by Dean Adams
Chapter 2
Just your average family
Jack lived at home with his parents and his little sister Ruby. Ruby was only two years old and had short blonde curly hair, with a small round cheeky face. She would follow Jack around everywhere in the house and was always pulling on his t-shirt for Jack to pick her up and cuddle her. Jack loved his little sister and was very protective of her, though he sometimes got irritated by the fact that she now commanded all of the attention in the household and this left him feeling slightly isolated from his parents.
Every evening Jack sat in front of the television for dinner and would immerse himself in the shows he was watching. Even when the news came on he would be transported away into an alternate reality where he was part of the news story itself. Watching police chases and stories of war in far off lands he would become part of a battle saving hostages or fighting evil. Jacks mum always said he had an overactive imagination but he knew he could be a hero himself one day if given the opportunity. They would make news stories about him and how he rescued a young girl from an alligator or how he flew to Mars and back.
Mrs Chambers was a kind woman who would always help others. If she saw someone was sick or injured she would rush to their aid. She would try to lift a car from a ditch using her bare hands if she thought it would help someone, for even though she was only small and slim, she was also very strong. She would always be doing something, be it cleaning, cooking or visiting family. This is where Jack benefited most. Every Saturday Mrs Chambers would take him and Ruby to his grandparents for a visit. She would leave Jack to listen to Grandads stories and then she would spend her time with Ruby and Jacks grandmother in the kitchen, discussing things Jack rarely had an interest in let alone understood.
Mr Chambers himself was a loving father. He always took the time to play with Jack and Ruby, even after a hard day at work. Working as an engineer was a hard complicated business, not that Jack really understood what it was. He knew it involved long hours, working through the night and at weekends but again Jack didn’t mind the weekends as this was when he would visit his Grandad. Coming home in the morning before Jack left for school, Mr Chambers would greet him with a cuddle. Getting grease and dirt all over his clean white school shirt, causing Mrs Chambers to panic frantically and pull Jack out of the shirt before ironing a clean one and ramming it over his head.
Jack Chambers was eleven years old and full of energy. With mousey blonde hair cut short on top and close to the skin round the sides of his head. His face was clear from any blemishes, with childish good looks and deep brown eyes. Standing at the average height for his age. He was a slender child, due in part to the fact of how active he was, always running around. But also due to his fussy appetite and refusal to eat anything unusual and not in his normal staple diet. Jam sandwiches were normally his favourite, though he would always leave the crusts of the bread, much to Mrs Chambers dismay. She would say that eating the crusts would put hairs on his chest, but to this he always remarked ‘Why on earth would I want hairs on my chest?!’ All in all he was just an average kid, no different from the boy living down the road, or the boy around the corner. As far as Jack was concerned, he certainly wasn’t special. Mrs Chambers would call him a dreamer. He had such a vivid imagination and would play great games with Ruby or his pals from school. Able to create whole worlds with his mind, he was no different from the other children at school. They would all join in his games, especially little Ruby. She loved it when Jack would crawl under the stairs with her and pretend they were hiding in a castle. Or when they would sit on the sofa under a large blanket imagining they were piloting a fighter jet. Ruby didn’t always understand what they were supposed to be doing but her face always lit up when Jack made loud noises with his mouth and lips shaking up and down or when he placed her high on his shoulders running around the living room.