Saturdays
Tom loathed Saturdays.
Saturdays were the most miserable, horrid, wretched day of the week in his not-so-humble opinion, and if he ruled over the British Empire, he would do away with them altogether.
The reason Tom couldn’t stand Saturdays was because Saturday was the day of the week that wealthy families from the surrounding countryside liked to come into London and go around to the orphanages and see if there was a child they’d either like to sponsor or adopt. That meant Friday night was filled with children fighting for turns at the wash basins and scrubbing at themselves until pink, the girls all tying their hair up with scraps of fabric so the following morning they would have limp curls.
Tom never bothered with the fuss. He would wait until the morning, calmly wash himself and comb his hair, and then dress in his usual dull clothes and line up so the visitors could get a chance to look at him.
He thought all the families were absolutely thick. Some of the children at Wool’s who had been adopted were far from remarkable, and Tom knew he was special. It certainly wasn’t his fault if the adults couldn’t see it; none of the adults at the orphanage knew. They were all scared of him. Not that he hadn’t given them reason to be; Tom was rather certain Billy was still sniffling over his rabbit and that particular incident had happened more than two weeks ago.
Still, it was Saturday, and even the thought of getting back at Billy Stubbs didn’t make Tom’s mood lighten any.
And when he went downstairs and Mrs. Cole called him aside to her office, Tom’s temperament turned toward nothing short of grim. He hadn’t done anything to anyone since the rabbit incident, so why he had to meet with the awful woman in her tiny, dim office was beyond him.
Tom admittedly hadn’t been paying any attention whatsoever to what Mrs. Cole was saying to him on the short walk to her office, so when she opened the door and a family of three was sitting opposite her desk, he stopped dead in his tracks and stared at them as they turned around to look at him.
The trio was made up of two men and one woman. They were all adults, but it seemed to Tom that the older man and woman were around the same age and likely married. He then assumed that the younger man was their son. The woman seemed the only one that was pleased to see him, and offered a small smile that Tom nearly returned. But the two men sat stiffly in their chairs and simply stared at him. There was something in the younger man’s face that Tom found painfully familiar and Tom found himself growing frustrated that he couldn’t quite figure out where he’d seen him before.
“That’s the boy?” The older man questioned, looking to Mrs. Cole finally.
“Yes, this is Tom,” she confirmed before addressing Tom herself. “Tom, this is your family... your real family. They’ve come to take you home.”
Tom’s mouth felt as if it was stuffed with cotton. His anger felt palpable, but the wheels in his head had also started to turn. He could tell by the way the Riddles were dressed that they were wealthier than the other families that came to the orphanage, and that would be to Tom’s advantage.
Tom sat next to the woman — his grandmother — as his father and grandfather filled out all the necessary paperwork. His grandmother opened her pocketbook and reached in, handing him a biscuit wrapped in a bit of cloth. It was a chocolate biscuit (Tom’s favorite) and he nibbled on it quietly until he was told to go get his things.
“That won’t be necessary,” his father said. “We plan to take Tom shopping before we return to Little Hangleton.”
Tom’s mind wandered to the little tin buried in the corner of his dresser, but quickly shook any thought of it from his mind. He wasn’t going to have to worry about Wool’s Orphanage any longer. He was finally free of the miserable place.
When they left, Tom walked beside his father. While his grandparents, Thomas and Mary, went ahead of them and got into the family car, his father stopped on the stoop of the orphanage and looked down at Tom.
“So you can make strange... things happen, like she could?” he asked, taking a silver cigarette case out from a pocket inside his jacket.
“Yes,” Tom answered, staring back up at him.
“Learn to control it better than she could,” Tom Sr. sighed before following his parents down the steps. Tom stayed right on his heels, saying nothing more to him but wanting to ask more questions. So his mother had been special like him, but she couldn’t control it; why? Tom surmised that she hadn’t been very capable — something Tom planned on being the exact opposite of. Even at the tender age of ten, Tom found he didn’t have patience for people who weren’t capable.
Tom so hoped his father was a capable person, even if he couldn’t do the same special things Tom could. It would be a gross disappointment if he wasn’t.
The car ride to the Riddle’s home seemed to take forever. By the time his father had turned the car up a long, winding drive, the sun had set. Tom had entertained himself by keeping track of the signs for different cities and towns and villages he saw, and noted that Little Hangleton was near Carnarvon, making his father’s family firmly Welsh. So, he supposed, that made him Welsh too.
Tom got out of the car at the same time as everyone else and wandered into the stately manor home before him.
The Riddle House was an imposing but well-situated structure on the top of a hill. Its exterior was composed of grey stone, and there were many well-kept trees surrounding it. Tom vaguely realized that one day the stately home would belong to him; he found the thought pleased him and when he was greeted by a butler gave his coat to him with a slight nod.
A small fleet of servants appeared when his grandfather rang a bell, and Tom took note. He counted twelve servants in all.
“Mrs. Hawkins, would you be so kind as to show Tom,” his grandfather gestured back to him, “to his new bedroom? And then Tom Sr. and I will be taking a nightcap in the drawing room, Cooper, so—”
“You’d like me to retrieve your cigar box from the study?” an older man who seemed to be between Tom’s father and grandfather in age finished.
“Right you are,” Thomas Riddle nodded.
The woman who had been standing next to Cooper stepped toward Tom while the rest of the household went about their business. She smiled down at him and he stared right back up at her. “Oh, you look just like your father,” she complimented. “You can follow me up the stairs, and we’ll get you settled in for the night.”
His new room was located on the second floor of the estate and afforded him a pleasing view of the grounds. There was a model airplane kit on his new desk, and there were some maps on the walls; it looked like a boy’s room from a department store advertisement.
“If you need anything, you can ring the kitchen here,” Mrs. Hawkins pointed out a buzzer built into the wall near his door. “Goodnight, Mister Tom.”
“Goodnight,” Tom nodded to her.
He looked around and exhaled slowly.
At last.
He was alone.