Prologue:
Double math’s on a Tuesday morning - absolute bore! Yesterday I thought life wouldn’t get a worse since I moved into this crowded city but when I see my dad (well, my step dad) knocks on the window I know that life can only get worse. This could mean one of two things, either someone died or worse or that I’m in deep, deep trouble.
The first thought that pops into my head is “Please don’t anyone be dead, I can’t take much more of this!” I think of my best friend, Ryan. Rhiane, my big headed sister, and my cousin, Jess. My sister and my cousin are the only true, well, kinda true family that I have in this world and I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to them. I imagine them lying dead on the cold ground, lifeless lumps of meat waiting to be buried. I don’t deal well with death, not after… My hands start to shake and I feel the color of my face going pale, this reminds me of the time my uncle Dan was buried. The tears, the sadness, the pain…
Then I see Grayham, I mean ‘dad’s’ face, red with anger. A part of me relaxes when I see his face. I know that I just want to run out of the classroom and go to a secluded spot where no one could find me. I had known what I had done but I just didn’t want to face it. I took a deep breath, rolled my eyes and said “Why isn’t there a corpse when you need one.”
Chapter One: The waiting game
The waiting room. None of us are talking. My step-mom, Jane has joined the already infuriated dad and are just staring at me, staring at me as if at any moment now they’re going to slit my throat.
“You may come in now.” Says the receptionist with her annoying, metallic tone in her voice and one by one, Jane up front, me in the middle, and dad up the rear slowly plod into the realm of the hellish head teacher, Mr. Kondillan. There is another boys parent’s (Zach Didon’s, but we call him Zach Dido because whenever he sings, which he always does, he does like a girl) in the room ranting about how ‘things like this shouldn’t happen in a public school’. I’d had a fight with him because he was making fun of my real mom and dad. I’d obviously won. Fly kicked him in the face and made sure he didn’t get back up, which he didn’t. To be honest I kind of feel sorry for Mr. Kondillan, sitting there like a pupil himself, having to listen to someone ask if this will go on and obviously saying it wouldn’t. Liar! Of course he knew this was happening, he tried stopping it before but miserably failed. It’s always the same.
Hey, it’s the circle of life” and “boys will be boys!” I’m listening to him now using the ‘It’s better doing it here than going on the streets and causing a riot’ one today, not like he’d tried it a million times with the other parents. Obviously Grayham and Jane must know about that, they were my age… once, and they never stop reminding me. And anyway they should understand after all that I’ve been through. I wouldn’t mind them having a go at me at home where I could shrug it off and we would all forget about it, but no. They had to do it In the middle of the head teacher’s office where it wouldn’t be forgotten. They’re out of line, and I’ve got to stop it. But I can’t tell them, can I. I can’t just say “Oi! Mother! Shut yer trap and keep it like that! I silently laugh at the thought, and just at the moment that Grayham has just stopped to have a brief pause and catches me.
“What are you laughing at?” And then she’s off again about how we can get put in an early grave and blah, blah, blah, bloody blah! BORING!
The shouting in that nightmare I had at school is nothing compared to the nightmare I had at home, and the boring talk afterwards in my room with dad saying all about how it doesn’t make me tough to fight and that him and Jane are trying to do the best for me, even after all that’s happened. I just want to punch him in the face right now and tell him that he’ll never understand. Now I’m just lying in my bed dreaming of ripping Zach’s head of and feeding it to the hellfire that he came from. But I can’t focus on that now, I need to get some sleep before the real torture starts, the next day at school. I see it whenever anyone gets busted big time. First it’s with the silent sniggers, then they talk behind my back, and then they hate me all together. No, that wouldn’t happen to me, I’m one of the most popular in my year because I’m the new kid, I can’t believe that all of this started over a movie.
Chapter 2: What's Happened to me?
It was like it was all happening again, the past year whizzing around in my head. I remember when I was back at home, my first home, my real home, just playing football with my dad in the back garden, mum making the most delicious apple crumble, and Jennifer singing into her hair brush to girls aloud (Absolutely rubbish I might add).But then they all went to see a movie which I wasn’t allowed to see.
“No you can’t fake to look eighteen, you’ll obviously get caught. Anyway, it’s not your type of movie.” I had to stay at my auntie Ellen’s. I waited for them to pick me up for hours after the movie. I didn’t really like aunt Ellen, she always smelled bad and had that freaky stuffed animal collection in the porch. So I kept calling all of them, but no answer.
“Oh, there’s no need to worry, they’ve probably just got stuck in traffic and still have their phones off.” I should have knew something was wrong, go up there and try to save them, when Ellen dropped me off at my house to check if they hadn’t forgotten about me, that’s when it happened. The police were there thriving. I remember the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end instantly. A cold, numbing feeling ran through my body like walking through the Arctic Circle for days.
“Are you Gregg Flock?” A policeman asked me in a solemn tone and a frown on his face.
“I need to have a bit of a talk with you.” I already knew what he was going to say to me, I sensed it in the air, I knew. Suddenly a loud ringing sound came to my ears, which I later knew was my own screams. I soon blacked out and slipped in and out of sanity and reality. After a mental analysis at god knows where, I had to move to a psychiatrist centre with my ‘helper’ Mr. Thompson. It was hard for the couple months, trapped in that tiny white cage. Mocking me and imprisoning my, oppressing me. In the end I was forced to get used to the fact that my mother, father and sister were gone. They would never come back. I never even got the chance to say my last goodbye to them.
In a sick way there was a good side to my close family’s death and all that I cared about. I went to the bank one day to take out some money when I found out that there was a will for a huge family fund which I now could dip into anytime I needed, I did use some of it for my therapy and for my foster home which I only lived in for three months until Grayham and Jane came there and took me away from, there. That’s when I met my new sister, Rhiane. She was really nice to me, I like that. She was one of the main reasons why I wanted to live with Grayham and Jane.
When I left everyone was sad to see me go because I had made a load of mates there, thanks to my ‘help’. My best friend there was called Sam, she was ten years older than me and was something like a big sister figure to me. I guess I needed her to survive in such an unsafe area the foster building was in. At first I wished that I could have stayed at the foster home and stayed with Sam and all of the other kids who understood me and cared. Grayham and Jane grew on me and in a few weeks I felt like I was a part of the family. I got new clothes and a new room which was better than the one that I had at my old house. I got all that I wanted and life was starting to look good again. I felt a smile spread across my face and a warm sensation filled my body.
