52 Outtake: Howard Hunt 5 (1/2)
[Piggy is dead.]
The little frog in their classroom, kept as their pet, was named Piggy. Definitely, the kids had worked hard to come up with the name. Little Piggy was a friendly little thing that all the kids loved. Howard loved the pet too. He wanted to take it home so that he could keep it. But he knew his father would oppose and have a fit so he decided on hanging around the little tank it was kept in quite frequently.
Sine students made fun of him for his attachment to the frog. Others said they could see the resemblance between the two. Howard was not a very handsome boy, but that didn't mean that the kids could call him names. The teachers often let Howard feed the little frog and take care of him, the boy was overly attached.
Howard came home every afternoon and blurted out how fun his day was to his mother. On days he couldn't make it to school due to his injuries and bruises, he would miss Piggy dearly. He would dream of running away with his mother, with Piggy tucked under his arms. It was a dream he frequently had.
Once she ran away, leaving him to the monster, she never came back to take him with her. She didn't even care for the child she had sacrificed his wellbeing for. Didn't she want to live for her youngest son and threw him under the bus for it? Didn't she apologize for wanting to live so that she could help her son? Yet, she had escaped without either of them. What a strange incident.
Howard could only find solace in the little pet he had come to love.
What else was left for him?
He would gently stroke the skin of the pet and talk to it as the other students went to play games. The teachers would often share their lunch with him, knowing how he would go hungry if not for their sporadic meal sharing. The boy was barely functioning and without his mother, he was an absolute disaster. His brother still drank formula at times and munched on mashed food. He tried to keep track of what he had seen his mother do, but there was only so much he could do with his little hands.
On days when Howard didn't know how not to cry, he would sit silently beside the tank and talk to the little frog.
One afternoon when all the kids were out, he decided on playing with his friend. Piggy was silently sitting in his tank, unmoving at the face of Howard's calls. It was usual for the pet to not give much importance to others especially because it was in its nature. If it was any other day, Howard wouldn't have minded, but that afternoon he had been in a rancid mood. He wanted the attention, he craved it. Yet no one he knew gave it to him. He walked to school and he walked back, even though he was young. He often stayed back at school to finish his homework so that he didn't have to do it at home. It was every day.
He was tired.
Piggy was not giving him much importance.
He hated it.
He picked out the metal ruler from his pencil bag and started poking at the pet, growing angrier with every passing second. He remembered how his father reacted to him, ignored him even at the face of his tears. He remembered how the cry-baby of his brother had taken up all his time, stolen what little childhood he had left from him.