Free Benworden by Neal Davies

if his mum or aunt knew what was below them when they were at Benworden he doubted that he would have ever attended the school or the boarding house.
    As for Talbert Tucker, his father owned a trucking company just outside of Melbourne and he had made his first million at the age of 35. James was a tall, solid man and was known throughout the region as “Big Jim”. Talbert’s mother, Samantha, had been Big Jim’s childhood sweetheart and had helped build their trucking empire.
    The trucking business had become so large that both Big Jim and Samantha could have had anything their heart desired, except happiness, but sometimes making money and being powerful becomes such an obsession that the real reason for obtaining that sort of lifestyle is forgotten. Happiness, however, is too important to forget.
    Samantha had asked Jim to sell the business because she could see that they had very little time for each other any more and they had begun to grow further and further apart, but Big Jim loved the power that the business gave him and wasn’t ready to budge on the issue.
    Big Jim was a gentle giant and that’s what Samantha loved about him. He had never raised his voice or a hand to her or Talbert, but one day he was in a bad mood after he had had to lay off one of his workers who had been stealing from the company. Jim was devastated. He had known the guy for many years and he was the last person Big Jim would consider to be dishonest, so he was definitely in no mood for the discussion Samantha had planned on his arrival home.
    He had just walked in the door when Samantha said to him, “Jim, I need to talk to you about where we’re going in life. And I need to know if you’ll ever consider giving up the business.”
    She paused and was about to speak again when Big Jim roared at the top of his voice, “Enough! It’s not going to happen, so get over it. And if you can’t accept it, leave!”
    Samantha was stunned and stood there in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Her eyes welled with tears and she turned and walked away. Jim wanted to say he was sorry but his pride got caught in his throat and he remained speechless.
    After a while he felt so uncomfortable in the house that he couldn’t stand the silence anymore, so he headed down to the local drinking hole to try and drown his thoughts. Back at the house Samantha was packing Talbert’s and her bags. This was the last thing she wanted but knew if she stayed things would only get worse.
    Jim and Samantha owned a small hobby farm 40km outside Ballarat and Samantha felt that this would be a good place to raise a young boy. Talbert was six when they moved there and from that time he felt something missing in his life. He was constantly overwhelmed by a need to belong and had no idea of what he needed to belong to, but he always believed this craving would be fulfilled one day. All through junior schoolTalbert joined every sporting and social club he could in order to find that connection but it continued to evade him. However when he knew he was heading off to boarding school he had asked himself, “Could this be what I’ve searched for, or am I just chasing something that doesn’t exist?”
    Talbert got very little sleep the night before his induction into Benworden but that didn’t stop him being up at the crack of dawn. He did his normal chores and fed the dog and the chickens. He thought about how he would miss his daily routine but it couldn’t be helped because he would only be home on weekends now. Talbert’s dog Sam, named after his mum, knew there was something going on and followed him everywhere he went that morning. Even the chickens weren’t their usual clucky selves, but nothing could deter Talbert from his positive frame of mind.
    He wasn’t the only one beginning a new phase in life: his mother had realised that once he was in boarding school she was going to be