Wearing his favourite cowboy pyjamas, David was on all fours by the side of his bed peering underneath into the darkened jungle of fluff, discarded comics, odd escaped socks and old tissues. He swooped his arm to and fro until the back of his hand made contact with the object of his search. Crawling backwards from the bed, he pulled a large lever arch file with him as he came. The file was David’s secret, it was the place he could gather his wildest dreams of Lego and scalextric sets; of the latest premier league home kit or of giant trampolines in the garden for all the kids in the neighbourhood to be jealous. Carefully cut out pictures from the pages of the Argos catalogue had been glued to pieces of plain paper. Their edges rolled up from the pages as they had been well thumbed over the year. Pulling his school bag off the peg on the back of his bedroom door, David delved in to retrieve a wad of freshly salvaged images. Right at the top of the pile was a picture that had been ripped from a discarded copy of PCMag he had leafed through while waiting patiently in the doctor’s surgery. His little brother had been getting all the attention after screaming the house down for days because of glue ear.

In fact, ever since Louis had arrived, his parents were stretched to the limit trying to juggle shift patterns and make ends meet. This was why David’s file was to be his secret. Even at the age of six, he could see how life was prematurely aging his parents and pulling at their relationship as more and more demands were being made.

Each year his parents started saving for the ‘big day’ in January, hiding away toys bought in new year sales, making stocking fillers throughout the year to try and compete with the trinkets his friends would surely be showing off at school after the holidays. David knew how hard they tried and felt a weight of responsibility not to add to their burden. He carefully laid the picture of the latest xbox on top of a fresh sheet of paper and reached for his craft glue. Mark Davies in class C had got one for his birthday earlier in the year and he became the most popular kid in school overnight. Knowing there was no hope of ever having his own, David placed the freshly bonded image at the front of the folder. He stroked the picture flat and carefully closed the lever arch mechanism. Sliding the file back under his bed, David hurried down to breakfast. He could hear his dad in the hallway putting his coat away after returning from a nightshift.

‘Morning scruff’.

With a large bag concealed behind his back, David’s dad ruffled the top of his son’s head as he whizzed past. He greeted his wife with a kiss. ‘Mission complete’ he said and winked at her beaming face.