"Tailor (Sci-Fi)" by L. ´Dave´ Mitchell

There’s a man.

He’s watching me.

I’m getting a little bit scared.

Shh…he’s coming.

"Hey there, little guy. I noticed that your trouser legs were ripped." He has a loud voice.

I’m looking up at his cold eyes. Mom told me that a man with cold eyes don’t know God. I wonder if that’s true. "Yeah, I fell down. My leg hurts. I hope mom doesn’t get mad that I tore up my trousers." I’m sad. Mom really tried to make me look nice, and I messed up my clothes.

"What happened?" The man squats down. He’s wearing a really long coat. I think it’s called a trench coat. My older sister had a vampyre boyfriend who wore one all the time. Mom says he wasn’t a vampyre, but I knew that he was because my sister and he told me so. Mom’s just afraid that the neighbours will think that she’s weird and not invite her to dinner parties if her daughter has a vampyre boyfriend.

"I was on the swing," I point behind me, "and then I was playing with those two kids." I look over where they are. They’re playing a lot, and I’m kinda mad because they wanted me to play and now they don’t care about me being hurt. Some people are bad friends. "We started to go really fast on the swing, and then one said, ‘Hey, Drew, let’s jump far!’ So we did and I gotted hurt." I didn’t jump the longest, but I don’t say that.

The man has a nice face that makes me feel okay. "Don’t worry, little guy. I can help you out." He takes off the big coat and pushes two buttons near his hand. The hand comes off, and the man puts it real close to his face to look inside. "There it is." He says, and he pulls out this long, flashlight-looking thing.

"What’s that?" I ask, and I start to get scared again.

"Don’t worry, little guy," he says. "This won’t hurt and you’ll feel much better." He sets the hand down and turns on the flashlight. After putting light on my leg for a really, really short time, I feel better. "How’s that?"

"I feel better!" I say, and I watch him put his hand back on.

"Good to hear, little guy. I have a friend somewhere around here. He’s a tailor, so he might be able to help you." The man stands up and looks around. "I’ll go find him. You wait here."

The man walks away and takes heavy steps. I wonder how much he weighs. When that friend gets here, I’m going to show those meanies that I can jump farther than they can.

"DREW! Get away from there!" Mom’s yelling for me.

"Did’ja see the man? He fixed my leg, mom!" I’m happy that I don’t hurt no more.

Mom grabs my arm and pulls me up. "I don’t want you talking to those people, Drew. We’re going home!"

She’s dragging me and I don’t wanna go. I try to stop her. "Mom! He’s getting a friend to make my trousers better!"

Mom doesn’t care. She’s bigger and stronger and my mom, so she keeps pulling. I wish mom wasn’t so worried about what people think about her. I want my trousers fixed. I’m sad and we go home.