The Other Harry #Wattys2015

Chapter 1

2013

-Chapter 1-

My brother Joey's dropping things off the side of the balcony again. Cigarette in one hand, the last of a flat beer in the other, he holds the rim of the bottle over the edge and waits. As if he can hear the countdown in his head.

"One of these days you're gonna really hurt someone," I say, swigging cheap wine, flicking ash from my cigarette onto the tiled floor.

He just smiles as the countdown hits zero and drops the glass. We listen for the sound of shattering but it never comes.

Just a dull thud. Followed by another.

And then there's only the roar of traffic, sirens in the distance and the sound of kids out drinking White Lightning on a street corner nearby.

"Oh shit!"

Joey leans over the balcony, craning his neck to get a view of the pavement below us and I knew it, I always knew it. However the desire to say 'I told you so' disappears pretty quickly when I look too.

There's not much of a view from our flat; with the river Thames obscured from view behind a wall of other high rises. It's mostly other people's windows and porches, rusting push chairs propped up against doors, battered lawn furniture and rudies sprawled along the spindly metal balustrades blowing out the musky scent of weed into the night air. Above all of that, you can see the chimneys of Battersea power station- the ugliest building, I swear to god; those four turrets piercing the sky like four hands giving us the finger.

On the street below, we see a boy lying face down on the tarmac, bottle beside his head.

Leaping over fairy lights and fag ends and all the rest of our rubbish just as soon as I spot him, I race through the flat and down the communal staircase. My phone is pressed to my ear and the minute I get downstairs I hit the number for the emergency services and the call button. But Joey is close behind me, plucking the phone from my fingers.

"What are you doing? He needs an ambulance! I can't even, Joey...you bloody moron ,you..."

"H-He'll be fine. He'll probably just walk it off."

"Yeah he looks about ready to go walking," I snap, gesturing to the prone figure. Never mind the fact that for some reason he hasn't got shoes on.

There's a large mental ward not far from our flat, I reason, thinking about how sometimes the residents escape to wander confused around the basketball courts on the estate until someone brings them back.

"Well then we could just take him back to the flat til he feels better and give him a cup of tea?"

I give him a look that could curdle milk.

"Tish, do you want me to got to prison?"

Sighing heavily, I reach out for the phone. "I won't say anything, obviously, and you can make yourself scarce but I'm calling an ambulance right now."

All I'd wanted to do tonight was watch Eastenders and drink a little cheap wine while my Mum's out. My little brother killing a mental patient was not really part of that plan.

Bending over before I dial, I check to see if the boy's still breathing and try to roll him onto his side. I saw an advert for CPR once on the telly and figure I can probably give it a go. Something about pressing down on the chest to the beat of Staying Alive?

However, upon turning him, I discover that he is indeed still breathing as well as three other pretty startling things;

A) That this boy is wearing nothing but a grey trench coat.