Copyright 2011 Gareth Parker
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Did I Die?
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Chapter 1
Getting punched in the face hurts like hell, it hurts even more when it’s in front the rest of the classroom with the other fourteen year old kids laughing about how I fell to the floor. I get up off the floor, deciding retaliating would only result in another blow to the face, I take it as gracefully as I can and head to the toilets.
I look at myself in the tall mirror situated on the wall of the grubby school toilets. I see this short, skinny, runt of a kid staring back at me, it’s no wonder I'm such an easy target for the typical bully. My eye is swollen, it throbs, and it feels as though it’s on the brink of explosion. I decide there’s not much I can do about it so I head back to the classroom feeling completely humiliated.
As I walk in all eyes are on me, I can feel everyone staring at me, I feel emotion starting to well up inside and I just know my mum will ask how I got another black eye. I try hard not to cry and to make out to everyone else it doesn’t hurt, but only being fourteen years old myself it’s kind of hard to control that emotion. The tears roll down my face, all I could wish was that I was back living with my dad in my old school with my old friends.
I sit there holding my eye trying to hide my face as the teacher walks in.
‘John!’ Mr Brown shouts.
‘Yes sir?’
‘What have you been up to?’
‘Nothing sir, I fell off my chair!’
‘Do you need to see the school nurse?’
‘No sir I’ll be fine.’
‘Good, right class,’ he says clearly seeing that I could do with medical attention but bypassing that fact, hoping that I will muddle through his rubbish maths class so he doesn’t have any wasted time. ‘Today is algebra.’ I hate maths I hate school for that matter and to top things off I hate my life.
I’ve only been in this school six weeks, I have no friends. I live with my mum, younger brother, sister and my mum’s vile boyfriend Mark with his son visiting on weekends. We recently moved here, to Portsmouth, from a small town in Wales eight weeks ago. My mum met this guy and fell in love with him instantly. We moved in with him about three weeks ago, since then my life turned from medico to an absolute nightmare within that time.
My parents split up a few years back, my siblings and I miss our dad like crazy. We feel like nothing to our mum now she has Mark in her life and that’s all that’s important to her now. All she seems to care about are the fine things in life he can give her like the posh car, the nice four bedroom house and the expensive jewellery.
After maths I exit the class room still holding my swollen eye when I get approached by the guy who punched me, Martin Soil. He is a bastard and takes the piss out of me because I’m small and speak with a Welsh accent. Martin is a tall, well built, scruffy school bully. He looks as though he’s had a tough up bringing with a difficult home life. He always has a funny smell to him, a damp musky smell, with stained clothes and scruffy black hair.
‘John you little weed’ speaking sharply in my face towering over me. ‘Bad things will happen to you, watch your back.’ I flinched at his words and he passed me a note. I feel humiliated at the fact this guy has this power to intimidate me and that there are about four or five other kids crowding round waiting to see if he’ll do anything else. Kids are bastards these days and love to see a skinny five foot one Welsh kid have his face smashed in. Fortunately for me on this occasion he didn’t, he just walked away.
I walked along the corridor in the opposite direction with my head down wishing I could stand up for myself, but I knew, if I was to try anything then I would have to take more than a punch in the eye. I took the note and unfolded it which revealed the words; would your mum miss you if you were dead? Time to find out! I didn’t know whether to take the note seriously but knowing Martin Soil, who is a nasty piece of work, and has apparently killed someone in the past I had to take it seriously, now it’s time to work out what I have to do.
It’s the end of school and I make my way home on my own. I have my wits about me in case anyone tries to start on me, which seems to happen on a regular occasion these days but to be honest, I wouldn’t be much of a match even against the first years in this place.
Home is only about half a mile from the school so only it’s taken about ten minutes to get home. I’m dreading my mum seeing me, l know she’ll go mental when she sees my face, but there’s not much I can to do so again will have to take it on the chin. I walk through the door and the moment she sees me.
‘What on earth happened to you?’
‘I fell over mum.’
‘You fell over?’ She replied sarcastically.
‘Yes I fell over’ I repeated and ran up to my bedroom which I shared with my stepbrother Ian on the weekends. Technically it’s his room and I've moved in here recently, I don’t think he’s too happy about it either.
‘John’ I hear the voice of my mum shout up the stairs.
‘What!’ I scream back.
‘Get down here now please!’
‘No, I’ll be down in a bit!’ Before I know it she bursts into my room.
‘Darling are you sure you fell over again?’
‘Yes mum I've told you!’
‘You wouldn’t lie to me would you?’
‘No!’
‘Ok, then can you get out of your uniform Mark will be home soon, Ian is staying tonight so you’ll need to tidy this room, you know what Mark’s like.’
‘Yes mum.’ She gave me a kiss on the fore-head and left.
I sat on the end of my bed for a minute or two sobbing about the events of today, dreading this man Ian coming round for the weekend taking over my life and the room as he always does. I sit staring at the note, how I will die, wondering if he would actually kill me? In a way I wasn’t too worried about it, the more I thought about it, dead? It just seems so extreme. I manage to pick myself up and make my way down stairs.
‘Mum’ I said, ‘I’m going out for a walk ok!’
‘No you’re not. Where on earth do you think you’re going?’ She shouted.
‘Why does it matter to you? You have Mark now!’ Before she could say another word I run out of the house, up the street towards an old unused train track. I could hear my mum screaming down the street, I know it’s not for me, it’s for her, knowing that when that dickhead Mark gets back he’ll make her life hell which at the moment I don’t really care.
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Chapter 2