where the woman showed them, "These are my friends, Angus and Ruffus. Yes, we are travelling, and on our way, we met Blake. And yes, I think we have become friends."

"Blake?" the woman asked, looking around.

"Then where is this Blake? Why is he not coming in if he is your friend?" Then she suddenly became angry, looking towards the door, and reached for the broom in a corner.

"You again!" she said, furrowing her eyebrows, "Off you go! Go away! You are not welcome here!"

"He is! He is!" Blake shouted, running in front of her, and shielding the dog Deamon with his own body.

"He is my dog! He is very welcome here!"

"Your dog?" the woman asked in disbelief, looking at him.

"I thought you were afraid of him?"

"I was!" Blake confirmed, "but not anymore. I didn't know that he was my dog and didn't understand why he was following me. Nobody told me before. But now I know, and I am not afraid of him anymore. I like him. He can stay with me. He has to stay with me. If he is my dog, then he cannot stay with someone else."

"Who told you that he is your dog?" The woman was confused.

"Ren did. And then I saw it myself. He listens to everything I tell him. Sit!" Blake said in a commanding voice, and the dog obeyed instantly. The woman was bewildered at what she was seeing. She wasn't amazed by the pristine dog's behaviour, but rather by how her little boy was behaving with the dog.

"OK," she said in a slightly lost voice, "if that is what you want, of course he can stay." Then she turned back to the table where the other three children were sitting. It could be seen that all these unexpected things happening were taking her off guard, and she was a bit lost now.

"Right, where were we? Oh, I remember. We are missing one person. Is Blake still outside?"

"No, no," Blake said quickly, "no one is outside, just horses. My name is Blake."

"No, your name is A…" but she was abruptly interrupted by her son trying to reach up to cover her mouth with his hands, but he was too short to do it, so he just shouted instead.

"No, no, no! My name is Blake. I like this name. It is a very nice name. I want to be called by it. From now on, my name is Blake. I don't want to be called by any other name!" His mother watched him in disbelief.

"Your head is always full of the strangest things, my boy," she said in a soft voice.

"Yes, Blake is a nice name, but your father gave you your true name for a reason…" But she was interrupted again.

"I don't want these reasons anymore. He was mistaken! I cannot do anything, and I cannot help anyone. I don't even want to think about him anymore. I don't want the name given by him! My name is Blake. After I go travelling, I want you to remember me by it." Blake's last sentence got his mum's attention more than anything else he had said.

"Travelling?" she said in confusion, "What travelling?"

"I am going to travel with Ren, Ruffus and Angus," Blake said proudly, "We came back to tell you this, so you would not get worried." The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"OK," his mum said slowly, "and where do you want to go, and how long do you want to stay there? Who will look after you while you are away?"

"We don't want to go anywhere," Blake said with his eyes full of excitement, "we will just go where the road takes us, and nobody knows how long it will be. My friends have been travelling for two years now, and they are not going home yet. Angus and Ruffus are missing their mum a lot, and Ren is missing their father, but that doesn't stop them from travelling. So I will miss you too while I am away, but I don't know when I will come back. And nobody will look after me, I will look after myself.

Isn't that what you are always telling me? That I have to learn to look after myself? That's what I am going to do."

"Out of the question," his mum said in a firm voice.

"Your head is always full of the strangest ideas, but this time it has gone too far."

"No, mum, no! It is not a strange idea! It is a great idea! I should have done it long ago, but I didn't know it was possible. Everyone is saying that only adults can travel, but apparently, it is not true! Now I know, and I don't want to stay in this place any longer. If I don't go now, later I will not know how to do it on my own, and also I don't have a horse. But Ruffus agreed to share his horse with me!

So I am going to pack my things now, and we will be going very soon," Blake said, turning to the stairs leading upstairs.

"You, young man, can stop now and save your energy, as you are not going anywhere!" his mum said in an undisputable voice.

"But mum! I want to go! I will not get another chance like this!"

"And I want you to stay! I don't have another son! You are way too little to go travelling."

"I know!" Ruffus said happily, "I keep telling him that!"

"Ruffus, could you stop encouraging lies!" Rainee said unhappily.

"It will cause only confusion, and the lady already does not understand what she is doing."

"But I understand very well what I am doing," Blake's mum smiled at this little girl with a serious face.

"I love my son too much to let him wander off before he is ready to do so."

"Love doesn't hurt," Angus said in a soft voice, looking at Blake's mum with his large, mysterious eyes.

"Blake is hurt badly now. So it cannot be done while loving." She looked at her little boy just to see his eyes full of tears that he was bravely trying to push away.

"You children stop confusing him," she said sternly, "stop putting such ideas into his head, and he will not be hurt," then she turned back to Blake,"We will be travelling soon. We will go to the Paradise Hotel, and we will have a good time there."

"I don't want to go to the Paradise Hotel," Blake was nearly crying, "it is boring there, and there's nothing to do. You are all sitting and doing nothing, and I cannot go wherever I want, as they would not allow me to leave that hotel."

"You could go for a swim in the lake."

"Yes, but I can go for a swim in the river. It makes no difference."

"There are a few slides in the lake."

"Yes, but I have already used them. How many times can I slide? And it is not that interesting to slide on my own."

"You are on your own because you don't want to be friends with other children."

"They are teasing me and laughing at me. I don't want such friends. But now I have made new friends, who don't make fun of me and are very interesting, and they do what I want to do, and I like them, so I am going to travel with them, to see new things and to be with friends I like."

"I am very glad that you have made new friends, but you are not going to travel with them. But they can come and visit you any time they want." His mum was relentless.

"Why?!!!" Blake had already lost his battle against his tears, and they were rolling down his cheeks.

"Because I already lost your father, I am not going to lose you, too," his mum said.

"And besides, you are too little to travel. Even your new friend knows that. You have to wait till you grow up."

"How long?" Blake was already giving up.

"It doesn't take long at all," Ruffus said happily.

"You just go to your room and want very much to grow to the size that your mum would find acceptable for you to travel. You want it so strongly that your body obeys you, and then it grows, and then you can travel. You can do it now. We will wait for you." Upon hearing that, Blake's eyes shone again, bringing back that spark of life that was slowly fading away. He turned on the spot and dashed towards the stairs leading upstairs, but didn't make it that far as he was caught by his mum.

"You stay right here and don't even try such a trick, as even if you come out two metres tall, you will not go anywhere. Also, I like you as you are, and don't want you to grow up anytime soon!" All this stress had taken a real toll on the woman who was already not feeling that well. She had used more strength than she had. Her head started to spin, darkness covered her eyes, and she fell on the floor, bringing little Blake down with her.

When she woke up, she was lying on a couch under the close surveillance of four pairs of eyes. Five, if counting the dog too. Blake was sitting next to her and was obviously very relieved after she had woken up.

"Are you alright?" he asked, seeing her waking up.

"What happened?" his mum asked.

"You fell," Blake said.

"You are very tired," the boy with a gentle face and soft, comforting voice said.

"You don't have enough energy to be wasting it like this. If you keep doing it, you won't be able to do anything else but sleep, and even that might not be enough." Memories slowly returned to the woman's mind, and she opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Blake interrupted.

"I won't go. I will stay with you. I will stay with you as long as you want. I won't be travelling. I promise you I …" But he couldn't finish as Rainee firmly pressed her hand over his mouth, silencing him.

"Promises are a very damaging, especially in the way you are doing it now," she said while looking at him.

"If you make promises like this, it will do no good for anyone, just lock you in one place, and you will have a hard time getting yourself out of this place. If you want to stay with your mum, stay because you want to, not because you promised." Just after saying it, she moved her hand away, allowing Blake to speak again if he still wanted to, but Blake kept silent. Then Rainee turned her eyes to his mum.

"Blake is not happy here," she said.

"People are blaming him for what he hasn't done, and expecting something from him that he cannot do, and lying to him that he must do something for them that he doesn't want to do, and blaming him again for not doing so. I don't know what everyone is expecting of him, but it makes him very unhappy."

"His name is not Blake," the woman said, sitting herself up.

"For me, he is Blake, as that is the name he introduced himself with to me. A name is just a name, and if he doesn't like the name given to him, I will respect his wishes and will call him by the name he wants to be called. But Angus is right, you are very tired, and you will die soon if nothing changes."

"You are very straightforward, child," Blake's mum said, looking at her, "I think you should be more considerate of people, because what you say may make them unhappy."

"Truth doesn't make people unhappy," Rainee said, "truth just shows people how unhappy they already are."

"I wonder where you get such ideas from…" Blake's mum wondered, thinking inwardly that she definitely was not letting her son travel with such a strange child, as he was already very strange himself, and if influenced by this girl, who knows where he would end up.

"King told me," Rainee said.

"King told you what?" Blake's mum asked, not being able to follow the conversation.

"King told me the ideas that you find strange," Rainee clarified.