Oasis: Time Flies...

Columbia

I bunked off school, went out for dinner and never went back. I don't need school, I'm destined to be world famous, don't know how yet (I'm not really good at anything) but it's gonna happen so school was just a waste of time for me.

I went round Paul's flat, he's my oldest brother, like six years older than me and a proper lad. I hated it when he moved out of Mam's house, leaving me with Noel, my other brother. It's just me and Mam now, I like it like that 'til she finds out I'm in trouble. I'm always in trouble with someone.

Noel let me in giving me some lecture about wagging school, like he can talk. He was never there either and then he went and flour bombed a teacher. I wish I'd seen that, nothing interesting happened there since that. I got instant cred cos I was his brother though, not that I needed any help in getting popularity. Everyone loved me.

"Shut up, man. You dunno what you're fucking on about." I told him, getting him to shut his trap.

He whacked me around the back of my head (not hard, I barely noticed) for talking back so I pushed him back before we went to Paul.

I was already getting as tall as him and stronger than him, he was meant to be an an adult but we were never going to stop fighting, we were only messing though.

"Still don't think he's old enough." Noel commented. "He'll go ratting to Mam."

"I'm not going to fucking tell Mum that you, that we do coke." I told them, getting frustrated with him. "She don't know I've smoked for fucking ages."

I hated him still thinking I was a child and treating me like one. I wasn't a kid, I stopped being a kid ages ago.

"He'll only get it somewhere dodgy if it's not from us." Paul reasoned, he was always the smart one.

I'd smoked weed and sniffed glue before, they were always the ones to introduce me to it. My mates offered loads, acid and that but I didn't trust them enough. If I had a bad trip or something my brothers would tell me everything's alright, my mates would just laugh.

"Yeah, I will." I told them, determined.

"He's fourteen though." Noel argued.

He was the one who got me to come over to try it in the first place, the stupid, little dickhead, twat.

"So were you!" we pointed out at the same time.

"Mam'll kill us."

"She's not going to find out!" I insisted, hating them for thinking they had superiority over me just cos they were older. "I'm not a fucking rat!"

They gave in and we sat on the floor around Paul's coffee table. Noel passed me a bag of white powder that he'd pulled from his jeans and they just watched me.

I didn't know what to do with it, of course I didn't fucking know but they just kept watching me, waiting for me to admit it. It was just in a zip bag thing and we needed in lines, I knew that from films and that.

"What am I meant to fucking do?" I asked. "And I fucking know you snort it before you say that!"

I threw it on the table and Noel took it. I watched carefully as he dumped the powder on the table, grabbed a razor blade that was sat on the table and started cutting it up. He divided it into three piles, pushed one towards me and put the other two into parallel lines.

"Put it in a line and snort it." he instructed passing me the blade.

I did it much more carefully than he did, making my first line perfectly straight. Paul passed me a rolled up fiver.

It burnt my nose like sniffing glue did.

"Go on what's it like?" Noel asked before they snorted theirs.

I didn't get why he was asking that, he did it all the time. I didn't know what it was like but it went straight to my head.

"It'll be like having a cuppa before you know it, Kid." he added before I had a chance to get a word in.

"I can't tell you." I just felt a bit numb, my nose and my mouth and that.

"Give him a minute." Paul said.

I didn't know what we were meant to be waiting for. In the movies everyone goes wild on this shit, I couldn't see that happening to me. All I felt was my hand rubbing my nose, I couldn't leave it alone.

"He's failing at it." Noel chuckled.

He was really getting on my fucking nerves. "What am I supposed to be fucking feeling then?"

"It's not done anything to him cos he already goes round as a cocky little shit thinking he's invisible." Paul said, nudging Noel.

"Yeah, told ya there's no point wasting it on him." Noel laughed.

"Look at our little Liam's eyes, though." Paul pointed out, laughing with him.

I felt way more alert to their shit but I didn't know if it was the coke or just how good they were at pissing me off. I didn't find things funny like they were. I was always nothing like them, we weren't even the same on the same drug, if we didn't look so alike I'd think we weren't related.

"He's got fucking massive eyes." Noel agreed.

"I hate you two." I told them but I didn't mean it, my mood was turning, I was starting to be happy like them and I wanted to chat shit.

"That's new." Paul commented. "Too bad we love you, baby brother."

I kind of looked down at my feet for a moment, I felt weird, the false calm. I suddenly didn't feel so pissed off at them and I just wanted to talk. "I'm supposed to be in Maths now."

"He's there." Noel said and they smirked at each other, massive ass, ear to ear smirks. "The only Maths you need is how many grams."

"I don't like Mr Jenkins, he could use some of this." I told 'em.

"He's fucking ancient." Paul remembered. "He couldn't handle it, it'd kill him."

We talked and talked and fucking talked.

For some reason I kept going on and on about teachers at school and they didn't mind, how fucking boring is that? At the time it didn't feel boring, it felt like the most important discussion ever.

The high felt disappointing if anything but they assured me their firsts on coke were too but I didn't have a shitty, heavy come down either so I couldn't complain.

Mam never found out I did coke that day. Paul just told her I went round his for tea and slept over cos of some bollocks about school being closer, as if I'd choose to be closer to school.