Chapter One

I'm really sorry if you don't understand. All I can do is try and explain:

I fell in love when I was thirteen. Not the sort of love you can walk away from. It just got to me. Worse than heroin; I don’t take drugs but I know once you’re on it you can’t get off it. Well think of it a thousand times worse. I mean really bad.

The first time I ever saw her was just after I had swung on the basketball hoop. How could anyone forget that day - the biggest eclipse in thirty-five years was just about to happen.

I walked up to the lower side of the knoll - it's where the older boys smoke because it is hidden from the main block, but I like it because it's quieter; really the knoll is just a heap of crap piled up high in the corner of the playing field, probably from when they built the school. Some of it is grassed over but if you kick the surface a few times you will see old bricks and stuff. Sixth-formers sit on top the granite boulders at the top of the knoll but plebs have to stay below the rock line.

To be honest the whole school's a pile of crap.

I used to dream a lot in class. Mostly in maths and history. I imagined all sorts. That's why I sat at the back of the class. My eyes are crap. Even if they were okay I still wouldn't know what's going on. You have to invent something to kill the boredom at school, there's only so much I can take of the second world war. You wouldn't believe how every day is such a bore.

But that day the eclipse was just about to happen. I could've half look forward to it if I had a mind to. But I didn't; I was sitting on the pathway leading up to the knoll, reading The Thirty Nine Steps. I have a problem reading, it takes me an age just to read one page. But I like a good book. It's a bit like a friend. A friend I can go places with.

Justin Mann, my form leader, came up and sat down next to me; he's my best friend - but in break he normally he has a few girls around sitting around him so I leave him alone. I mess it up for him. I know. So I don't bother meeting up with anymore during break time. Girls don't really like me. But they go nuts over him they really do.

There are a few books I read over and over. They take me away from school. I'd use ear phones because I don't like things stuffed in my ears. Drives me crazy. I'm a slow reader and really slow writer and I miss out words like 'the' and 'in' and can't spell and get tenses all wrong. It a real drag. But there is nothing I can do about it. I don't like listening to people for too long. It's not that I've got anything much to say or want to butt in or anything it's just I don't like listening to people for hours going on about stuff. If everything gets really boring I start swaying and pulling hairs out one at a time from my head. I know it sounds stupid but I can't stop myself.

I see movies sometimes but if it's a bad movie you've gotta hang in until it's over because you've normally gone with some buddie or other. There is nothing worse than hanging in watching a dud movie with a buddie you like. You stand up to go then sit down again because you are with your buddie. Then if you start looking around people get pissed off. They think you are looking at them. You explain you don't like the movie and they say why don't you leave then. Then you get up to leave and you sit down again because you are with your buddie and you cannot leave when your buddie is there watching the movie. Hollywood actors are a dead give away to a bad movie. No one in the world is as good looking as a Hollywood actor so if they are pretending the movie is real why are they all so damn good looking?



(after clicking music click black area and carrying on scroll reading)

I was half waiting for Justin to speak but he didn't. That was pretty unusual for him; he just kept flicking his hair back. I knew he was doing it, he was that close to me.

I'm not sure why I was reading when there was going to be an eclipse but I was. The Thirty Nine Steps - top of page one hundred and twelve - and she walks right up and stares down at me. Right there. Right there in front of me, staring down at me while I was reading my own book. That was the first time ever I saw her face. The very first.

Then everything behind her went black and the sun almost disappeared; and we had this massive eclipse. It was weird. Really weird. I mean everything behind the playground just went black. I tell you even the trees went black; everything was just disappearing. All I could see was a red tipped cigarette and her eyes staring at me; to be honest it didn't look like she really smoked that much. You can tell sometimes by the way they hold it in their fingers.

Justin suddenly freaked out big time jumping to his feet and dancing around like some screw-ball shouting, 'Fuck, it's all going black, it's black as fuckin' shit - Jesus fuck, I can't see fuck all!'

I don't know what he was playing at because the whole damn world knew there was going to be an eclipse over Fenton Prep.

I know it's pathetic but it was only because Justin was sitting there that I had this feeling I should yell at her to get her pussy feet out my way. In fact I promise you I was just about to shout at her and my mouth was open but when I squinted up from my book the sun was beginning to come out again and she'd already walked around me.

I noticed a book tucked in the back of her tatty track suit. I wished Justin hadn't been there as she looked the sort if you got it right with her the first time you met her she'd be your friend for ever. All orange and warm. In fact if Justin hadn't been sitting next to me I would probably have moved out her way, said sorry or Hi or something but I just didn't want to look a ponse in front of Justin.

I don't know what it was but I found myself looking at her ass as the sunlit rays started to trickle back from between the clouds. I'm not sex mad or anything. I'm usually okay with girls. I haven't had a real girlfriend yet but when I do I think I'll be okay, I won't wear my jeans in a strange way and show my muscles and stuff. I only think about that sort of thing at night when I'm in bed.

She was wearing the tan coloured school gym top and track suit bottoms. Girls change at break-time so they don't have to traipse back to the main block. Not sure if she was one or two years below me because I didn't recognise her. Her hair was all over the place so it wasn't as if she was that neat or anything.

There's five forms in our year and about six in the year below. It's a hell of a of big school and at that time I'd only been there two months.

My eyes followed her round because she was sure as hell going to get shouted at by the sixth formers lounging about up on the rocks looking up at the eclipse with cheap plastic black eclipse spectacles.

As she leapt up onto the highest granite crag the sun exploded out from a black and scarlet edged cloud sending hundreds and thousands of shadows everywhere and half blinding me. Small fluffy clouds appeared everywhere. My eyes are crap. I'm only thirteen. I think I'll be blind by twenty. I have loads of these circles floating around my eyes like snakes. I can't see through them. Some sort of degeneration. Each time the sun hits my eyes there's another half dozen circles. For a moment all I could see were red poppies coming into my head; really red, I don't know why.






Anyway, when I could see again I got this sort of faint smell of pink roses and saw silhouettes of two six formers glancing over at her but none of them said a damn thing, which I felt pretty disappointed about as they should have gone berserk with some little hot-shot standing on one of their big rocks. But it's not really their rock. There's a lot of people who think they rule the world. There's always some bastard out there taking bits of it away from you. I don't even know why they're trying to do it but believe me they're sure as hell doing it.

The school bell rang and there was like a million school shoes all trudging back to the main school block; accept hers, mine and Justin's that is. Rock-girl carried on staring out towards the hills. She reminded me of one afternoon last winter at my last school. Our class visited the local zoo and we saw this baby gazelle perched on a rock, all stretched out like Bambi looking for its mother. Then it looked up to the sky toward this star, Venus or something, and made this hell of a strange noise. Everybody laughed and some of the girls cooed and aaaaahed about how cute the deer was. I mean it was a gazelle for christ sakes. But it's no good telling those sort of girls they're wrong over something like that so I just watched them call it over and stroke it nose. I wished it hadn't walked over to them so easily like that. It made me sad as hell. It was only four o'clock and I tell you there was this star in the sky that was standing out real white. It seemed to be moving but guess it was probably just the small little clouds kidding me along. I was sure that baby gazelle wanted to get the hell out of there. You could tell because it trotted back to its rock and waled even louder, right up to Venus or what ever it was, like it was calling it down. And if I could've been Jesus for a moment I'd have pulled out a pocket full of miracles and made that god damn star slide down a rainbow for ol' Bambi to jump on, and for two pins I'd have gone with the dude as well - riding high up into sky, star jumping like a couple of crazies from one shining stepping stone to another, hopscotching into the universe 'till we were a million miles away from this zoo and all its black metal railings.

I turned the page but I wasn't really concentrating on my book anymore, I'm not sure what I was really thinking about to be honest but Justin caught my eye as he leaned over toward me:

'Who the fuck’s she?’ he whispered.

‘Eh, I don’t know.’ I replied.

‘Fuckin’ hell, she was in ya face, you gay fagot, an' ya just let 'er walk away, for fucks sakes!’

‘She only looked at me,' I replied wondering what the hell had got into him.

'For fucks sake Sam she was gagging for it for Christ's sakes!'

'What?' To be honest I don't understand all this: fuck, fuck, fuck all the time.

But he'd got me on edge, he's always doing that; I was sitting there, sort of only half reading now, I was thinking how strange the girl was, Rock-girl or whatever her name was just looking down at me like that; and putting on that cool look with a cigarette. But in an odd sort of way I quite liked the way she stood there for that second or two but it's not the sort of thing I'd let on. If she had stayed there another second I would probably have told her to piss off, school does that to you; you're always saying the opposite of what you really want to say. Maybe that's where half of me has gone wrong.

Last summer, you should have been there - such a weird day - shooting with Justin's crap air guns in the woods; I was dead keen on shooting this deer that suddenly came out from this behind massive tree, and when I got it in my sights Justin said in that low intense way, 'Fire, Fire... fire you fuckin' twat!' The really strange thing was the deer turned round and looked me straight on inviting me to shoot it between the eyes... and you know all I wanted to do was hug it. It really had balls to stand there like that. Well that's how I felt about Rock-girl standing there. It sounds crazy but from that moment I knew I was in love with her. I mentally began taking snap shots of her looking down at me. About five I guess. I was going to use them later that night; I have a hell of an imagination when I'm in bed.

I looked up and everybody had gone, including Rock-girl. Strange how time plays tricks on you when you're thinking like that. The sun had come out hotter than ever and my white school shirt was soaking wet. I shook the grass from my black trousers but it didn't want to come off. I hate grass that sticks to my trousers. Most of the dry brown grass shakes off easily enough but it's the green stuff that stays on so I took each piece off one by one. They mow the grass about three times a week, I really can't see why they have to mow so much. so what if it's four inches long. For the sheer hell of it I scampered up to the same rock where Rock-girl had been standing to see if I could get into her mind and know what she was thinking. Silly when you think about it, but I did it anyway. As I was standing on the rock I notice an old book wedged in a crevice. It looked like the same beaten up book she had slipped down her waist band; a sort of beige cover with three words in big red colours down the cover: The Thirty Nine Steps.

I am pretty good at Art, drawing that is, but I couldn't concentrate on the first lesson that afternoon. Miss Fellerman's pretty good looking for a teacher and she's not bad at drawing horses either but never stops banging on about Picasso and Van Gogh. The lesson is actually called Appreciation of Art so we don't always get to paint stuff, we have to write as well which is a real bore. How many times do we have to hear about how Van Gogh cut his ear off for love, sold no paintings and died without anything. Most people die without anything for Christ sakes; but we must have heard Ms Fellerman banging on about it every two weeks and I'd only been in the school two months - if we weren't painting Van Gogh crows in the corn field or sketching his old frigging boots we were being asked to write essays on whether we would cut our ear off for love. One time we had to pretend we were some great Artist or Musician and write five hundred words on how love changed our art. Now that's pretty dumb if you ask me. I think Van Gogh was totally mental. He didn't sell any paintings for millions of dollars because he didn't think they were worth it; and besides he used too much yellow.

If I wanted to be a millionaire I'd tell everyone I'm an eleven year old artist (I'm actually thirteen) and go to some field outside Paris with a big canvas on a trailer and splodge yellow everywhere and drip blood from my heart onto the yellow splodge and call it 'My Red Valentine'. And I'd pretend to be crazy too, like I'd only wear girl's underwear and walk around the Artist's quarter in the hot evenings playing 'Summer Wind' on my Dad's $150,000 stradivarius violin. And I'd play really badly too. And no matter how bad my version of 'Summer Wind' was everyone would chuck bucket fulls of money into my cowboy hat because they would think I was crazy like Van Gogh and they would all know if I really wanted to I could knock the hell out of the violin and play like a genius.

It was so tight Ms fellerman's light green cardigan only had one button fastened. She had this thing about putting her arm around you and holding your paint brush hand and helping you paint some horse or other. Well, she was at it again, not with me but Justin, all over him. I can't remember exactly what she was banging on about that afternoon though, something about the eclipse and how light and dark affect Art but it was so damn hot and the air conditioning was drumming away above my head and the whole thing sort of sent me half asleep and I kept getting flashbacks of earlier that day. I started thinking if I'd talked to the Rock-girl would she have said anything back or just ignored me? She looked like the sort who would have probably ignored me. But why did she she look at me the way she did? Maybe she was going to say something stupid to me like most people do. Would she come to school tomorrow for the Party-on-the-Pitch? Everybody brings in tuck and food and drinks and stuff; it's a sort of tradition at Fenton Prep. A big lark about. The staff have a big red and white striped tent, smaller than a circus tent but still pretty big. The tent was already up on the rounders pitch with benches and wood tables in it. They have beer and music and all that sort of stuff. The whole thing is to make everyone think how damn good Fenton Prep is. Bringing parents and teachers together. I wasn't here last year but Justin said it was worth coming to if wasn't raining.

Would Rock-girl come to the Party-on-the-Pitch? I sort of doubted it. What should I do about her book? Pretty sure it was hers. The more I thought about her the more my whole mind was full of snap shots of her standing there. In my whole life I don't think anyone's ever got inside me like that.

Of course, I half fancied her from that first moment I saw her but it was more than that, I promise you. She didn’t look like those models you see in glossy magazines; you know, the bored thin vampire type that never smiles or the Jessica Rabbit type with egg timer curves, false eye lashes and always looking so god damn desperate for someone to say how pretty they are; models generally make me feel cold as hell. Girls in my school are so much better.

Now I think about it she was pretty skinny, but naturally skinny and you couldn't help notice her long legs. She looked pretty fit and bouncy on her feet and half reckoned she would've made a terrific hurdler if she set her mind on it. I'm no good at sport but I can sit by the playing field watching girls running around all day long.

Her ragged track suit, dishevelled hair and old pumps; a real Cinderella - would've driven Walt Disney crazy. The strange thing was her eyebrows, hair, lips, face legs, the lot, all melted into the same honey fawn colour, even the school track suit was almost the same damn colour. And she didn't have that fake six months in Acapulco look or the type who'd go around sucking a red lolly pop either. Actually, if you put a feather in the back of her hair you could half imagine she might be an Indian squaw.



Christ it was so hot. During the fifteen minute break I made my way to the only empty table in the corner of the old wooden tuck shop and sat listening to some old hat music from the fifties. As the cooler box had run out of coke I had to put up with warm stuff off the shelf. It wasn't even coke, some fizzy red stuff. A black guy everyone calls Dello serves behind the counter; he's the size of an English double decker bus and always has on the same red and white apron. He wears these spooky round glasses, bigger than John Lennon's. I guess he looks spooky because his right eye looks to the left. Weird. I guess he does look pretty miserable but he's not really. He's got a smile the size of the grand canyon. Everybody likes him. Just shows you can be ugly as sin but popular as hell.



Everyone clears out his way when he waddles through between the tables - that's real respect - they wouldn't do that for no teacher - and it was no different that day as he slung open the windows shutters and let the sunshine in; as he lent over me to flick the catch he was humming some tune or other; he has this wife or some girlfriend or other that sings in bars, that's what Justin said anyway - and he's seen her downtown and says she's called Lorrie and a hellava looker and sings in the Old Blue Ding Club with all the big Mama's without a microphone or anything. She even went over to him while he was standing on his own at the back. That's what Justin said. He thought she was going to tell him to leave because he was only fourteen and too young to be in the joint but instead just bent down and kissed him on the lips while she was still singing the damn song. That's what Justin said. And you know I believe him. Girls go crazy over him.

The smell of beef burgers and sizzling cheesy sunflower oil mingled in hot breezy waves and I was half-minded to have a chicken salad burger but felt a bit sick having just eaten a soft chocolate bar with warm fizzy pop. I was getting this indigestion. I was really trying to help it up. I took my brown and tan tie tie off and pretended to cough, then banged my white school shirt just where my lungs are; and extend my arm up and backwards. It works sometimes. But it didn't seem to this time. I ruled out the burger for good when something like the smell of little puppies piss started wafting around. That really did it. And there were fried chicken legs on the hot counter. I really hate looking at chicken legs. And Dello burns the hell out them. They look as if they are moving sometimes. Besides I was beginning to feel depressed in the old wooden shack as it was heaving with a whole lot of seventh grade girls who came in celebrating a birthday, and they all seemed so damn happy. It was as if everyone might just stop and stare at me sitting in the corner but I knew the hell they wouldn't because they were all falling about having such a god damn good time. But it didn't stop me thinking that way. I get embarrassed sometimes, even thinking about people looking at me.

Rock-girl started taking hold again. I was about to munch the second chocolate bar but it was soft; the chocolate was all stuck to the silver paper. Every time I tried to wrap it up there was always one side of chocolate oozing out but eventually I got the paper around it and so I slung it back in my Zippo. The red current fizzed up my nose. Two flies kept buzzing back to my table. They were really pissing me off. Actually everything was starting to piss me off. It was the tomato sauce they were going crazy over but I had no napkin to wipe it off and didn't really want to use Lily's book to wipe of tomato sauce or kill flies - sort of disrespectful. Besides if I wrote a book I wouldn't want it being used at a fly swat, unless it was a life and death thing. If it wasn't for the fact the whole damn tuck room was so damn full I would have stood up, made some room, and gone all out to swat them. You know if there's one thing I hate it flies. I can't stand flies. I'm sorry but they are the only things I like to kill. I can kill flies all day. They were taking the piss, they really were. And I can't stand the way ol' Dello never cleans the tables either. Even a wipe over with some stinky rag would be better than nothing. I would have said something to Dello but he has such a damn big smile.

The tuck shop roof has wooden shingles. You can see them from the inside. Gazing up at the bamboo lights hanging down from the beams I thought I could see cobwebs, but it was probably my eyes, they haze over sometimes. I got to thinking about things when my eyes just shut themselves. You couldn't sleep but when you're in a tuck room like that you want to shut your eyes and block out about as much as you can. The screaming of fifteen million stupid girls singing happy birthday began to fade away. Yeah, I started to take myself away from all th school stuff. She did stare at me didn't she - Rock-girl - for Christ's sakes it wasn't just my imagination? I do have a hell of an imagination. Sometimes I actually believe I've done things I couldn't possibly have done. But Rock-girl had been right in my face in the morning. Justin noticed it and got all crab-assed about it so I wasn't just playing it up or anything. He wouldn't have made it up. He's not like that. But why me? Why did she walk across the playground field and up to the knoll just to stare at me? Anyway I'm such a dork? If it had been Justin I could imagine her coming up to him with big eyes and stuff. I began wondering what her name was. Nakita or Anya or some romantic Russian ballet name. But when I thought about it she didn't look Russian so I guessed it would probably be Jane or Alice or something plain.

It's different when some stranger stares at you on the street or in the bus. They just look at you because they've got to get up and you've got to get out their way. But rock girl just walked right up to me. I mean the knoll is the farthest point away from the main school building. Maybe she was short sighted and got me confused with some other guy in her class or something? But she didn't look like the type to even wear glasses. The look she gave me was when...I'm not really sure how to put this, but if I really had to think about it, it was as if I'd been her best friend forever but had just had this argument with her and told her I never wanted to see her again and so she'd gone off then come back just to look at me one last time.

Justin's one of those guys who's forever lucky. He never studies, he copies from me sometimes, but always gets in the top three. He's full of bull when he talks to the teachers and cheats like hell. I swear teachers like him cause the bastard looks like River Phoenix. He's like one of those young Hollywood actors and's forever asking about my Dad who's sort of in the business. Justin's got this really elegant handwriting too. If I was marking his work I would probably give him an 'A' as well. You can be really fooled by some one's handwriting especially if he looks like River Phoenix.



He's not even a good guy if you think about it, he just damn lucky. Some people are just born lucky; but there's always a few who get dumped with all the bad luck the friggin' lucky ones should have had but never did. Justin's dad's a Hollywood writer but when ever I've been around his place he says he's out in the 'woods' so I've never really seen him, oh, except once when he was taking a bowl of mushy peas down the garden. I said, 'Hi.' But he didn't say anything back. Justin's really hung about him but he sure sounds cool to me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not some kind of paranoid school-kid. School is school. I don’t go home thinking about how happy I am. The next day they take the piss anyway so the last thing I want is to see them for at least a week. That's how school is so if I told Justin he made me happy – which he doesn’t – he’d think I was gay. He thinks I'm a pussy anyway. All I've done is grown my hair for Christ’s sakes.

But once in a life time, even the unlucky ones get a break... and I was about to get mine: It was one of the sixth formers who came across to my small table where I was sitting. I knew he was going to say something, and sure enough he did:

"Hey shit-face move it!"

I though if I half pretended I was asleep he would move off.

'Hey, shit-face I'm talking to you... fuck off!"

He was one of the tall lanky twats who always hangs around with the same two other guys from the Mile End rowing team; he held a sandwich in one hand and a current juice in the other. He nudged my arm and nodded his head over toward the doorway and I could see the other two making their way toward my table. There was no point in arguing.

Well thanks to that lanky twat I stood up... and could I believe what I saw next! She, that very damn well same god damn girl, rock girl, passed the tuck shop entrance! I could only see her from the shoulders up, but there was no mistaking that hair - even with so many other kids milling around.

The bunch of crazies were still at the entrance singing Happy Birthday with fake Chinese accents but I slipped my way through and found myself outside.

The sun did my eyes in again. God, it was bright that day. You could feel the heat in the breeze and I was sweating like a dog; must have been the eclipse on top a mid-summer solstice or something.

Rock girl was heading toward the new gymnasium and from behind, banging against her shoulder was one of those old gym bags you don't see any more. To the side of her forehead she had this red ribbon bow in her hair. She hadn't seen me of course but I damn well started breathing heavily. I suddenly had this crazy moment of mental confusion. I came over shy as hell all over. I get like that sometimes. It's like epilepsy, I felt myself go down, down right there and then, dropping to the ground and I lay there. On the ground in front of the kiosk. My head was going crazy thinking how difficult it was to get into someone elses head and my mother telling me I had vagabond ways. My whole head felt like a stepped-on giant puff ball dying in slow motion. If I've ever been slightly mad that was the nearest I've ever been to being full out crazy. It should all be so easy, to burst the balloon, and say something to Rock Girl. But you know I just couldn't. She was like this ghost going past my daydream. And this weird side of me wanted to put my hand in her hair and bring her head close to mine and sing her some sop song like, "It's a crazy afternoon let's fall in love." But somewhere deep down there was this other inner dude thing telling me to say, "What the hell were you looking at me for?" And of course there was no way I could tell her truth - that I was totally nuts over her; but I can tell you that was the God's honest truth. I'd have given every god damn thing I had for her to be a friend of mine. But I lay there not knowing what the hell to do. How can you go so damn crazy over someone without even knowing them?

I sort of pulled myself together and I remember climbing up the steep red soil bank, where there's this ten foot gully below, and peering through the high level fan light window into the gymnasium. Looking through the dirty glass pane I could see her there, playing netball. She had a hell of a jump and gave one those feminine shreeks when she made a long pass. But it didn't last long. I felt such a dork because I slipped and fell into the gully ripping a button off my shirt, banging my head on the wall and catching my ankle something crazy. I stayed down dazed for a minute checking for any other serious damage but it was just my damn ankle. I may have lain three minutes because you just don't know when things like this happen, you kinda loose sense of time, but when I turned to look at my ass I couldn't believe my trousers, it was like some camel had shat all over them. No way was I going to my next lesson looking like that so I sat down, crouched there hiding behind the gym listening to the echoey sound of the girls screaming inside. I'm pretty sure I could hear her voice. Jesus, I never knew girls could scream so much when having fun.

The gully made a good walk way for me to check out the ankle without anyone seeing and there was no way I was able to clean off the dried mud from my black trousers. I really like clean trousers. I took my shoe off a few times to check out the ankle but although it hurt there wasn't even a bruise. The last thing I wanted was for someone to catch me spying into the gym. The school looks down on that type of behaviour. Tim Rollersham got suspended for hiding in an empty metal locker in the girls' changing room and peeking out the bent vents.

The gym class eventually poured out in small gangs. Rock girl came out in the first group, half skipping and half making imaginary dunks; in a jiffy she was over thirty metres away and with my turned ankle it was impossible to catch her up so I approached a short girl walking out on her own whose face was all red:

'Excuse me,' I said, 'what's the name of the one with the red ribbon?'

'You mean Lily?'

'Yeah, I was wondering what her surname was, I've got something I want to give her.'

I tried to smile at her but I guess it looked a bit fake. She seemed a nice sort anyway.

She gave me a slightly weird smile back before replying, 'Lily Rolt.'

I didn't give her time to kick in with any more conversation so I thanked her and made off with a jog. A half jog I gotta tell you because the ankle was really starting to play up. But I felt good limping back to the main block. I knew her name. I went straight to the toilets to clean my trousers off. I had to go straight into a cubicle as their was a group of others in there. When they'd left to go to their next class I came out the cubicle with my black trousers in my hand and washed them under the cold tap using the liquid green soap stuff above the sink. There's no hot water at the school except in the showers but the cold water was luke warm because it was such a hell of hot day so I soaked my twisted ankle in the basin.

I have this thing about looking into mirrors. I can't not look into a mirror when I'm in a bathroom or toilet. I do it all the time. Making ugly faces by twisting my lip downward and nose up, like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The trousers came up pretty black with the squeezing but when I put them back on my underwear felt uncomfortable; like still really wet, especially round the top of my legs so I took them off again and really squeezed them tight around the hips. Loads of soapy white stuff came out of the pockets onto the tiled floor and I started worrying about whether anyone might notice the poncey smell when I went into the next class. That green soap has this disinfectant smell, a bit like those green things the jantors shove down toilets. I heard a couple of older boys coming in so I put my trousers back on. They were dripping a bit but not so much; still it was hot as hell outside. I would have to careful who I sat next to in the next lesson. I thought about it and decided it was better to miss the lesson and lie out in the sun for ten minutes and be late. Then I had this brainwave.

I hobbled over to the Administration block and hopped up five floors of stairs 'till I got to the long corridor at the top. The floor has a shiny clipity lino. Not that many people go up there. It the Adminsitration floor and we're not really supposed to go up there. I reckon all schools have clipty lino. All the ones I've been to have. I knocked on the 'Administration' door :

'Come in.'

'Hello Miss.' I said

'Yes, what is it?'

'I found this book near the knoll,' I passed her the book, 'it had a paper book mark in it, it's Lily Rolt's.'

'Lily who?

'Lily Rolt.' I repeated.

'Well, can't you give it back to her?' She stood up and came around the counter.

'She's gone home... Miss; I was thinking I could post it to her, I mean...it's the last day of term and...'

'She might come into the party-on-the-pitch tomorrow. Anyway you can keep it until she returns.'

She began thumbing through the pages.

'But Miss there's this book mark, I found it in the middle so she's only half finished the book Miss, and..'

'Let me see.' She took the book mark but I knew there was nothing written on it. The book mark was inspected both sides. Then she looked up and said, 'Do you know her... is she a friend?'

'No Miss.'

There was a pause and both of us just stood there. I was begining to feel a bit of twat. It didn't come out with any conviction but I mumbled, 'It's no bother Miss, really, I can post it on the way home.'

'So you want her address?'

'No...well yes, Miss.'

She bent down, opened a large wooden drawer and pulled out one of those really old grey lever arch files. With her bent over like that her big ass got even bigger. Wearing a pleated skirt and jacket made of thick worstead didn't make it better. Sometimes you really want to crack a joke about way someone looks even though you really know it's unfair. Her glasses had those wavy handle bar look that were the rage about thirty years ago. I really don't know why I sometimes I want to say things that are totally rude but I do; I've got into trouble for things like that.

Anyhow she was heck of an obliging sort so I shut up and tried not to think of anything too dorky and just watched her search down the register list of the file; and then, like some god she breathed out her name and began scribbling it down on a note pad and handed it to me. Ah, what a thrill it was to have her address.

I could see her fat wrinkly finger had the biggest diamond studded wedding ring you could imagine wrapped around it. The sort of ring you'd expect the Queen of England to wear on a good night out at the Opera. Hella of size. I guess some guy probably reckoned she was a dish forty years ago. She probably was. I'm hella prejudice when I think about it.

'Thank you Miss,' I said, 'I've read, it's a great book, she like having it back I'm..'

'And...refresh me with your name young man?' She said it looking me really strangely. Like right up and down really slowly over her glasses. I don't know why she was wearing glasses 'cause she looking over them all the time. No I couldn't really understand that. Maybe it was my trousers, they were still a bit wet. But they weren't dripping.

'Sam... Samuel Mudd, Miss.' I replied.

'What grade are you?'

'Eighth Miss.'

'Thirteen...a real boy's year.'

Old ladies with glasses say those sort of things. Things that don't mean sweet fanny. I don't think they know what they mean themselves.

Then blow me if she didn't tilt her glasses with her finger and looked me up from toe to head again and said, 'You can go now Samuel...go on with you.'

I squeezed the note-paper tightly in my palm. In between my fingers lay Lily Rolt's address.

I was still thinking about her in my pajamas as I lay on my bed with my arm around my pillow staring up at the fluorescent tube. If I stared at it long enough with my my eyes closed I could see tiny white lights and little bits of fluorescent lightening come out from the blackness that turned into images of abstract things; then through the muddle of light and dark emerged black and white pictures that, like a miracle of the mind, changed into short movies; my own lovely movies from my own lovely head.




I crept under the sheets, curling up into a ball and began wiggling my toes. That what I do to start of with. I'm sort of move around in small jerks like Charlie Chaplin and all the while staring down this black hole until the black hole until specs of bright yellow and white appear - so white; then weird shapes form... I’m only telling you this because I want you to know that I'm not a crazy nut. Then up comes Fenton School in bursts of hot light flashes. I could recognise different stuff like the drinking fountain and netball hoop. All the junior classes are out playing, most of them just larking around in all this din like you'd hear at the The Roseball or something; a few of them are crying but only playground crying. I'm the only serious one, searching for rock girl - like my whole life depends on it. I see her at the far end of the rounders pitch by the chain link fencing but when I run over there she's gone and someone else turns around and starts bawling their eyes out. Then a football hits her in the head and she's crying like a baby and I feel I should give her a hug and I would've done but I see rock girl walking away from me toward the knoll but when she turns around it's a strange face of a boy who only wants to gawk close up at me and laugh like some demented stranger. It's starting to freak me out all this weird stuff and I feel wet with exhaustion. Then suddenly it's Assembly, in the main hall, green walls, long yellow drapes and the Headteacher's on a roll banging on about how if we try hard now and we won't have to try hard later; and how we must be polite outside the school gates and not swear. I'm not sure of all that sort of crap. After assembly I race outside again toward the gymnasium and the headteacher's eyes follow me out on stalks into the scorching hot sunshine and this stupid song comes into my head. God it is so bright and loud, some lullaby song for babies with this out of tune electric guitar playing in my head and this noise like an orchestra rehersal going on all around me. Everything twirling around and suddenly Justin is trying to sing which freaks me out because he's a really crap singer, but all the girls are all loving it not because he can sing but because he's so damn good looking. Suddenly everything changes; it's dark, with my eyes closed tight and the music fades out and the Rock Girl appears. I know she's gonna make me happy. And in my brain she comes floating into my bedroom and we are standing there, real close, as only we edgy types can be, in the half dark, breathing staccato softness. Boy it's so real her standing there. We both want to dance real slow but we don't know quite how so I stand by her side, aware of how near she is, her thin arm unknowingly touching my shoulder; my hand so wanting to touch her; the black sillouette of her soft perfection and that red, red ribbon; the only pleasure she has ever given herself. She dares to smile, a tiny smile with her lips just parted. My heart beats a million times knowing she is melting closer. I want us to stay like this for ever but she triggers my invisible fountain of white tears like the sweetest music ever heard. Then my heart starts shaking. All I could do is lie there breathing heavy big full stops with my eyes open looking up at the ceiling because I knew no matter how hard I try I am nothing to her.

My hand goes up to my head and I start scratching it, digging my nails in and feeling pretty wiped out.

I really want a Dad like Gregory Peck. I'd be
sam Peck - a bucket load better tan Samuel Mudd. A Dad I could talk to. If I'd had a crap day at school Greg Peck would look over his eye brows and sure as hell everything would be alright. He'd go around with me, pick me up from school and know all the answers to the teachers questions about how low my grades are and stuff. Maybe he'd even know how I change sometimes. I swear I'm changing. I've been changing ever since I was ten but don't know what from or to. I don't know how may more times I'm gonna change. I don't know if I'm gonna change into someone really I like or end up being hated by everyone. Is there a bit inside everyone that always stays the same? It's so stupid when you don't know who you are. I mean how can I be like Gregory Peck when I don't know who I am in the first place? The problem with my new Dad is he goes crazy about school grades and attendence. If I miss a day he flips his lid big time; just the other day he slammed me against the kitchen wall, kneed me in the tummy and asked why the fuck I didn't go to school.

I can't remember my beginning. But things went off the rails after my mother left me in a bus station. In a pram. I guess she had somewhere better to go. I don't think I've had a lot of friends since.

I remember arriving at my adopted parents by train when I was six. I played with some food scales, it had a red hand that went round when you put something on the scales. They told me about my beginings, Mr and Mrs Mudd that is, sitting down telling me about my real mother and her problems. I really wanted her with all her her problems. I soon realised I was now called Samuel Mudd with two d's. In class hey call me 'shit-face'. And I've only been in this school two months. Some wise crack about my surname got twisted into Sam Shit. Then into shit-face. I don't make a deal about it but it's weird having a normal conversation while being called 'shit-face'. Only Justin and the teachers calls me by my real name.

And I wish I had my real Dad too. My new Dad's busy in Hollywood. He does a lot of writing stuff in his office. He never lets on what it is. He always has a frown that means he's got something to do, but something that's not to do with me. We never go out together. I'm a bit like the bicycle he bought me that lays in the corner of the hallway and never gets ridden anymore.

I never tell anyone I'm adopted. I mean does anyone? I told Justin but he just looked at me funny and asked what the next class was. He's not into that sort of thing and nor am I; I don't want anyone getting into all that deep stuff asking about where my real parents are and if I want meet up with them. It's all a bit late now. I don't need a Dad, I'm thirteen. I guess my new Dad is sort of half famous in an acting sort of way. But he's the sort of actor no one ever really remembers. And I've never seen what he writes. It may be really good, but you know I don't care. Well that's not exactly true. One of his documents is about three kids - two twin sisters of fourteen and their younger brother. The sisters are really clever and popular but the brother is pretty hopeless and has this limp and can't wait to leave school. I only read the first chapter because it was a bit boring but I did look at the last page and looks as if he commits suicide and the sisters go into a convent together and feel pretty bad about the whole thing.

There's a lot of actors like my father. He's got a Hollywood screen name but I guess no one really knows him. He gets recognised about three times a year, usually in a supermarket by some old lady pushing a trolley. I guess no one knows his screen name. But he got a face you don't forget, a sort of dead ringer for Brando in his 'get-fat' stage. I guess they need some fat actors. In my head I call him 'Brando' but his real screen name comes up on the credit rolls. But believe me he's no big deal, more a Hollywood 'C' actor. 'Lonely Mountain'. Yeah, that was his last movie. He played the third dectective, the one that gets killed in the mill. A whole lot of corn comes crashing down and he sort of drowns in the corn. He's one of the good guys but when you watch the movie you'll probably want him to die as well. They have to kill off actors like my Dad to make the movie more real. Heroes never die in movies unless it's a good movie and they want all the girls to cry in the end like Dr Zhivago. I like the way he dies in the end. Like a massive heart attack in the street as his girlfriend looks over at all the comotion but doesn't realize it's him. Anyway my new Dad really does looks like he's dying and makes me feel pretty weird seeing my Dad's hand come up through the corn shouting 'help' and there's no one there to help him out. Anyway, we have a cracking house.



Over evening dinner Brando looked across at me and said, 'Before you go to bed, I want to see you in my office.'

I wasn't too sure if he was angry and I was thinking what I had done wrong that may have upset him. I tapped on his office door. His office is the size of the Titanic with signed photographs of a million actors splashed all over his walls accept a big wood panel behind his flat back comfy chair with painting of flowers.

'Come in.' He said.

I closed the door behind me and took a quick glance at the neat black and white signed photograph of Greg Peck and touched it quickly, without getting noticed, as good luck thing. Not sure who it's signed to but I wish it had been me.

For once ol' Brando wasn't playing Frank Sinatra. He's crazy over Sinatra. He'd been playing 'One for my Baby' a million times these last few weeks. I know because his office is right under my bedroom. It drives me mad when I'm trying to sleep an' ol' Blue Eyes is belting out his crap for the fiftieth time from under my bed. Anyway he had this soft piano stuff on which made a bit of a change. The stuff they play on an airplane just before take-off to calm down all the nutters who start freaking out and asking the stewardess for the fith time which lousey toggle they've gotta pull on the life-jacket and why in hell the airplane has no parachutes.

'Sit; Sam, you're going to a new school after the vacation, how do you like that?'

'I dunno.' I replied.

'Fenton's not doing the business is it!'

To be honest I'd only just started at Fenton. Having gone to four different schools in the last seven years and spent three years in a public school in Great Britian it was difficult to know what ol' Brando was doing with my educaton - what ever it was it wasn't working. Ol' Brando came up with the British school idea because he thought American culture was going down the drain. Before packing me off he said, 'Sam you're gonna come back a true English Gentleman.'

Hell, he really believed it as well. All I seemed to learn in the UK was to say 'sorry'. Saying 'sorry' always got you out of trouble. Everyone says 'sorry' over there. Long as you say 'sorry' you can half kill someone and get away with it. I said 'sorry' four times a day for three god damn years and when I came back everyone said I had an English accent. Well, that pleased the hell out of ol' Brando, it really did. But it didn't last.

'Are you listening Samuel?'

'Well, yeah, Sorry,' I said almost forgetting what he was banging on about.

Over his studio desk is this dark wood panelling stuff with really bright paintings of flowers by some famous Artist. He once told us over breakfast the primrose painting was worth at least a Ferrari. I wondered why he only had a Mercedes. Eight little flowers all grouped into little sets of twos all hanging on the wall. Each one has a colour theme. The blue one was okay. Yeah, I liked the Bluebell. I wondered if he would give it to me when he died. I'd quite fancy a Ferrari Dino. But I guessed it wasn't a good time to ask.

'Dr Halwiess has recommended you this school in Carson City,' he continued.

'Okay. What it's called?'

'Carson City Military Academy.'

Sometimes there's no point in arguing. The deal had obviously been signed and sealed. He'd probably already paid for the first year's fee, so I just acted like one of the nodding dogs at the back of a car. Still on the good side I guess I won't be called 'shitface' in Carson City. Well if they did call me shitface in Carson City it would have to be because I really do look like a shitface. That thought amuzed me like hell. How can someone really look like shit? It's so, I don't know, stupid.

Father saw me smiling, 'Good on you son, you see you'll like it.'

At that moment I felt I wanted to leave; leave home for good that is.

'it'll be just what you need Sam...' ol' Brando went on, 'Carson City Military Academy, it'll have you doing what other boys do!'

Well, what do other boys do that's so damn different to me I thought; I guess I am bit slow and quiet but definitely not the only one like that in Fenton Prep. Who wants to be like Justin shouting about pointless crap all the time. Everything so damn pointless. I suppose I wouldn't mind looking like Justin now and again so I could speak to some girl sometimes but that about as near to being him I'd like to be. There's so much crap about looking good. I'm sure horses don't go round thinking about how damn good looking they are. Or maybe they do. I reckoned I'd have to have a look the next time I passed a field with bunch of horses in it.

I was starting to feel pretty much the same as I did at Wellington School when I came sixth in Physics and eighteenth in Math and ol' Brando decided I needed 6 hours extra tuition a week on how to work out equations, pi and cosines and all that sort of crap. I can now find the 'x' and the missing angle and work out how far it is around a circle when I only know how far it is across. I know all that stuff now. I guess if I'm an astranaut or something it'll come in handy. Boy didn't he go on about it though.

'Why did you come 18th in Math when you came 6th in Physics?'

There is no real answer to why I am better at Physics.

'I dunno', was all I could say because that was the truth. It seemed to annoy the hell out him though, me saying, 'I dunno.' But if someone asks why is the moon nearer to earth than Jupiter I dunno, it just is.

And so he went on: 'Why is it you can't remember simple facts... line up all the ducks, it's so easy.'

God he loved saying, 'line up all the ducks... one, two, three, that's all school is, it's so easy, line up the ducks.'

But it didn't stop there. He had other favourite ditties too like: Why can't you spell Sam?' And: 'Why is your hair growing long?' Or: 'Why did you wear red shoes?' And: 'Why don't you play football?' Or: 'Why do you stay in your room all day?' And the really stupid one that comes up every week after they come back from the supermarket: 'Why can you eat chicken wings but not chicken legs?'

Ol' Brando has this thing about saying the same thing over and over again until it drives you crazy. He must have said about the ducks lining up about that fifty times. Ol' Brando's really made me hate ducks now.

Then he raised his voice like a vicar making his sermon climax after boring the hell out everyone for two hours, 'So Carson City it is!'

'Sounds great,' I said lying through my teeth. Of course it sounded like fuckin' shit. Probably Carson City not even a city.

Then he did something really weird. He pursed his lips, strode over and gave me this hell of a big hug. A sort of Rambo type hug. And he lifted me right off the ground.

Back in my room I really wanted to forget that hug. Boy did I want to forget that hug. I knew then I wanted to get away from home for a night or something. Get some air. See what it feels like to be on my own outside all day and night. The last time I had gone out really late, all night that is, was when Justin dragged me out to a late night music concert and he got really drunk and stood on his feet swaying about and starting dancing to some stupid music and the two lead singers danced like a robots and Justin yelled across to me, 'That's the way to do it, lemme tell ya, those guys ain't dumb.'

I needed fun and if it could be with a girl that would be cool. Being on my own most of time makes it pretty difficult. I thought about this for a bit then I reckoned it was pretty impossible to find a girl just like that. The truth is I find it hard to walk up to a girl and tell her she's pretty. You'd have thought it would be easy but for types like me it's darn near impossible. The next best thing - I would get drunk, like Justin did. You may not believe this but I'd never had more than two cans of Beer in my life. I'd still rather have a Fanta if you really want to know. But I wanted to escape and getting drunk might change me into someone I like. There were four bottles in the liquor cabinet, so I took a swig from all of them. They all tasted as disgusting as hell but I reckoned on the sherry as it didn't taste quite as bad as the other three. I really couldn't become an alcoholic. It's so damn disgusting. But that evening I was desparate to find something that would make me feel like a man, like Clint Eastwood or John Wayne. Cowboys are just about as 'man' as you can get, especially Clint Eastwood. And I began thinking what the hell he would do. I squinted my eyes, spat on the floor and emptied the bottle of sherry into an empty flower bowl and took it up to my room. I sort of stopped pretending I was Clint and pretended I was Justin and started dancing while looking in the wall mirror, then got undressed and lay on my bed and downed the whole damn bowl of sherry. No crips, nothing. Not sure I felt happy but sure felt like dancing again so grabbed my pillow and pranced around a while to some old radio music before collapsing over the end of the bed. I could have been a cowboy. I'd have made a damn hell of cowboy. I'm ambidextrous and can shoot with both hands. I've still got a cowboy outfit. I'd wear it all the time if it didn't make me look so gay. Maybe I should wear it and to hell if it makes me gay. A boy's got a do what boy's got a do.

God knows what time it was when I awoke but I was half off the bed tangled around my Japanese quilt cover. I fancied a piss and I was pretty cold laying there naked so I got off the floor and felt for the clock. It said quarter to three. I placed it back but it missed the side table and fell onto the floor. It took an age to get each leg into my jeans and I ripped the mirror off the wall trying to stare at my face at the same time. I looked at the small screw holes in the wall and felt drunk as hell, then held the mirror up. I think I looked okay drunk but I didn't feel that great, in fact I felt a bit sick. But no one would know. Ol' Brando was still in his office, playing Sinatra. Gody gody geesh!

With two hundred green backs stuffed into my pocket I swung around and the door seemed to come toward me, then I remembered Lily's book under my pillow so went back and got it because I needed that. I was going to take it back to her. I got to the bedroom door again but started gliding around a bit and hit the door frame so went to the bathroom and sat there for a while.

The stained glass entrance door downstairs has got this orange and red dragon poking its head through a circle of stained glass green leaves and and no twat is trying to stab it with a poker or anything. I had a half notion to look through Brando's key hole. What the hell was he doing in there. Maybe he was a depressed hell like me. At forty eight he looked a bit washed up.

I guessed it would be cool outside so I plumbed for my bendera leather jacket that cowboys wore when they were up against the Apache and Commanche warriors. And why I was at it I took father's foldable suede hat that makes anyone look fifteen years older.

But I was about to get a shock. I was checking in the hall mirror whether to have the hat facing up with my long hair hidden or down to cover my eyes when Brando burst out the office. I felt myself really go at that moment becqause at the same moment the Swiss grandfather clock began chiming three o'clock. Six foot two of walnut retard sounding off like a thousand Swiss bells tied to a herd of cows. Christ I know I was in for it.

'Hey....and just where the fuck do you think you're going!'

'Dunno, I replied, 'just going out for a walk, Brando.' And then I realised, I'd called him Brando. That was dumb. Was that a big mistake or what. Must have been the sherry.

He grabbed the hat off my head and belted it around my ear shouting, 'Get the hell up upstairs!'

I sat on my bed thinking Clint Eastward wouldn't of taken that sort of shit and he wouldn't of let someone belt him around the face with a hat, even if it wasn't his own hat.

I brooded about this for about an hour until it was all quiet again. But I was still hell of annoyed at being slapped with hat. To hell with ol'Brando; two minutes after four and I was out on the street walking past a line of black silhouetted houses. I pulled down the hat over my brow and pulled up my jacket collar then lit one of ol' Brando's favourite cigars he'd left next to the ash tray. I hadn't smoked a cigar in my life before and to be honest I couldn't see much going for it but it glowed red in my fingers and made for an invisible friend; and so me and my invisible friend walked down Bishop's Road listening to the sound of my own shoes and a couple of crazy cats fighting in the bushes over in the cemetary.

I thought the fresh air would kick-start me but when I looked up at the foggy 'jesus halos' around the street lamps they shimmered and if I hadn't known better I could have sworn the road was uphill. In a odd sort of way I was relieved to be outside the house. Outside everyone's control. It was me now. Me and the world. Justin would think it was cool. Having a few drinks wasn't so bad, it makes you pretty warm inside.

I loathe poets, I loathe poets, I loathe poets - getting a beat is so easy when you're walking along in the quiet night. One foot just follows another like a muffled drum.

I carried walking for ages until I was standing right bang in the middle of the main Square. It's a pretty crap square to be honest. Nothing fancy like New York. Noise of the odd car and drunk broke the silence and that was about it. The same place seems a different world in the daytime when you can see hundreds of office workers all milling around hanging out on the wooden benches eating sandwiches pretending to look at the central statue. But nothing really happens even in the day time. They just munch their lunch and go back to work. The statue's a sort of monument to Shakespeare or someone like that but because my eyes are not good and the only thing I've read on the dirt plaque is 'Poet' and 'Playright'. Anyway who ever he is he's sitting in a big bronze chair in the middle of a pond holding a book in his left hand a feather quill in the other. Small bronze dolphins are spaced around the pond squirting water all over the shot, so I guess strictly speaking it's a fountain. When it's breezy the dolphins spray over anyone sitting around the edge. Justin put a box of detergent in the pond once and it foamed up but the bronze head and book always has white pigeon crap on it. The poet's half smiling and you know he's hella pleased with himself and probably the sort of guy who'd walk past his own statue wearing some disguise just to hear folk saying what a great poet he is. There's this smaller bronze statue of Charlie Chaplin holding his cane over to one corner of the square. I think he did one scene of a movie here once. Could never see what so funny with him with all the running around and not getting hit by the big guy. To hell the big guy should have landed him one and really wapped him. But no the little rat always gets the pretty girl. That only happens in movies. I've never seen a pretty girl go off with old dwarf holding a cane.

Anyway it was a couple of hours before the bus station gates opened so I thought I might search out a bar over on the other side of the Catherdral. That where all the bars are. Besides I quite fancied another drink. I could see how drinking could get to you. I was already feeling a bit mad with all the drink in me.




I'd never been up that late before and the wind was chilly so I pulled ol' Brando's cowboy hat right down over the front of my head 'till only one eye was looking out; I must have looked like some crazy bastard with my jeans and cowboy hat pulled down, stomping along the sidewalk but I didn't want to look like a soft twat. This was about the first time I'd ever got drunk; not totally smashed but I was getting there. I don't even like alcohol but when you've downed a bucket full of your mom's sherry and left home you sort of can't help feeling it's time to be a bit crazy. I guess your brain always comes back to your head again.

The blue and orange uplighters were shining up at the cathedral and two large statues were standing on ledges about seven feet up on either side of the main entrance. The halogen colours were bright and I was beginning to think I only see three colours - red, orange and tuquoise - the colours you see at a seaside sunset - I see these colours before any others. I think I'm gonna go blind. In fact I think I'm dying; but an odd thing happened; the uplighter shining on one of the statues went all lemony and started flickering. Could have been the halogen lamp. But the Saint on the ledge seemed to be moving. I swear it. It was one of those things you would not believe if someone else told you. I guess I'm telling you but take my word. Please. So I thought,well, I ought to bow or show some kind of respect. Least you can do when you've seen a miracle. The Saint was holding a staff and half of it was sticking up through the bird netting around him.

I talk to statues. I don't talk to Shakespear but give me a statue that's humble and looks nice I'll talk to it. That's what they're there for. Just standing waiting to be talked to. And these two were standing there ready to talk to me and tell me about all good things. That why I like them. Because they are good and want to teach you good things, like how to be a better person. They weren't disciples but they must were have been pretty high up Saints. I know they are stone but they are sort of people too, people who used to be around and I guess there nothing wrong in thinking they are carrying on in a half twilight way. The sort that have permission to talk with Jesus when things are getting a bit tough and need sorting. The one nearest me looked the sort that would make hell of a good grandfather. So I guess it just seemed right to sit down on the damp grass and begin staring at him first. It was drizzling and everything was looking a little hazy but he stood out. The other statue had a missing arm and foot so I thought it best to leave him alone, he had enough problems of his own. I could feel myself decending into fluorescent meditation - if you want to know, it starts like pin pointed laser beam, just focusing on one point. Then it happens. You should try it. But you have to believe it. It's no joke, it can come back on you if you start playing games.

Just above the Saint is a big arched window with hundreds of pieces of different coloured glass. I mean hundreds of different coloured pieces of glass but mainly red and yellow. I shook my head to get the water out my ear and it looked liked a big Catherine Wheel. Cool. At the very top, above the window, is this spire. Just a small one but really pointed. It's got an orange light in it. Sort of goes well with the blue. You can't see the lamp but whole spire just glows like it's really living. There's a bell too but you can't see that either.

After a few minutes I was talking to the Saint; well, not exactly talking but he was pretty close and out of no where the light seemed to call him Saint Golph. At first he didn't say anything but slowly there was no mistaking his low, deep voice was talking to me:

'Everyone and everything is precious in the universe.

In my head I was thinking, 'My parents don't think so.' But Saint Golph was already wised up to my situation and said, 'It matters not the love you receive - but the love you give... only love and hate that separate us earthly heaven; without love we are nothing.'

I opened my eyes a bit and peeked at the statue. It was still on the ledge. I felt a little disappointed. He could have moved a little closer. I closed my eyes tight again and thought of his warm voice again, and my ears seemed full of his presence. Then he was talking to me again, 'Expect little from those who have little...expect still less from those who have much but care not to give anything; walk from those who wish to destroy your body and take your soul.

'I don't expect anything anymore,' I whispered into the night,' I think I am alone.' Then as an after thought, 'My parents aren't always nice. Do I walk away from them?'

'That decision is only yours to make.'

I thought I would ask him about Rock-girl, 'What about the girl, the one up by the knoll, is she the one?'

'You will know the one...only you will know.'

'She feels like the one.' I replied, 'but I haven't talked to her yet...and she hasn't talked to me.' I felt a bit stupid having said that.

There was something near perfect about Saint Golph. I know he was made of stone and sstanding on a ledge on the wall of the Cathederal but he was real, to me, not God exactly but damn well as near as you can get to him. Someone who'd never make you feel bad. The sort of guy you'd wanna be around if you were dying.

Doctors aren't always the best people to have around when you're dying. They shake their heads and say, 'It's not looking good.' Brian died that way, that's Justin's brother, with this doctor saying, 'It's not looking good.' Anyway he sure wasn't looking good. He died that night. I wish the doctor had said, 'He's got a few hours,' but he kept repeating, 'He's not gonna last the night.'

Anyway I wanted Saint Golph to keep talking. You have to be careful about talking too much and thinking about other things went a Saint talks to you. Sometimes they just go away without a word. It's not polite to talk first or interupt, the whole thing is on invitation, you have to let them do the talking.

His presence was surrounding me again and I reckoned it was a good time to thank him:

'Thank you Saint Golph.' I put my fingers together, 'Please help me.'

The next thing I felt his fingers on my head. He was right there. I promise. The Messiah himself touched me and my body tingled. I opened my eyes and it was raining. Hard. He had disappeared. I'm sure it was the rain that put him off. I could hear Saint Golph splashing down onto the york stone paviours. I was flushed hot and suffering; rain drops fell down my cheeks and they felt like tears which makes me feel weird like I was gonna cry, and I sort of went along with it all soaking wet and pretty well done in and alone and I thought perhaps it was all a bit stupid being out here.

The rain poured down across the big neon lights of the Blue Ding club. It was a welcome sight, One minute a blue neon light lit up 'Blue Ding Club' the next about five different coloured neons lit up a pretty girl wearing peacock feathers and twisting her half naked body.

The music inside sounded old fashion but inviting and I walked closer, hidden under the canopy stood a Doorman. No ordinary Doorman. He was the size of a mammoth.

'Can I go in?' I said. As I waited for him to answer I caught a glimpse of the packed bar all decked out with black walls and fancy red and blue lights. The band were on the far wall stage silhoueted by a big white glowing moon; gad, it all looked so cosy with the noise of the band and all; the guy on the symbols was really going for it.

The Doorman didn't say anything so I guessed he was gonna let me in but instead he wagged his finger and shook his head sympathetically like some old jovial retired boxer, 'No bro.'

'How old you gotta be?' I asked.

He didn't answer. He shook his head again and pointed down the road. I drifted off back into the drizzle and the sound of symbols faded away. The night was growing wet and miserable but I was determined not to back home.

A little way down the Avenue under a street lamp there was a rumpus going on. It looked like some black lady getting upset with this fella. She wore a belly dancing scarf with coins as a belt and it rang softly as she walked.

'Damit give me the money!'

'Ah,...fucka you too... black bitch!' The guy was coughing and spitting the road as he talked back to her. That really seemed to annoy her. It would have got me annoyed too.

'Ya come over here 'ere ya'arl fucka white trash and you're meat 'n tray.' Then she held the guy's black jacket and pushed and pulled him like a rag doll. She was strong as hell. He just shook around until he stumbled and fell on his knees - she pushed her stiletto into his ribs and he collapsed onto the tarmac but he just about managed to get himself back under control and on his feet again when she punched him in the shoulder really hard. This made him try and walk off. He really wasn't up for a fight. But he'd only gone a few feet away when I could tell she couldn't resist it, she came back and spat the old drunk guy right in the face. Then I could see the Ding Blue doorman coming over. He just stood there and didn't say anything. You could tell the old drunk had had enough of this rough cat treatment and ambled half looking at the doorman, mumbling some rubbish or other.

'Ya white fuckin' trash!' She shouted after him, but he didn't react, just staggering from side to side. Gad I hate swearing.

Then she looked over to me, 'An' you're lookin' at ya two toned fucka? Hey Winston,' now she was yelling across at the doorman, 'tell this lil' white trash to get his butt out it.'

She had her long brown finger pointing out at me while shaking a red purse in her other hand. She was really pissed off with everything. I was thinking what a dangerous son of a bitch but if you saw her in movies you'd have thought she was pretty funny doing the things she was doing. The doorman didn't say anything. It's like he'd seen it a million times before and probably knew the crazy cat anyway.

I looked up at her: 'Sorry...' I said, 'I just thought you...err...you needed help.'
Now she was closer she I could see she was over six foot. A giant brown chic. And as mean a looking as you'd ever see. Her hair was up in this heart shape that made her even more crazy looking but I can tell you that was the only funny thing about her. She looked as dangerous as hell.

'No...go fuck yourself lil' bro... okay.'

'Sorry.' I replied walking off. But she didn't leave it there.

'Hey...I'm talkin' to ya' boy!'

I looked round while trapsing off in the rain, I really didn't want to get belted by her. She was definitely up for it.

'Hey... dis no place for a kids to be out.'

'I've gotta go...sorry.' She was one of those nuts, I was thinking, that hang round the streets and have another guy with a gun on the corner. But she called me over again. What the hell was up with this chic?

Then it was her who came over. She put her arm around my shoulder, stopping me from walking and she stood there in the road holding me like she was my mother or something. I was waiting for the worst. I really reckoned she was going to slap me or kill me but her voice softened, 'Hey mama-boy... wanna cup of mama's coco?'

'Thanks but I gotta go...somewhere...I mean... gotta go home.' I tried to talk to her really nicely. It's better when you make nutters feel sorry for you. I could have cried too, right there in front of her. I could have gone the whole way and fainted too. I'm good at faking things. For two pins this sort of chic could've had a gun and blown me away. That's how I felt anyway. And I glanced around looking for her partner.

'Hey dat's not nice boy... speakin' to ya Mama like dat.'

'Sorry,' I said. Her hand now had gripped my elbow like a god damn vice. Then she held my hand.

'Eeeh...yeah lil' bro, even some trash got manners...some trash got no manners...you got manners... an' I'll never forget ya...'

She was half singing now. God she was one crazy cat. To be honest I think she was stoned out her head but at least she was easing up on her grip a bit.

Her face rocked from vampire to angel. You could smell expensive perfume, the perfume rich ladies wear when they go shopping in Lewis Mall at Christmas; the closer she got the more the alcohol kicked in which was pretty foul. It sort of puts you off someone. Cigarettes and alcohol and stuff. Her face came right into mine, really big, and her big afro hair touched me and white gleeming teeth spoke to me, 'What ya thinkin' lil' bro.'

'Dunno.' I replied. Her long red fingers nails touched my face and the next thing she was rubbing my ear lobe and whispering cuddly things girls do when they're bossing their teddy-bears. She was a psycho as hell and really starting to freak me, so I just kept walking but she still had hold my ear and talking: 'Heya serious...hey lil' britches...hey stop a moment for ya mama... fifty dollars and I'm ya mama's girl till da sun rises.'

Sometimes it's best to do the thing you know you shouldn't.

My red sneekers walked in time with her silvery boots and I made sure they didn't touch the lines on the pavement. A sort of good luck thing I had going.

To be honest it was pretty sleezy inside her apartment but I didn't expect much else really. It wasn't so much dirty and just everything was everywhere. The kitchen sink was full and washed black sheets were half hanging from the ceiling and stuff was scattered everywhere: shoes, lip-stick, make-up and some guys trousers lay scattered over lounge floor; but hanging up on a coat stand was the most beautiful black and turquoise dress. Coco Chanel. I really wanted her to put it on but I was too shy to ask as she was looking pretty serious eyeing me carefully as she placed a thick red elastic band around a wad of fifty dollar bills.

A thin black cat sat on the window cill purring.

'Ya got ya fifty dollars lil' bro?'

'Erm.. fifty?'

'Forty.'

She wasn't kidding. I wasn't exactly trying to bargain but I really just didn't expect her to ask like that. All upfront and tough. I wouldn't have asked her, but I handed her four big notes anyway.

'Cool apartment,' I lied.

'Do you have another bedroom?' I said.

'This 'ain't no hotel, ana’ what's sooo wrong with lil' mama's bedroom?' She was off on her teddy-bear voice again all coochy-coo as if I was some baby.

'Whatcha drink lil' britches, rum or whiskey?'

'Whiskey.' I replied. Ah geesh, I was beginning to feel tired and gave a hellava yawn.

‘Wait for mama honey...’

While she left the room with the money I stroked the thin black cat on the window cill and played with its tail. It looked up at me with eyes that were half in love until it jumped down and walked around my feet. Its tail was right up; but you know cats only want what they want; and I reckoned this one only really wanted me to let her out into the parking lot.

I heard the shower run and wondered what time it was. Lily's book was still inside my bendera pocket. I wondered if I should take it out and dry it on the radiator but thought against it. I might forget it. The note with her address on was safe in the middle of the book stuck down with tape. My trousers were still pretty damp from sitting out in the rain and the sound of the hot water splashing and steam coming out from the behind the door seemed inviting. I began to shiver. The white plastic wall clock said quarter to five.

She came out naked and sat on a comfy chair with her legs apart and said, 'Take ya shirt off honey an' dance for ya mama!'

She was a sure good looker but her thighs were hell of a big.



And I thought, what of it, I will dance, and anyway felt cool with all the whiskey in me even if my legs and arms just weren't going right; and she started killing herself laughing at me, so I reigned in my hands and pretended I was some singer singing in Las Vagas, all cool with 'I know what I'm doing attitude'; that is until she got up and started dancing like Ginger Rogers. Boy could she dance! And I thought what the hell I ain't a singer no more I'm that skinny guy who danced with Ginger and I jumped on the table from the sofa seat and jumped stright on her. She was so damn strong she caught me, looking really surprised and all. Then she held me up close all naked and started moving me the way she wanted and I was half getting the hang of it when the record finished and she disappeared into the shower.

'...Come in wit me honey-babe!'

I poked my head into the bathroom, 'Gee....'

'That's okay honey, come in,' she repeated.

It's okay, I'll wait...err...'till you're....'

'Ya catch ya cold out there lil' britches, yum cum in ‘ere wit all of nuthin' on right now and 'ave yourself a shower or you're on da floor tonight I’m tellin’ ya. I'm not wasting no hot water for some dum lil’ scat, you 'ear, it’s off in one minute... so get your lil' butt in 'ere now. An' turn da radio on honey-babe!’

‘Where’s...’

‘On da shelf next da fuckin' fire honey.’

A piano song belted out from the radio and Rhino began singingbut I reckoned she was making up the words as she went along.

Tired with a belly full of sherry her singing seemed pretty infectious so I sang along with her. I turned the radio up to hide my crap voice, took my trousers off and hung them over the radiator and ran into the shower to accompany her.

Rhino made space for me under the shower rose and for a brief moment we both stared at each other between breaths, then began singing again! The shower room got all steamed up as we carried on belting out this hell of an up beat song. Geesh, she looked so funny trying not get her heart shaped hair wet. We sang and laughed like two crazy cats as we soaped each other.

"What ya drinkin’, rum or whiskey?" She sang.

‘Whiskey!’ I shouted.

'Now don’t you ‘ave a... double wit’ me?'

'Yeah, double with you!'

She teased me, holding her liquor glass just out of reach. She finally let me have it and I drank it down in one. The Cuban dancer engraved on the side was naked. It probably had come from Cuba and wasn't some fake stuff from Walmart. Maybe Rhino was Cuban? I wasn't going to ask though. She really teased me like hell in that shower, propping up the soap in the holder then passing it over my head till I jumped and grabbed it. Then she made me drink another full glass but I coughed up half of it which made her only started rocking her hips some more and grinding her thighs and singing:

"We were mischievous and you were always wearing black."

I put my finger inside my black briefs and flicked them out singing, 'wearing black!'

She told me to turn around then shampooed my hair and her black fingers nails went down to my black briefs but I wouldn’t let her take them off.

She carried on singing and you know she wasn't that bad a singer either:

'We just got swallowed up.'

She sang each line first then we sang it again together.

'You know that I didn’t forget you,
We just got swallowed up,
But you know that I didn’t forget you,
We just got swallowed up by the whole damn world,
What ya thinkin’
Did ya miss me?
Always remember me.
I’ll never forget ya
You’re my joy always remember me.'

I was just killing myself larking about and singing in the shower with Rhino.

Gee, I don't know if I liked her more when she was laughing or when she just looked at me with that hell of big smile. Her teeth really were as white as snow. They really were. And I was still admiring her teeth when she stopped singing for a moment and said.

'Can you dance lil' bro?'

'Sure!' Well you know I couldn't friggin' dance but when you're in the shower and pretty well drunk I can tell you, you think you can - you think you can do anything! I started shaking just about every part of my body and bent right back like a belly dancer that seriously impressed her because she made some more space for me and I danced some more crazy stuff like an Indian war dance and she lent right against the wall so I could have some of the hot water too. Then I kinda fell forward and slid down her with my hands trying to cling around her silky rhino thighs. I dunno if I was just exhausted, drunk or what but I slid down into the shower tray and sat there looking up at her laughing while she took the shower rose in her hand and sprayed out the shampoo from my hair. And you know I couldn't of got up if I tried, my legs were like jello and my head just lolled against the shiney black and red wall tiles and I couldn't stop laughing. I don't know why I couldn't stop laughing but I just couldn't. And she just carried on spraying me all over until I got shampoo in my eye and she knelt down and wiped it away until the last of the suds just went around in circles and disappeared down the plug hole, and she kissed me on the lips, only for one moment. But it stopped me laughing.

Then she half fell over me as I lay curled up there; she stepped out leaving me in the tray with water still running down on me. I really wanted her to stay...

I think I must have fallen asleep laying in the shower tray because the next thing I was shivering and hella cold and Rhino was bent over me turning the shower lever off. The radio was off too and it was all quiet. She said nothing, just hooked me under her arms and sort of carried me out and threw me onto a yellow towel that lay on big the bed. I didn't want her to but she pulled my wet briefs off and began drying me off. I was just too tired to fuss. The bed was warm, I remember that. And I remember finding a pillow and her Rhino thighs were leaning over my hips and there were fingers everywhere but don't remember much else after.
It was cloudy outside and Rhino was fully awake.

'Hey whatcha thing in school,' she said shaking my head gently.

'Huh.' My head hurt.

'School's finished.' I replied wishing she wasn't so old and running my fingers through my hair. My head hurt so much.

'Ya like school... ?'

'Dunno...' I said nodding my head sideways, 'I dunno.'I really didn't want to talk about school.

'Ya dunno much about nuthin'...she said, 'Tell ya, lil' bro it's time to get ya lil butt out ma bed an' into yur britches....'

She raised her thighs around on the sheet and held my face in her hands. I really wanted her to hug me. She must have known because she gave me that biggest smile you could imagine. It was so big and so real. I'd changed my mind, she was a good sort really, once you knew that it wasn't so bad given her fifty dollars.

My trousers hanging on the radiator were warm as they slipped over my skin. As I looked myself in the mirror by the door I heard Rhino in the shower. As I opened the door I checked Lily's book was safe in my coat pocket, closed my eyes and kissed the air but the sky was grey and pretty determined to suffocate my happiness.

Shows how opening a door and looking up at one big cloud can change your whole mood just like that. One warm world closed while one cold lonely world opens.



Yeah, there was gloominess outside, a Squalor. Enough to make anyone depressed. It was different at night everything was just me and Rhino now there was cars and noises everywhere and bad street odours. I was on my own again. Really on my own. Ol' Brando and mother would be going through the roof. It's not like they would be going off their head because they loved me; they'd be going mad because I was the biggest friggin' liability in the city and Fenton Prep would want me out and the police who would have to search for me, take me to the station and lecture me on what I should do and what I shouldn't do. Everybody's god damn teaching these days and no one actually does anything. If I said I was going to the North Pole there would be a petition saying I shouldn't. There's a million people out there saying I shouldn't do things.

I guess it was pretty stupid, me going off like this, but to be honest when you don't love someone what's the point of staying and listening to their crap every day? It was depressing thinking about home after Rhino thighs had made me so happy. Now it was over she wanted me out and I probably would never see her again. That was depressing. I sort of half wanted to tell her everything and ask her to be my friend but if I did she wouldn't like me. I guess she knew something was up but I think she didn't want to get into all that kinda stuff. She'd probably seen a thousand depressed bastards walking in and out her door.

I did want a friend though. I really did, and buying a friend wasn't the same. I know it's silly but not having anyone at all is pretty hard to bear at my age.

Everyone wants you in their life if you have something they want and then they make a thousand excuses when they've found someone better. No one wants you when there's nothing left. You've given your all and now left floating out there in the universe like some dumb ass feeling crap.

There really is something about having your real mom. I've never had one and I guess I never will now. My head was hurting, sitting there on the stone steps outside Rhino's apartment getting a wet ass again. I glanced back but Rhino's door was shut and she wasn't peering out the window either. I had nothing. For a moment I thought I might fall to pieces. Something inside kept tellin' me I was gonna die early. I saw my whole life flashing past a million times like the playing of a sad song a hundred times all starting at different times. Flashing past. Knives slashing at me. And now there was only one song playing. One voice. A haunted requiem for a dream.

I had to stand up quickly, pick up a few pepples and chucked them down the road. Know that I was here. Sane.

I was tempted to go back to Black Mammoth and hit him in the face just so I could let him kill me. The Blue Ding Club wasn't that damn hot anyway no matter what Justin said; I never saw what there was in tap-dance and hoofing anyway; clipping your heels up and down like you're trying to hammer a nail into the floor. Then when two of them start hoofing and singing the whole damn theatre goes crazy. Pretty over rated if you ask me all that jack-ass entertainment stuff. But I guess there are a few good singers. Singers that make you sad as hell when they start singing and the more you listen to them the more desperate you get to feel even more friggin' miserable; I'm not sure how those singers do it but they do.

Two screeching seagulls swooped down and hopped along the sidewalk, picking at an old thin brown paper bag that was being tossed by the breeze, floating and parachuting down like a weighty feather. Funny, seagulls, making all that noise and for no reason. But a hummingbird, I can watch a hummingbird all day; don't ever kill a hummingbird, I'll never forgive you.

Tillmock is a small city that acts big. The bus station clock is massive. There was no mistaking it was nine fourteen. The terminal two bus for The Hills was not going to depart until ten fifty-five so there was time to go across to the snack kiosk then phone home; I grabbed the receiver in one of those old phone boxes and dialled home but there was no one in so while chomping on my tuna and mayo sandwich I left a message:

‘Sam here; sorry about all this...I erm...I really did want some fresh air last night. I’m okay now and I erm...I'm coming back, but I’ve sort of planned to go for a walk today... in the Hills...hope you don’t mind...I’ve erm...heard the weather’s gonna be good again.'

I contemplated ending the call by saying, ‘I love you’ but then I thought they might think I was taking the piss. Anyway I fancied being like Jesus today; saying the truth, even if I got hanged for it.

When you’re on a boring bus, one of the old ones that doesn’t go between cities and you’re tired, it’s hellava nice having a massive bar of chocolate in your pocket. I’ll be a fat bastard by the time I’m fifteen. You sort of can sleep on a bus but not the same sort of sleep as when you’re in your bed. You wake up to all sorts of noises and bumbs. Well that’s exactly how it was as the bus left the city to go up to The Hills. And there was this old bald twat across the opposite seat that was annoying me. His head was laying against the glass window and legs turned toward the central isle. His eyes weren't exactly looking at me but his mouth was. That always a sure sign of a pervert. Hellva twat. But I couldn't tell the old geezer to turn his legs around, he might have had arthritis or something.

They call them The Hills. And in The Hills there is a mountainous ridge that runs along the coast and it's called the Stretch. The Stretch has no beaches just jagged steep cliffs and as you go inland there’s no real fields just rough high mountainous moorland with a few farm sheep and wild goats. For some reason the sea is always rough along the Stretch; something to do with height of the sea-bed and stuff. Surfing was banned along the Stretch a couple of years ago after two surfers died in one week, just got pounded against the rocks. To be honest ol' Brando's only ever taken us there twice and mother was sick both times. Ol' Brando was making her look over the cliff and she just threw up. The second time he was convinced she had vertigo and made her hold the hand rail. Well, she puked again and the wind blew it back all over our sandwiches.

But you'd have thought people would love it in The Hills. Wilderness and all that. But when we were there it was all pretty bleak and ol' Brando went crazy because a Volvo lorry got stuck on a bend. It had a sort of trailer thing behind and this trialer bit was going off the edge. Only one wheel. But the driver was scared out of his pants and wouldn't move it until this big pick-up truck with a crane came and towed it back onto the road.

Well as far as I could work out Lily lived along the Stretch at a place called Indigo Cove and I reckoned it would be about and hour and twenty minutes on the bus.

I was almost asleep on the bus and everything seemed to make sense; I realised I was mumbling in my head about everything as if I was alway right and the only one that had an opinion but actually I was giving up my parents, my home and everything for someone I didn't know and probably wouldn't like me just because I wanted to give her a book that may not even be hers. I suddenly felt how dumb I was. You see if you think you are like me you are ill. It's not that I think I'm ill it's ol' Brando and the doctor. Doctor Theo Van Bergan. I could pretend to be normal but if you always want me to tell the truth, as I see it, then the doctor says I have 'an issue'. An Issue. I looked that up in the dictionary and it still doesn't make any sense to me. If he said I has epilepsy, dyslexia or was going blind I would understand. But an Issue. And issue that has to be addressed doesn't make sense. And I told him that. I said, Doctor, 'what is an issue that has to be addressed?' And he showed me the answers I had given on the form. If I was a 'regular kid' they would be different. 'So I am not a regular kid,' I said. He said, 'No, you're not.'

'Then what am I,' I asked.

'Have you heard of Autism?'

'No.'

'Well', young man,' he said, ' your brain is veering into autism and you are isolating yourself from your friends, family and society. And I'm here to help you. To make sure you stay with us.'

'Oh,' I replied.

But his forms didn't make any sense to me. They were only paper. Why should I talk to paper squares? If I want to talk I will. If not I will talk to myself, in my head. Doesn't everyone do that?

After an hour we approached The Hills and began ascending the hillside and I could see the sea where, on the horizon, heavy clouds were drifting and white sea horses playing hide and seek; drops of rain slid down my window and the bus carried on rattling.





The metal speaker, the one screwed to the roof over my head, buzzed and so I stood up and shook it but it carried on buzzing. I hate anything buzzing. It reminds me of flies.

The DJ on the buzzing radio had an English accent and was talking about a guy who was in jail having done some christ's knows what thing like murdering his girlfriend. I didn't hear that bit too clearly because of the crazy buzzing and wheels that rattled on the corners. Then they started playing classical music. Usual sort of classical crap.

We trundled along the cliff for the best part of half an hour before the driver turned around and pointed out with his hand:

'Hey kido, Indigo Cove's over there! Can't get closer...drop you off just over there.' He pointed with his finger.

'Okay, thanks.' I said.

I was left standing on a tuff of dry heather with black smoke chucking off into the distance, a million miles from anywhere. Only a solitary winding footpath led over the next ridge to where the driver reckoned Indigo Cove was. The hills to the south were lined with trees which came right down almost to the edge of the cliff. The sun seemed bigger somehow as came out the clouds and edged itself nearer to the sea.

I thought of Lily, her book, and my heart started to jangle again. What would I do if she wasn't in? Leave her book on the doorstep? Perhaps write a note in it? Yes, I would write a proper note, really formal, and sign it the way the President of the United States would:

'I'm forever yours, faithfully - Samuel Mudd.'

As I turned to face the sea I fancied my tongue could taste salty spumes of foggy spray flying up from the big green waves buffetting the jagged rocks below. I wouldn't want to fall off there. I couldn't help thinking my Mom would of hated this place.

And I forgot to ask when the bus returned to take me home. On putting ol' Brando's hat on I made my way between the gorse bushes that stood around like old women with crooked necks and lazy dogs watching the foggy orange sun set below small black clouds. A rainbow arced its face across the hill. Further out on the horizon one big black cloud was taking over the sky. The animal trodden pathway led to the next stony ridge and just for a second or two I stomped my foot like a rabbit for good luck because my arm starting shaking. Just the left one. I couldn't stop it. And my numb little finger, I wanted to bite it. Not the cold. I'm not a lunatic. It was half drizzling and before I knew it raining. Not being able to think. I think I collapsed, laying there on thorny grass, everything spinning and spinning, round and round, you wouldn't believe how it all span round; - and the rain fell to a strange beat and waves crashed their symbols onto the rocks until it sounded like Butch Cassidy and the mad-hatters orchestra; rain drops dancing, falling into my mouth.

But I had to stand up because the waves wanted me to join in and dance so I conducted them along the cliff edge, a waltz or something crazy, I really can't remember; but I was falling about all over the place half expecting mad Alice but so was she; and my eyes were spinning with the clouds and I couldn't help how easy it was to believe in heaven when my head was bent skyward and hell when looking over the cliff. How I wanted love. So bad. And so I kept dancing, conducting the waves with mad Alice sitting with her thin long legs clapping and clapping. Then she put her finger to her red lips and my whole mad world stopped, for at that moment ol' Brando's hat spun off my head over the cliff; I was left standing in the rain watching the hat tumble down, down, down, tossed by the waves against the rocks. I hardly knew what to do. Some things aren't worth saving; everything felt pointless. Foggy it got so foggy. And Mad Alice was no where to be seen, all mixed up with the heavy drizzle rolling in from the sea.

I felt shy about approaching Lily's house. Perhaps I should just walk home instead. Cadge a lift or just wait for the next bus tomorrow morning. Yeah, I could have walked away. I should have done. But I didn't.

Tired, I curled up on the softest tuft of dried grass I could find and pulled my coat around me facing the sea with a gorse bush behind my head and fell asleep.

I had this dream...



...I wasn't just dreaming about my craziness for Lily; no fucking or anything like that - it was really the other way round - time was playing its game all backwards as only time can, and she was in love with me. Really stone in love with me. I mean totally gone on me and I was trying all the time to pretend to be really cool like one of those old movie dudes like James Dean but inside every ounce of me was crazy as hell over her.

Something had to happen.

For a split moment, in my dream, she changed her face into the face of another girl who was trying to get me to like her. She had this great figure and fairy like face; then her face changed again, this time into a thin girl jumping with blue ballet shoes; but before I could say boo she turned into another and one after the other they all tried to get me to go with them, to take me away to their worlds; and all them were trying their real damnest to look all cute with extras like wings and roses, curled up with pretty smudged tears and all that stuff I would normally fall for - but to be honest they meant nothing to me. Not the slightest little thing. Temptation didn't get the better of me because they were all fake, every pretty head last head was so damn full of fake thoughts, crimpt hair and lipstick; so Lily's face came back again and I really wanted to hug her. We sat on the beach, the orange sun making her face glow and there was the lightest downy blonde hair shimmering on her tanned arms. We skimmed peebles across the flat sea water. Smooth peebles, ones you can hold real easy. I was so happy. So happy. Lily next to me throwing her stone. Then I threw mine. I had pale blue stones; she had pale pink ones and I was trying to hit her stone before it hit the water. When my blue stone hit her pink stone they both exploded and there was this fantastic bright yellow and orange lightening that flashed over the sea, maybe over the horizon and around the world I don't know; but we weren't frightened because it was sort of like a bolt of biblical love and it just made us closer, part of the universe. Part of the whole damn universe.

And every time our stones collided Lily leaned closer into me, tighter and tighter against me, right up close inside my jacket, pushing herself backwards and forewards against my ribs. And that's how the dream told me she was really in love with me.

After a while her thin body stopped pushing and she rested her shoulders back on my lap and looked up at me - and she was still wearing my cowboy hat; boy, did she look swell with the brim of the hat flipping up and down in the breeze and all. If anyone had the look of love Lily had.

It was all over so fast. I could not believe how fast it was all over; tears fell down her cheek, slipping into the side of her open mouth. I don't know why I noticed it but her tongue was red like wet poppy paint and through her tangled hair around her face I saw her soft eyes and I knew she was going to say something.

'Why did you do it?'

'Do what? I never...'

'But you did...'

Her head tilted to the side like a windmill with her fingers half spread open covering her eyes. She burst into tears.

Boy, how could some one so sad look even more beautiful. But she did; and she dropped her hands down by her side and I so wanted to be inside her head, and I drew up close, my eyelids brushing like butterfly kisses against her cheek. I couldn't bering myself to kiss her properly. To be honest I didn't know how and didn't want to wreck anything. I swear I could smell sweet honey scent though. You know the orange blossom scent.

Then Lily covered her face again with her brown thin fingers - my dream told me this was a girl-thing she was doing so I tried to pull her fingers away but she wouldn't let me. So I held her waist. She wriggled away from me and when she was free she stood up and started walking along the yellow beach toward the the steep sandy cliff pathway that led up to the top of the brown cliff. now I could hear the waves. Funny I couldn't hear them before. But it was like she didn't love me anymore. Christ the whole thing was killing my emotions. I felt I was dying seeing her walking off like that. I'd never done no wrong. What the hell it is I do. I wanted to her. I wanted her to be my friend. My best friend. I followed her but she began scrambling up the cliff side. At the top of the ridge I caught up with her and we were both heaving with exhaustion and standing at the top staring at each other. When you want someone so badly you'll do anything I promise. And I wanted her so badly. To touch her again. But my dream told me she'd always be one step away and one second from loving me.

It was shit dream to be honest. And more it went on the more shitty it got.

But then it got worse. She walked closer to the cliff edge, her white dress blowing in the wind. I stood next to her right on the very edge and for some stupid reason I said, 'I'll jump to prove I love you.'

She looked at me and replied, 'You won't jump... but I will.' And with that she jumped, just like that. Christ it waa awsome her flying over the edge - no noise or scream or nothing, right onto to the rocks below.

'Nooooo...' I cried. ' Stay with meeee!'

My voice echoed a million times until it petered out into a wilderness of nothingness; and my whole world fell silent. No sound of waves. Nothing. I rose up and was floating like a condor in circles around looking down on Lily as she lay face down in the sea, her white dress and golden hair swept around her and being tossed like a rag doll onto the jagged rocks back and forth until she finally disappeared under the great foaming sea. Gone. I wanted to jump and be with her but I couldn't. I was really scared. I hated myself for being so pathetic and not jumping. I hated myself so much. And I began to hate how love could do this to me. I shut my eyes and my knees collapsed onto the stoney soil, my head leaning over the cliff; and it seemed so real as she rose from the sea into my head saying she knew now I was stone in love her.

Now she was in my head and she was saying she knew I loved her because I had told her how stoned in love I was with her.

Then I woke up.

And I was repeating to myself, 'Lily be with me, with me for ever, I'm really stone in love with you.'

And I had to jump on one foot twenty-one times to stop it all. I was pretty relieved when all of this came to an end. The dream that is.

Christ was I glad that was over.

The fingers on my left hand began trembling again and my head hurt so much. Please don't think I'm crazy, I'm not, really I'm not, I promise. I looked around me and I was alive. Awake. I suddenly felt great to be alive like when all the notes get played right. Mozart must have felt that a million times. Everything just right, like a humming bird.

If I was clever I'd know lots but I don't care too much about being a doctor or dentist or something like that. I know that will never happen. If I had no problems I could write better. But my brain doesn't work properly. I see things but when I look at them again they're different. Do you know what I mean. I tried explaining it to Justin once but he said I just want to take the floor and have it all to myself. But I can't do normal school stuff. I don't try to come last. It's really that bad though. I miss out words all the time and stuff; say things I understand but no one else seems too. I know that because they just look at me like I'm some sort of nut. But I promise I'm not. Everything is not in the right order. I don't understand why; I don't think I'm mad though. I can draw and remember everything inside peoples houses, even little things like where all the cob-webs are and everything on the kitchen table. I don't even have to think about it. It just there inside my brain.

But I promise I'll tell you the truth; and what happened to me next is true, and if you don't believe me that's okay.It's okay but it's not alright. People don't always believe me. But when they say they don't believe me it just makes me really not want to tell anyone anything. I mean why should I tell someone something in my head? It's my head. It's mine. And I don't want some stranger coming into my head. But I guess I have to tell you this. I sort of have to otherwise I won't get out of this place. So I have to. But I would rather just be left alone.

And no matter how many times I try to explain this I know you're not going to believe it. So it's all stupid. It hardly makes sense to me if I'm perfectly honest. So all this stuff makes me wanna be alone. I don't even want to have a name or a home. If you could just let me be a drifter and die in some hole somewhere when I'm seventeen or something I'd be happy. Yeah, that'll be fine by me. And please don't let them come hunting me down and saving me and all that crap.

It was getting pretty well dark so I trod slowly down the steep path to the farmhouse where Lily lived. There was no going back.

Chapter Two