Phoenix and the Bag Man

Chapter 1 : The Burnt House

You said write the story tell the truth and I thought whose truth but I said how will I know the end and you answered the story will tell you when so

"You're 'dopted."

"No."

"Yes, you are."

The kid was about seven or eight. His clothes were too big to fit and he sat astride a child's BMX. It was pink and it was blocking the pavement.

"You're from No. 33," he said.

"Yes. It's my home."

"It's a home alright, a home for losers!" He span the bike around and rode away, the old bike squeaking. He shouted over his shoulder.

"LOSER!"

I gave him the finger.

The builders moved out and we moved in just a couple of months before. Mum and Dad were, are, short-term foster parents. They work with kids in care. There's usually one or two staying in the house, sometimes for a few days, sometimes for a few weeks before they get moved on. They're nearly always much younger than me. Some are cheeky, some stroppy, most are just angry. People think that because they are fostered they must be problem kids. Believe me, some are. Albert says he wouldn't trust them with a barge pole, whatever that is.

So people often think I'm fostered, one of Mum's 'projects', as Dad calls them, because I live at No.33. What I know is, back then, I didn't like it.

The house is big, old and made of brick in a row of other big, old made-of-brick houses, all with iron railings outside. We live in one half and Albert lives in the other half. He's been there forever, Albert. There's a big garden and loads of rooms, which was why Mum insisted that we move there. More space for projects, Dad had said. We had the attic done out so we had even more room, but it was so good I said:

"I want it."

After a bit of heavy sulking I got my way. So, I've got tons of space, my own bathroom, bedroom and study - and best of all it's just me up there, no projects, so I've got privacy. "I need it to study," I'd said. Dad backed me up. Nothing terrified him more than the thought of me ending up as a project.

I was on my way home, a bit late because I'd been scanning some pictures after school. Photographs. I can't afford a fancy digital camera, like a 35mm SLR, and the cheap digitals don't record enough detail if you want to blow the pictures up really big. So what I do is this. I use my Dad's old film camera. The lens is brilliant and if I use colour slide film, I can put the positives in the school's slide scanner and scan them on the highest setting, put them on our computer at home, edit them and print them out. I can get amazing detail, and even better, if you blow them up on screen you can see things in the pictures you never knew were there, as clear as day.

I take my camera everywhere I go, hidden in an old army shoulder bag I use for school. I love taking photos, not of my mates like everyone else, but of things. Scenes. I love the shapes, the colours, the light and shadow and most of all the stories hidden in every picture. There's always something.

I'd been taking pictures of an old burnt-out house on the edge of the trading estate. It was like something out of a horror movie; abandoned in a scruffy fenced-off corner, rubbish and junk tipped all round it, big 'Keep Out' signs plastered all over the broken-down fence. I was trying to shoot it at different times of the day, from exactly the same angle. I wanted to take pictures like Joel Sternfield, Stephen Shore or Joel Meyerowitz. I'd found them on the net. You should look at their photos, and then you'd see. There's something about those pictures, it's like seeing a whole story in one word. Mind you, I think it's easier in the States, everything there looks like something off a movie set. I'd sneak over, skirting the Toptree Estate, which, let's be honest, is a bit rough, and take two or three shots. I'd been four times and developed and scanned one film already. In almost every picture, I swear, when I enlarged one particular upstairs window on screen, I could see the shape of a person, and it was in a slightly different place each time.