by Suz Neave

Created on: February 12, 2009   Last Updated: February 14, 2009

Simon stumbles over Theo's skateboard as he crosses the room to open the curtains. His daughter's music blares out from the next door room. Justin Timberlake singing with Beyonce filled the house for the fourth time already that morning. Simon pulled at the curtains and the flood of bright sunshine hit Theo's face, causing him to wince and retreat under his duvet.

"Come on up you get, you'll be late fore school!"

"Don't want to go, everyone hates me" Theo whines from under the covers.

"What do you mean?"

Before Theo could answer Emily breezed past the open doorway, heading towards her secret daily ritual of getting ready in the bathroom. A ritual that took at least 30 minutes every morning, much to the annoyance of the other members of the household. The end result always ended up with a plastering of inappropriate coloured makeup and sleeked back hair.

"Don't listen to him, dad, he's latched onto an assembly we had yesterday about the history and liberation of South Africa. He's now decided that no one likes him because he's coloured" Emily appeared at the door toemphasizethe word coloured withquotationmarks in the air. "In fact no one likes him coz he's so mean to everyone, including his so called friends."

Theo leapt from his hiding place and slung his pillow towards the door. Emily moved out of the way with a chuckle and continued her walk to begin her morning ritual.

Simon now turned to Theo, with his hands on his hips. His tall slender body towered above Theo, who now sat upright, dangling his legs off the end of the bed.

"Now that is thelamestexcuse for not wanting to go to school i've ever heard. Now if your mother was here you wouldn't be playing up like this."

"Yeah, but she's not!" retorted Theo as he pushed passed Simon and stomped out of the door.

Simon swung round and shook his head as the last step on the stairs was missed resulting in a thump on the hall floorboards below.

Simon had moved his family from Zambia three years ago when his job as a project coordinator for the World Bank had started to regularly take him further away from his family. Ironically, his wife Mutoki's new job required her to be where malaria was. Mutoki was a lead research scientist, focusing on the development of a malaria vaccine. Now working at the London School of Tropical Medicine she was required to travel regularly to countries in Africa carrying out field studies.

Simon wandered back down stairs. Theo clattered in the kitchen as Simon returned to his coffee and newspaper.

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