Born Different by Faye Aitken-Smith Page B

as he had stopped
thinking about it and turned his mind to something else, something
completely different; no sooner had he let go of the mental torment
of trying to figure it all out, the idea for his last piece, the
sculpture, so simple and brilliant, just came to him with ease.
     
     
     

Chapter
10
     
    Gabe got up and
out the house early. He just wanted to get on with the sculpture
now. Luxuriate in spending a few days alone in his studio, free
from the constraints on his wings and everything else.
    Gina, with some
help, had converted the large garage that was set back from the
house, into an art studio for Gabe when he had turned twelve. The
studio was not only somewhere for Gabe to go so that he could be
out of the house and out of sight, but also as secret sacred place
where Gabe could go to and be in absolute privacy, so that he could
unravel the tourniquet around his torso and move freely without the
fear of being disturbed. As much as it was a place for him and his
growing collection of art, equipment and other paraphernalia.
    Their back
garden was overgrown and secluded. The honeysuckle and ivy and
other evergreen shrubs had grown wild, high and wide so that no one
could have seen in, even if they had wanted to.
    The studio was
meant to be a private safe haven for Gabe. The door had bolt locks
and the windows had been blacked out so that Gabe could see out but
nobody could see in. There were massive skylight windows to let in
natural light and to let Gabe look at the sky, which he spent
plenty of hours doing.
    The studio had
electric, running water and was full of Gabe’s art, canvases,
paints, white spirit, and paint brushes. Gabe had a kettle, sofa,
blankets and even a small fridge in there, so that he need never
leave. Gabe had spent a lot of time in here over the last six years
and it showed. He might even have moved in here permanently if it
wasn’t for the fact Grace walked past his bedroom window every
day.
    Here in the
studio, Gabe could stretch himself out. He could exercise, jump,
dance, paint and have his wings unfurled and proud, yet still
hidden from the rest of the world.
    And even though
this was Gabe’s sacred place where no one was allowed to come, even
his friends, they did come. Not together as a group but
individually, they all had come at one time or other; when they had
needed to desperately talk to Gabe about something, to confide in
him or just to have him listen to them about something that they
had on their minds. When they had each been going through their own
personal hell, they had come to Gabe’s studio and knocked on the
door and waited patiently, or not, as Gabe had finished what he was
doing.
    What they
assumed was some important part of his painting, little knowing
that behind the breeze blocks that made up the structure of the
garage/studio, Gabe, the Gabe that they thought that they knew,
stood there with his wings splendid; furiously trying to pin them
down again.
    It was one
thing bandaging his wings in his room with time on his hands and
another task completely, with someone banging on the door like they
were going to knock it down. Especially when Gabe could see them
standing there through the glass. He never quite believed that they
could not see him when they looked in or tried peering closer
though their blacked-out side of glass.
    Gabe always
half expected them to say, “Hey Gabe, what were you doing in there
with wings on when I looked in the window?” But they never did. No
one knew. Even his friends that came here with their pressing
problems and dark secrets of their own, knew nothing of Gabe’s big
secret. A secret, Gabe thought, far bigger than any that they could
and did tell him.
    Standing
barefoot on the cold morning dewy grass and damp soil before
entering the studio, Gabe could hear children walking to school on
the street out the front. The whole world was out there now getting
on with it just a few feet away. The laughing and screaming kids
were on