Blaze

Erin thought it was a large rock at first, jutting out of the boggy mud on March Fen. She never noticed one that far out on the bog before. In all the sketches she had drawn of the misty terrain it was in none of them. But as she stood on the stony path, squinting at it it moved. Erin blinked unsure whether her eyes were playing tricks or if it was just the way the sunlight hit the water around it. It was so far in the distance she wasn't sure if her eyes were playing tricks on her. But the next time it moved it was unmistakeable.
"Hello. Is there anybody there?" she said.
A gentle, whimpering whiny filtered through the air.
"My god, it's a horse," Erin spluttered. Without a second thought she dropped her bag and her sketch pad and gingerly navigated her way across the soft bog, feeling for firmer mounds to step on and hoping she wouldn't succumb to a similar fate.
She knew there were Konik ponies on the Fen. She had seen them before and even sketched one once; a placid creature with a black blaze down its tawny face. When she finished her sketch the pony approached and gave her and the picture a lick with its long, meaty tongue, a stamp of approval, Erin had thought.
As she neared the stricken animal she realised it was the same one she had drawn.Her heart poured with pity.
"Hey Blaze," Erin said softly as she crouched down on a firm mound by the horse's head.
From what Erin could see the horse had been stuck for some time. Its efforts to wiggle free dug it deeper into the jaws of the mud. It's legs were completely submerged along with most of its body. All that stood proud of the bog was the rise of its rump, its withers, head and neck. It was caked in black mud and so exhausted it could barely raise its head.
"D'you remember me, girl?"
The horse whinnied and snorted heavy breaths that blew bubbles in a pocket of water by its head.
Erin looked deeply into her eyes and saw death; that black, glassy void, bereft of fear and of hope. She horse had given up. But Erin hadn't.
"I'll get you out, girl," she said and stroked the Konik's coarse, matted mane. She shuffled to her feet to get help but the horse suddenly thrashed against the bog's grip. It threw its head back and jerked its body from side to side, trying to claw its way out.
"It's okay, girl," Erin said, reaching out her hands. "Calm down. Just stay calm. I'm not leaving you. I promise. I need to get help."
She stroked Blaze's face and soon the horse was calm again and resting the weight of its head against her. Erin struggled to hold it up and so gently laid it on a grassy lump.
"I promise I'll be back," she said and bounded across the bog, praying every footfall was sound.
Despite the expanse of March Fen she didn't have to run far. She spotted a young couple walking their black and white Collie on the same stony path and breathlessly told them what she had found. They both sped back toward the village of March promising to fetch help.
Erin returned to her patient, scooping up her bag and sketch pad on route, and was greeted with a laboured whinney. She ruffled the horse's forelock and reached into her bag.
"You must be hungry now, surely," she said and plucked out an apple. "You're probably too tired to bite into this so I'll do it for you."
Erin took a the largest bite from the apple that she could, spat it out and handed it to Blaze. At first she only nibbled at the offering, but it seemed that once she got a taste for it she wanted more and more.
"See, you're already getting your strength back," Erin said with a smile. "How about mints? Horses like mints don't they."
Erin reached into her bag again and peeled a few from a packet. Blaze devoured them.
"You'll have fresher breath than me soon, you keep eating these," she joked as Blaze snorted into her hand, searching for more.
"You'll be alright, girl," Erin said as she offered Blaze more mints. "You know why? Because Koniks are hardy horses. You guys can fight and scuffle and bite and scratch and you know what, you recover from your injuries far quicker than any other type of horse. So you see I know you can recover from this."
No sooner had Erin said it than a twenty strong team of rescuers sped up the path in Land Rovers and fire engines towards her and Blaze.
Erin stood up and waved her arms about. "We here, we're over here," she cried.
Within minutes the Fen Warden, Firefighters, vets, concerned villagers and the couple with the dog were trudging across the bog.
Erin scuttled back to let the adults get to work but Blaze wasn't happy. She started to thrash about again and craned her neck round looking for Erin.
"I think she's gotten attached to you," said the vet as she tried to assess Blaze's condition. "Would you mind calming her down a bit for me?"
Erin returned to Blaze's side and stroked her face whilst the vet listened to the horse's heart.
"She's still got a strong heart beat," the vet announced with relief.
"Can we get some rope over here?" yelled one of the firefighters to his crew on the path.
Erin watched on as leather straps and chains were unravelled from the fire engine. The Fen Warden slipped a headcollar to Blaze's head and clipped the rope to it.
"I have an air tank with me as well," the Warden said to the fire fighters.
"What's that for?" Erin asked as the Warden pulled a small canister, like a mini fire extinguisher, and a pipe from his back pack.
"It's to blow some air down into the mud to break the seal round her legs," he said and connected the device up. "Right I'm ready. Once I've blown air into the mud pull, hard."
As the Warden shuffled round to Blaze's rear, Blaze craned her head round and neighed.
"It's okay, Blaze. They're helping you get out," Erin said. She climbed to her feet and grabbed onto the rope, ready to haul her friend out of the myre.
After a serious of loud plops that created large bubbles on the surface of the mud, everyone started to heave against the rope. Erin could see in Blaze's eyes that she knew what was happening and wasn't surprised by Blaze's efforts to help. The more everyone pulled the more Blaze shuffled and wiggled herself free. Inch by inch Blaze emerged from the sticky bog to the delight of everyone. Erin was so excited by the progress she ignored the rope burns on her hands and the ache of her arms. She just digging her feet into the soft, grassy bog and straining on the rope. After half an hour of tugging Blaze slide out of the cold, wetness that gripped her. At first she was fragile. She flailed her legs about, trying to right herself and after a moment or two of getting her breath back she rolled onto her belly and hauled herself up onto all fours.
Everyone cheered and clapped, but no-one was more delighted with the result than Erin. She threw her arms round Blaze and gave her the biggest hug.
"I told you you'd be alright," she said.

Making bluebirds

Harriet missed her brother more than she could say. His death was sudden and tragic and left a gaping wound inside her: a black hole that sucked her energy, her will to live. She was bleeding life. All she wanted was to have just five more minutes with him, to tell him how much she loved him. That would be sufficient, but no-one helped her. Nobody could give her that time back.
As she sat at her desk in her bedroom, her angle poise lamp shining down on a blank sheet of paper, she reached for a pen and began to scribble. Her mind was completely blank but her heart couldn't have had more to say. It was in control and within half an hour she had written frantically across ten sheets of paper. Every thought, fear, worry, hope and dream was on those pages.
'If only he could read them,' she thought as a gentle rap to the door snapped her from her trance.
"Are you okay, sweetheart?" said her mother through the door.
"Fine," was the Harriet's laconic reply.
"What are you doing?"
Harriet stared at the pages and at the portrait of Ben she had sketched propped up against a pile of books. She smiled at him and instantly felt a strange warmth envelop her, like arms gently wrapping themselves around her body. Without thought or plan she grabbed page after page and began to fold.
"Making bluebirds," she replied.
When she finished, she placed her folded paper birds into an empty shoe box and carried them to her bedroom window. The air outside was brisk and fluttered her curtains as it whistled through her window. One by one Harriet plucked the birds from the box and released them.
“Fly. Fly,” she said as the breeze whipped them up.
Higher and higher they soared into the night carrying their message off to where she hoped Ben would read them.

The Black Band (parental advisory: sexual references)

Kayleigh stepped out of the school into the brisk autumn afternoon feeling content that, apart from one of the rebellious boys snapping one of her jelly bracelets, her day had gone well. Top marks in her English essay. Her mother will be delighted. And acceptance into the school photographic club. Her father will be delighted. She fiddled with the thin multi-coloured bands round her wrist and cursed Marc Donnell for breaking her only black one.
"How can he say I owe him, when he's the one that snapped it? Boys are so lame," she muttered as a voice behind her called her name.
She spun round and saw Stewart Walton trotting across the road towards her. Her heart fluttered and her mouth went dry.
"Kayleigh, I need your help. Glad I caught you," he said breathlessly. "There's a...um...fox, in the woods that's injured. Could you give me a hand? I'm gonna get it out and...um...take it to the vet."
"Sure," she said, her parched lips grating against each other. "But we have to be careful. Sometimes injured animals are more aggressive when they're hurt than when they're not."
Stewart gave her a shaky nod and marched back across the road towards the silhouette of Hanley Woods. Kayleigh followed briskly after him. She had been in Hanley Woods a few times since she moved to the town, with her camera. It was a great place to get shots of the sunrise bleeding through the majestic Scots Pines.
"So where about is it?" Kayleigh asked as they wove between bare Chestnuts.
"Oh, it's down there, a bit," Stewart said hesitantly and gestured with a hand that it was deeper inside the woods.
As they trudged over bracken and fallen trunks Stewart never spoke a word. Kayleigh felt awkward. She was having to do all the talking and whenever she did answer him a question his answers were always terse. Did he like her at all? If he didn't why did he single out her help, there were a few other kids on the street walking home for him to ask?
But when she was deeper into the dwindling light of the woods a strange nervousness overcame her that stopped all analysis of his feelings toward her. She had no idea where it came from or why but something inside her said that what she was doing wasn't quite right. Stewart was acting strange enough, not talking to her, but every now and again he'd stop and look around.
"Do you know where you're going?" she asked.
"Yeah, its...um...over here," he said. He didn't even glance round to look at her.
"I think it must have gone, Stewart," Kayleigh said. "Look, it's getting late and dark. I think I'm just going to head back."
"No, I swear it's over here. It was all bloody and stuff," he said.
But as Kayleigh turned back two other boys sprung out from behind a couple of trees. It was Marc and David.
They were staring at her, nodding with crossed arms and malevolent grins on their faces.
Kayleigh froze as her eyes darted from Marc and David to Stewart who was staring at the ground with his hands in his pockets and the toe of his trainer scuffing the needles on the forest floor. She wanted to scream, to cry out but her head was telling her to stay calm in spite of the burgeoning terror within her.
"What do you want?" she said trying to control the quiver in her voice.
"You owe me," said Marc bluntly.
Kayleigh chose her words carefully. All too aware that she was in a delicate situation and that plucking Marc's strings in the wrong way could rile him. "I don't know what you mean. I haven't bought anything from you."
Marc laughed. "You didn't buy anything, you offered it. Now I'm here to collect."
Kayleigh frowned at him, still perplexed.
"Your bracelet, stupid," he spat. "You know what they mean. You're wearing them."
Kayleigh stared down at the thin rubber straps around her wrist.
"Black means you do everything," said Marc as he spat a phlegmy gob on the carpet of needles. "I snapped it that means you owe me sex!"
"What?" Kayleigh cried as she clutched at the buttons of her coat. Her heart was pounding so strongly she could feel it through the thick wool. "That's not why I wear them. Holly gave them to me. They were a gift. "
Marc and David burst into hysterics.
"And you thought they were being nice to you. Oh, here you are Kayleigh. You're such a nice girl. We want to be your friend," Marc cooed prancing round a sapling in as close an imitation of a girl as he could manage, "here have these bracelets."
Kayleigh swallowed the lump that rose in her throat, barely able to believe the foundations on which she built her life in Hanley were now crumbling beneath her. How could those she trusted have betrayed her so cruelly? Was she just their plaything?
"Nobody told me that's what they mean," she said coolly, keeping her crushed feelings and her body under wraps.
"Then you're stupider than you look."
"Where have you been living for the last year. The arctic?" said David. "Yellow means hug, purple means kiss, orange means love bite, and...mmm...I can't remember the others."
"If I'd known that I would never have taken them. There's no way I'd do any of that. And least of all with you," she said, hugging her coat closer to her.
"You better watch what you're saying. You're outnumbered."
"Are you part of this gang too?" Kayleigh asked, staring at Stewart.
Stewart finally looked Kayleigh in the eye. She held his gaze for what felt like an age before he flicked his eyes to look at Marc and David.
"I did what you wanted," Stewart said.
Marc dug a hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a piece of paper. "Five quid. As promised," he said and handed it to David. Stewart hesitantly took it from David's hand and stuffed it into his jacket. "You can go now."
Kayleigh glanced at Stewart. If there was a sliver of decency in his body she wanted to connect to it. If there was a hope at all that he might read the desperation on her face and come to her aide she wanted to show it. But he turned from her and schlepped through the forest.
Kayleigh turned to Marc and David. "I'm not scared of you," she said shaking her head in a display of defiance.
"Doesn't bother me," said Marc as he stepped over the fallen branches towards her.
"The fact that you have to lure girls into the woods is pretty pathetic," Kayleigh said.
In spite of Marc's advancement she didn't flinch. She didn't move a muscle. Her defiance seemed to rile Marc.
"Grab her and hold her down, David," Marc said.
David rushed behind Kayleigh and before she could turn and take a swipe at him he had her arms in a lock behind her back. He was pulling on them so forcefully she could feel her shoulder blades rubbing against each other and the muscles in her arms stretch to the point of snapping.
"No, no, she screamed, get off me, don't please," she begged.
Marc grabbed her coat and tore it open. Two of the plastic buttons pinged off and ricocheted off a tree trunk. Kayleigh watched as one landed amongst a clump of withered bracken. That was all it took. The ease with which those buttons snapped from her coat mirrored Kayleigh's sudden breakdown. She could be as strong mentally as she could possibly be but without the physical strength there was no way she could defend herself. The weight of the realisation of her situation tipped her over the edge and a torrent of tears poured from her eyes.
Marc sniggered triumphantly as he shoved her to the ground.
"Told you I'd get what you owed me," he said as David leaned over her and pinned her arms to the floor making it impossible for her to move her upper body.
Before Kayleigh could kick out Marc knelt down in front of her using his legs to pin her legs down. She wanted to scream, scream at the top of her voice but all that came out was air. Her chest tightened and soon even breathing became difficult. As Marc slid his hand up her skirt Kayleigh fought as hard as she could. She writhed and struggled against the power and weight bearing down on her but her efforts were fruitless. All she could do was wish it would end quickly. But just as Marc's hand was at the top of her thigh there was a flash of colour and Marc was suddenly lying, dazed and confused at the foot of a tree beside her. David, who was so taken aback by seeing his friend in a crumpled heap didn't look up quick enough and took a wallop across his jaw. He cried out in pain as he toppled over and smacked his back onto a tree stump.
Kayleigh pulled herself up onto her elbows. Through her teary, swollen eyes she looked up and saw the outline of a boy standing over her, holding out a hand.
"Are you okay?" he said.
Kayleigh wiped her glassy eyes and soaking cheeks and saw it was Stewart.
"You came back," she whimpered.
Stewart nodded as he helped Kayleigh to her feet. "I'd never have been able to live with myself if I didn't."
"I'm glad you did."
"And I'm sorry," he said, wringing his fingers and shaking his head. "I'm really sorry. I had no idea what he was going to do. I really didn't. He told me he wanted to have a word with you."
Kayleigh could see tears in his eyes threatening to burst their banks.
"It's okay," she said, pulling her coat back over her shoulders. "I forgive you. "
Stewart dug a shaky hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out the five pound note Marc had given him and threw it on the ground.
"If you like. I'll walk you to the police station. You should report them, and me too."
Kayleigh grimaced at the moaning, fleshy lumps on the forest floor that were formerly Marc and David.
"Them, definitely. They deserve everything they get. But I can't report someone that saved me. That wouldn't be right."
Stewart offered a nervous, awkward smile. "Will you be okay?"
"I'll be fine," she said. "Tough as old boots!"

The Tuesday effect

Bobby sat on the window sill in her bedroom with her knees pulled up against her chest and stared out at the trucks on the road outside. She felt nothing. And as the removal men wheeled more and more of her parents' furniture out of the house and into their trucks she still felt nothing.
"It won't happen," she said to herself. "They won't move. They've been saying it for years but they've never gone through with it. They'll change their mind last minute and then they'll have to put all that stuff back again."
But as the hours ticked by hope of a reprieve started to fade. One of the trucks left and the other was almost packed full. Bobby sighed. She rested her chin on her knees and looked round her bedroom. She hadn't packed a thing. The boxes her mother gave her were still pilled up in the corner of her room, empty. She was defiant. Number eighteen Birchwood Court saved her life. To leave it would be like someone severing one of her arms.
"How are you doing in there, sweetheart?" said her mother softly through her bedroom door. "Do you need some help?"
"I'm not going," Bobby said flatly. "You'll have to leave me here."
"Darling, we've been through this. You know that 's not possible. Besides we're due to hand the keys over to the estate agents tomorrow. The new owners are moving in on Friday."
"Then they'll have to live around me, won't they."
The handle on Bobby's bedroom door turned slowly but before Bobby could get up and block the door, her mother was inside.
"Oh Roberta, look at this place. You've not packed anything. We have to be out by tonight," her mother cried, holding out her hands in a gesture of disbelief.
"I've told you I'm not going," Bobby said as she flopped onto her bed."I'm going to epancimate myself from you."
Her mum chuckled as she started to pack books into a box. "I think you mean emancipate, and I'm afraid you can't do that. It's not legal. So you'll just have to come with us."
"You don't understand," Bobby wailed into her pillow. "I can't leave. I'll die."
"Roberta," said her mother. "Don't talk nonsense. You're not going to die. Your not surgically attached to this house."
Bobby flipped over and sat up on her bed. "I need her, mum."
"Need who?" said her mother as she taped up the box and began to fill another.
Bobby paused before she replied. "Tuesday."
Her mother took a long, deep breath and threw the book in her hand into the box.
Bobby knew she had worn her mother's patience wafer thin but there was no other way of delivering her reason for staying.
"You haven't mentioned that name in a while, Roberta," her mother said slowly rounding off each word like it was an automated message. "I thought she had gone."
"Not gone. This is her house. She's just...sleeping."
"And is she telling you not to leave?"
"Actually, no."
Her mother raised her eyes at Bobby quizzically.
"She thinks I'm ready to go," Bobby said. She climbed down off her bed and picked one of the numerous gymnastics trophies she had won from a shelf on the wall. She studied it closely, running a forefinger over her engraved name on the brass plate.
"But you don't believe her," her mother said and pulled another empty box from the corner of the room along with a roll of bubble wrap. Bobby's china horses were next in line for packing.
"It's not that. I'm just afraid that I might need her. If it wasn't for her I'd never have won these trophies."
"Tuesday didn't perform those routines you know," said her mother as she cut strips of wrapping and delicately rolled each ornament up.
"I know, but I would never have entered those competitions if she didn't tell me to."
"And you always do what Tuesday tells you."
"I feel better when I do. I feel invincible."
"But she's telling you you're ready to move on, to move out of here. Shouldn't you do what she says."
"Maybe, but she doesn't know what it's going to be like in that place."
"Have you spoken to her about how you feel?"
"She won't listen."
Bobby's mother sat on the edge of the bed and leaned towards Bobby. Bobby shied away and put her trophy back on the shelf.
"Why do you think that is?" asked her mother.
Bobby shrugged her shoulders. "Perhaps she doesn't want to listen anymore. Perhaps she thinks I'm moaning and whining for no reason, like you do."
"I don't think that at all."
Bobby glared at her. "You did when we moved here. You even told dad. I overheard you in the kitchen. But did you bother to find out why I was moaning? No."
"I asked you, on more than one occasion."
"No, mum, you demanded to know on more than one occasion and then when I was too...afraid to answer, you ordered me to bed."
Her mother turned away and flustered over a tissue that she pulled from her pocket. She blew her nose. It was a little late but Bobby got the feeling she had made a weak, if tentative, connection with her mother.
"I've never been very good at handling emotional people, delicately," her mother confessed. "If I had a problem I was brought up to fight it head on. It's not that I lack understanding or sensitivity I'm just not built that way. I suppose you get your highly-strung side from your father."
"Why did you think I turned to Tuesday, mum? She was the only one I could rely on. When I was afraid to make friends she told me to be funny. When I was afraid to hold my hand up in class and answer a question she told me I was brainy. When I was afraid I wasn't good enough at gymnastics she told me I the best in the school. I might not have been all those things but she made me feel good. She made me feel strong."
A tear fell down her mother's cheek. It was the first time ever Bobby had seen her mother cry. Now she was the strong one and her mother weak.
Bobby sat beside her mother and placed an arm around her shoulder.
"To think. Your father and I spent all that money on therapy when really it was me that had problems not you."
"You didn't want to listen then, mum," she said. "But you do now."
"It will be okay you know. In the new house. I'll make sure of it."
Bobby smiled. "Tuesday was right. I am ready."

The 49ers

It wasn't on Lloyd's to-do-list that day to catch a criminal but curiosity got the better of him when he spotted Catherine Macaulay swipe a box of floating candles from Benson's Gift Emporium. If he hadn't been in there buying the usual box of floral soaps for his grandmother's birthday he'd have been none the wiser about her or her blossoming talent for shoplifting.
As Catherine strolled out of door Lloyd hurriedly paid for his gift, tossing coins and notes across the counter, and scuttled out into the rainy car park.
It had crossed his mind to turn her in, to shout thief across the shop, but he was impressed by the stealthy way Catherine swept the box across the shelf and into her open rucksack, as though it accidentally got caught by her jacket sleeve. Instead he decided to follow her, wondering what a fifteen year old could possibly want with six floating red candles moulded into roses. Was it a gift too, albeit a hot one?
He followed Catherine, keeping a safe distance, through a rundown housing estate where every other house was boarded up, and then down to the disused aluminium plant by the harbour. Catherine snuck inside the compound through the corner of a mesh fence that had been peeled back like a lid on a can of sardines and then scurried down the weed-strewn road that snaked between derelict warehouses and office blocks. As Lloyd tailed her he spotted a mobile phone laying on the cracked concrete road. Assuming it was her he pocketed it just as she disappeared through a broken door to one of the blocks. Peering round the doorway he watched her scale a metal staircase that led to a mezzanine floor of offices.
It crossed his mind, briefly, that what he was doing was dangerous, that if she caught him he might be in trouble, but he had seen Catherine round the school before and althoughs he hung about with a bad crowd she seemed pretty harmless, if a bit wimpish.
Brushing his mild concerns aside, he stealthily climbed the stairs and peered over the sill of the office she walked into. Catherine was at the far end of the room. She had unzipped her bag, pulled out the candles and was placing the box on a bookcase filled with a variety of other objects; a picture frame, a teddy bear, a loaf of mouldy bread, a cd player, a vase, a set of glass tumblers and a host of other random objects. Was she living here?
Boldlyhe stepped inside the room and shut the door behind him.
Catherine spun round and glared at him, her eyes wide.
"What are you doing here? Get out," she spat, reaching for a broken chair leg and brandishing in front of her like a sword.
Lloyd held his ground and her voice.
"I saw you steal those candles from Bensons," he stated.
"And what of it," said Catherine.
"You're Catherine Ziane aren't you?" he asked.
"What do you care who I am?"
"I'm just curious why a nice girl like you does something so damn stupid, that's all," he said as he casually strolled over to a dusty red office chair and sat down.
"You better get out of here quick smart of I'll hit you. I'll bash your skull open like a...like a..."
"Like an coconut? Melon? Egg?"
Catherine clenched the chair leg tighter, making her knuckles turn white, and she snorted through gritted teeth. "I will. I swear it."
"Where are you from?" Lloyd asked, swivelling round on the chair's castors. "I mean originally. Where you born in England?"
"Of course I was. I speak English don't I?" she spat.
"I only asked if you were born here."
"Well I was. I'm a Londoner. My mum's a Londoner."
"And your dad?"
"From Morocco."
"That explains a lot then."
"What do you mean?"
"Your funny accent."
Catherine scrutinised him. "If you're gonna come out with some names you can forget it, I've heard them all."
"What makes you think I want to mock you because you're different?" he asked, genuinely curious to know why she was so defensive.
"Because that's what most of you do," she said. "You stick labels on people."
"And what label would you stick on me?"
"Nosey, for one," she said, lowering her baton.
Lloyd laughed. "Well, I can't disagree with you there. I suppose if I wasn't I wouldn't be here."
"Why are you here?"
"Curiosity."
"Curiosity killed the cat you know. Ever heard that saying?"
"I have," he said. "But I'm not afraid of you. If you were Jonny Boyd though that would be a different matter. I know what he's capable of."
"You better watch what you say. He's a 49er."
"Is that what they're called?" he said as he slid his hands under his thighs and continued to swing on the chair. "And you want to be one too?"
"I am one now," she said, puffing out her chest. "This takes care of that," she added holding up the box of candles in her free hand.
"I don't understand," Lloyd said frowning at her.
"My forty-ninth theft," she said, pointing to the bookcase stuffed with items she had obviously pilfered from stores across Wellborough.
"Why forty-nine?"
Catherine placed the candles on the shelf beside a shrink-wrapped box of blank cds. "Jonny said shoplifters get caught once every forty-nine times they steal stuff. He says if you can steal forty-nine times you're in the gang."
"But surely you could just buy forty-nine things and say you stole them."
Catherine shook her head. "They're not dumb you know. They say you have to video yourself stealin'. Happy snatchin' Jonny calls it."
Lloyd felt his mouth go dry. Did she video herself with her mobile phone? He ran a hand over his jacket pocket. It was still there. "I could turn you in you know?" he said
"You've got no evidence. No-one would believe you," she replied bluntly.
Lloyd thought about revealing what he had in his pocket but decided against it. Although she was a bit soft she might be unpredictable. He didn't want to risk it.
"If you're so sick of being labelled why are you so keen to be a 49er?" he asked.
"Because it's the last one people will ever stick on me."
"Aren't you happy being who you are?"
"I'm not anybody," she spat, hurling the chair leg into the corner of the room where it bounced off the wall and left a dent in the crumbly plasterwork.
"That's not what I heard."
Catherine shot him look that suggested he had better choose her next words carefully.
"I heard you entered the Interschool Under Sixteen Art competition for a self portrait you painted."
"I didn't. Miss Browns did. She did it behind my back."
"And you weren't happy about that?"
Catherine shrugged her shoulders. "Don't mean nothin'. I never won anyway."
"That's not the point. Miss Browns obviously saw something in it that made her enter you."
"Well she shouldn't have. It wasn't meant for no-one but me."
"Why only you?"
"To remind me that I'm worthless," she said as she slumped against the wall and kicked a rusty stapler at her feet across the room.
"Why are you so down on yourself?"
Catherine snapped her head round then marched up to him, her face red and her eyes narrowed. Lloyd held his breath. His body stiffened. He actually felt afraid now, afraid that he had chipped away too much of her outer shell and was now exposing a raw, explosive nerve.
"Because I ain't smart like you," she spluttered, showering Lloyd with spittle. "Yeah I know who you are. Lloyd Carter, school swot."
Lloyd leapt up out of his chair and challenged her. With only a hair's breadth separating their faces it was Catherine's turn to be afraid. Lloyd noticed her taught face loosen and her jaw quiver.
"Don't think you know so much about me, Catherine," he said as he barged past her, deliberately knocking her to the side with his shoulder. "I'm not exactly an angel you know."
Catherine rubbed her shoulder whilst he examined the contents of the bookcase.
"So what's your story then?" she asked.
"Oh you're interested in me now are you and not wallowing in self pity."
"Fine, if you don't wanna tell me."
"No, no. You asked so I'll tell you."
"The only reason I'm in state school is because my parents were sick of me being suspended from public school. They were fed up with having to pay for me to be in class when I was actually at home, getting under my mother's feet," he said.
"Why were you suspended?"
"Because I disrupted my classes. I'd throw stuff around, call the teachers names, tear up books."
"Why?"
"I was desperate to be different. In a sea of boring, stuffy, over-intelligent, ya-yas I wanted to be different. So I rebelled."
"We're not so different really, are we?" said Catherine.
Lloyd shook his head. "The thing is I realised when I left Wellborough Girls and enrolled at the Comp that no matter where I go I'm still me. I can get away from that. You just have to accept it and, without sounding really corny, embrace what you've got."
Catherine looked down at herself and across at her loot.
"Sure, I'm a straight A student. Lah-de-dah," Lloyd said. "But I'd trade that in to be able to paint like you."
"I could teach you," Catherine said. "And you could help me with my exams."
Lloyd extended a hand to her. "Sounds like you've made yourself a good deal there," he said.
Catherine took his hand in hers and with a smile gave it a firm shake.
He let go and made for the door of the office.
"What are you going to do? I mean about this stuff," she asked glancing at the bookcase of booty.
Lloyd reached a hand into his jacket pocket, pulled out her mobile phone and skimmed it across the linoleum towards Catherine.
"I'll leave that for you to decide," he said and left her in the office, alone. "See you tomorrow."

The day of reckoning

I was nine years and five days old when my family moved to Newcastle. My parents wanted a new start, away from the problems they had in London. I wasn't aware that was the reason at the time. In fact I wasn't aware at all of the fact that my dad had lost his job. The recession took care of that one.

It was towards the end of the summer when we left for our new home. I was actually excited about the change in spite of the fact that I was leaving all my friends behind. One thing I wouldn't miss though was the lunchtime rounds of 'British Bulldog' in the playground. By the time that dinner bell struck two I had more bruises on my arms, legs and body from playing that game than a heavy weight boxer.

But despite my optimism my early days at Summerfield Primary were not rosy. Most of the kids were nice to me. I mean they'd say hi or talk to me if I sat next to them in class, like ask if they could borrow a pencil or rubber from my case or ask me where I got my pen top or stickers from. That kind of stuff. I made one really good friend there. Her name was Marina. She was the daughter of the local policeman. We would hang out and go to the cinema and stuff. She was really cool and lived in a really big house. I particularly liked the fact that she had a brother. That was something I didn't have. I just had a sister who was five, and annoying. She did stuff normal annoying sisters do, like painting all my dolls faces with felt tips pens or breaking the legs to my plastic horses. But the school was completely different to what I was used to; it was smaller and with fewer students in each class, which was where the problems began. I stood out a mile from everyone else, not least because of my clipped southern accent. It made me an easy target for two girls in particular: Kara Robinson and Vicky Oxenblade.

At first Kara and Vicki teased me. They called me names on my way home from school, like 'southerner' or 'posh'. It was mean and I didn't like it. I didn't want to be singled out for being what they considered different. I was the same as them. I told my mum what happened and she told me to tell them, "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me". I did what she said but Kara and Vicky just laughed in my face. My attempt to deal a blow just bounced off them, like a bullet off armour plating. I felt a shudder of terror as I realised what I was up against. Instinctively, I tried to appear as though I wasn't affected, that I was impervious, but in truth their name-calling had already nicked me and their laughter was now cutting open the wound. I was bleeding.

Over the weeks the torture got worse. It had, as I feared, graduated from harmless name-calling to harmful pushes, which in turn became slaps, then punches, then kicks, then full blown fights. Every day I stumbled home in tears with scratches and bruises and torn clothing. My mother was beside herself. She made every attempt to stop the bullying but despite petitioning the school to get involved they simply said that because it was happening outside of school grounds it wasn't their responsibility to deal with. The local policeman tried having words with Kara and Vicky's parents but that didn't work either. Nothing was going to get through to those girls. It was as though they knew exactly how to get round everyone that could come to my aide. It was as though they had done this before. Wisdom through experience.

Every day I was terrified to go to school, not knowing if I was going to get a kicking before, on the playground during lunch or on my way home, or worse still not knowing what state I was going to go home in. I took to spending most of the school day inside the school building. I felt like it was my own sanctuary until the dreaded the 3 o'clock bell signalled my doom.

One overcast early summer day, not long after the final bell, I noticed Vicky was waiting for me. She had amassed a small army outside the school gates beneath. They were huddled in a semi circle, waiting for me, watching me pass out of the school grounds. Vicky was sneering at me from the centre of the crowd with her hands on her hips and a sneer on her face . Knowing that running would only delay the inevitable, and give Vicky more power and more reason to continue torturing me I decided to stand up for myself. I decided I was not going to hide away, despite my trembling mind filling with images of what was about to happen. As I stood there facing her, my enemy, I remembered the last thing my mum said to me that morning. "If they hit you, you hit them back."

"Come on then," Vicky goaded. "Think you can tell my parents on me, do ya?"
"No," I said trembling.
She charged toward me and swiped a hand across my head. The blow caused me to stumble backwards and twist my ankle. I winced from the pain that shot up my leg, but gritted my teeth. All around me the kids were shouting and cheering, not for any particular side, they were cheering for a bust up.
With my mum's words ringing in my head I lunged forward and shoved Vicky hard in the chest. I caught her off guard and she fell backwards and landed with a thump on the tarmac. Her face contorted with rage, turning a darker shade of red with every passing second.
"You cow!" she yelled and launched herself at me. She kicked my legs, swung her fists wildly delivering random but precise punches to my arms and stomach before unclenching them and grabbing big handfuls of my blond curly hair. She pulled it so hard she got enough momentum to swing me round in circles. The pain was searing through every fibre of my body. I was screaming in pain and terror. Tears poured down my face. I just wanted it all to stop. To stop. To stop.
Then out of nowhere my little sister barged through the crowd with her flask in her hand and marched up to Vicky.
"Leave my sister alone!" she bellowed before she walloped Vicky across the head with her flask.
I don't know whether it was from shock or pain but Vicky let go of me and clutched her head. She screamed and burst into tears. The crowd were silent. They looked at Vicky, then at me, then at my pint-sized sister. As I stood there, puffing, my heart racing, my hair dishevelled, my grey school jumper hanging like a loose sack over one shoulder, my legs bloody and dirty, my face stinging from salty tears trickling over scratches, I watched Vicky run away. I was dumbfounded.
When the crowd dispersed, their entertainment over, I trudged over to my sister and gave her a big hug. She had managed to do what no other had done. She stopped those girls from bullying me, ever again.