Bad Dad. Tony Ross

      Dad’s car was now upside down in the middle of the track. The Jaguar behind smashed into the Mini, sending the car flying through the air. It crashed to the ground again…

       BAMM!

      …smashing into pieces.

      “NO, DAD, NO!” shouted Frank from the top of the tower of cars.

      Down on the track there was a mighty pile-up as the cars couldn’t stop in time.

      There was the sound of metal crunching into metal and glass smashing.

      “NOOOO!” shouted Frank.

      The boy raced down the tower of cars, and ran through the crowds to his dad’s car. An air ambulance hovered overhead before landing on the track. Frank held his father’s hand through the wreckage, as the firemen tried to cut him out of the car.

      “What are you doing here, mate?” whispered Dad. “You should be at home in bed.”

      “I’m sorry, Dad,” replied Frank.

      “I’m going to need the biggest huggle when I am out of this.”

      “Everything’s going to be all right, Dad. I promise.”

      But it was a promise the boy couldn’t keep.

      Frank held his father’s hand as the ambulance raced to the hospital. The man’s right leg had been completely crushed in the crash, and he was losing a lot of blood.

      “Mr Goodie,” began the doctor as soon as Dad had been rushed into the Accident and Emergency department at the hospital. “I have some very bad news. We have to amputate your leg.”

      “Which one?” replied Dad, not losing his sense of humour at this dark time.

      “The right one, of course. If we don’t operate straight away, there is a very real chance you will die.”

      “I don’t want you to die, Dad!” said Frank.

      “It’s all right, mate. I’m good at hopping.”

      As Dad was immediately taken down to the operating theatre, Frank tried and tried to call his mother, but the line was engaged for hours. The operation took all night. Frank paced up and down the waiting area, unable to sleep. When his father came to from the anaesthetic in the morning, his son was the first person he saw when he opened his eyes.

      “Mate, you’re the best,” whispered Dad. It was clear he was in a lot of pain.

      “I am so pleased you made it, Dad,” replied Frank.

      “Of course. I didn’t want to miss seeing you grow up. Where’s your mother?”

      “I don’t know, Dad. I called and called her last night, but I couldn’t get through.”

      “She’ll come.”

      It was a couple of hours until she did.

      “Oh, Gilbert!” she said upon seeing him, and burst into tears.

      The family reunion was brief, though, as she didn’t stay that long. Gilbert was in hospital for months, but his wife’s visits to his bedside became less and less frequent, and shorter and shorter. However, the nurses set up a little camp bed for Frank, and the boy slept by his father’s side every single night.

      One day the doctors came in with a wooden leg for Gilbert.

      It fitted him perfectly. Within days he learned to walk again, and insisted on walking all the way back to their block of flats from the hospital.

      “I can still do everything!” said Dad proudly.

      He walked with a limp, and Frank held his hand the whole way, but they got home eventually.

      When they arrived back at the flat, Mum wasn’t there. She had left a note on the kitchen table. It read:

      “What does it mean, Dad?” asked Frank. “Why is she sorry?”

      “Because she has left.”

      “She’s not coming back?”

      “No.”

      “Why?”

      “Your mum has gone to live in a big house with a small man.”

      “But…!”

      “I’m sorry, Frank. I tried my best for her. But my best wasn’t good enough.”

      “I’m sorry, Dad.”

      “I need a huggle.”

      “Me too.”

      Father and son held on to each other tight, and they cried and cried until they could cry no more.

      To his credit, Dad never said anything bad about his wife – or by this time ex-wife – but Frank felt deeply hurt that his mother had left without even saying goodbye.

      Even though she now lived in a huge house, Mum never invited her son to stay. Not once. When she forgot her son’s birthday for the second year in a row, Frank was in no hurry to see his mother again. Weeks and months passed without any contact, and then it became unthinkable to call her. So he never did. Frank never stopped thinking about her, however. It was confusing because, as much as she’d hurt him, Frank still loved her.

      Dad lost so much after the crash. Not just his leg, but his wife too. Soon he was about to lose something else dear to him.

      His job.

      Gilbert loved being a banger-racing driver. It was all he’d dreamed of from when he was a boy. Despite his pleas, the track owners banned him from racing ever again. They blamed him for the accident, and never wanted to see him back on the track. What’s more, they told him it wasn’t safe for him to race cars with only one leg.

      So Dad tried and tried to get a different job, any job. But jobs in the town were scarce, and a man with a wooden leg always found himself at the bottom of the pile.

      Dad was used to being a hero, but now he felt like a zero.

      Two