>3Andrew J Campbell: MISTAKE >2 It was like being shot in the eye by a cannon ball. One minute I was scanning the yard, laughing, wondering where the enemy had disappeared, and the next I was sprawled out on the ground, all senses numb with ice cold pain. White flash: I'm being dragged into the school building. White flash: I'm screaming that it /kills, it fuckin kills!/ White flash: Harding's holding my head at both sides, shouting into my face. And then flash: I'm somewhere in the coatpegs surrounded by shoes and bags and ski jackets and my hysteric friends. "Gerrim down to't nurse, Kempie, lookat him, he can't even fuckin speak." "Didjoo see who threw the snowball, did you see?" "What's it matter who threw the fucker-" "Royce had is fuckin eye on Finch from the start, dickweed, if he fuckin dob's, we're all dead." "/Bullshit/, Holland, gerrout't way." White flash: Harding's hand sliding gently down my cheek, his lips curling up at the edges, and me thinking: /s'funny, Harding, s'funny, I know, I'm laughing inside, I swear to God I'm laughing-/ "He's gotta grass." "What?" "Kempie's right, man." "Finch... Finch, you listenin, you've gotta dob him in." "He fuckin /hasn't/, Holland, fuck off, we're talking /Edward fuckin Royce/ here, not some dweeb from Janet Hill-" "I don't /care/." "Will you two shurrup for chrissakes, thiz people around." White flash. "Finch?" "Finchie lad, can you hear us?" "Oh man, this isn't fuckin funny. What're we gonna do with him?" "Down t't nurse, man, right now, come on-" "No, we /can't/, Holland, Holland /no/, gerroff him-" White flash: the pain fades away. Voices sound normal. "S'appenin?" I manage to croak. My friends glance at one another. And then Harding's in my face again and ginning and holding my head up: "Finch, Finch, /grass the fucker up/, joo hear? /Grass the fucker up/." "Okay," I breathe on his nose. "Okay, s'do it." I spent the next two lessons before lunchtime in the nurse's room down stairs, holding some kind of foul-smelling material over my near- blinded eye. "Joo wanna watch some TV? Oh," The nurse put her hand across her mouth. "Oh love, I'm sorry, that was a bit silly of me, wasn't it." We stared at each other for a few moments, then both cracked up laughing. When the joke had dissapated, the nurse walked into the kitchen area behind me and started washing some cups and plates. "Joo know who did it then, love?" "Yeah," I replied, removing the cloth. I couldn't see any better, so I put it back and blew my cheeks out. "S'lad called Royce." "Edward Royce?" The washing up noises ceased. "Is he in trouble?" "Yeah, course he is," I nodded at the electric fire in front of me. "He's doin hour detentions every night till fuckin January." I laughed. The nurse didn't say anything for so long I sat up and turned and spied at her. She was facing me and blinking. "S'up? S'wrong?" I said. "Nothing," she decided and turned back round and carried on with what she was doing. The canteen was, as usual, chaos that day. Food flying through the air in all directions; tomatos landing in custard, chips splashing across the floor, cups of water being spat out in faces; Royce's gang skidding around and laughing and whistling and belching and telling the younger dinner ladies to show em their tits. "Bus on't hill you skinny little fuck," somebody shouted in my ear. Before I could even begin to think about turning around, the owner of the voice punched my fork-full of food clean onto the next table. "You're fuckin dead after't bell you one-eyed pile a shit," His arm came into view; he pointed at my friends, one at a time. "And you, and you, and you you fuckin fat lumpa shit. You're all /dead/." I watched him walk away through my only functional eye. Tall, untidily dressed, greasy-haired. Could've been any of Royce's foul- tempered minions. "Who were that?" I shrugged. "Fuck knows. Pass us another fork will you?" Holland, who'd been standing up for the past few seconds and I hadn't noticed, sat down and tutted. "Z'no fuckin bus on hill, Finch, he shouldn'ta been able to punch you. You shoulda got jokesies." I glanced at Harding. He rolled his eyes and tossed me a clean fork. "Anybody need to be home on time tonight?" General muttering. "Nah." / "Not really." / "I don't." Part of a carrot or something landed in Kempie's mashed potatoe. He gave the sniggering wankers on the neighbouring table a suspicious glance before enthusiastically mixing it in. Holland moaned and pretended to be sick in his cup. "Anyone want half a tomato?" "Eye-eye, captain." Laughter. "Fuck off, Kempie. You're not havin it now." "Hardin, you supposed to be seein your lass tonight? Fuckin would do, man, might be your last chance." Kempie tittered to himself. Harding shrugged. "I dunno, man. Maybe." "Fuckin sees her every night, traitorin cunt," said Holland. Nobody bothered to comment on that one: Holland was strictly No Shagging Highlands Grammar School Girls. He'd almost broken Harding's neck when he'd found out about Sophie. Me? I couldn't give a toss. We were in Science blowing glass when the bell rang for home time. There was one of Royce's gang in our group, standing beside a nearby desk as it happens, and the cunt grinned like a maniac, as if in reassurance that nothing had been forgotten. Kempie must have found this a bit irritating: he smashed his tube on the floor, grabbed the bunsen and swiped a blue flame through the air like a lightsabre. "/You fuckin dick whatchoo tranna do!/" "Burn that stupid smile off your face, whatjoo think?" Kempie stood there, legs apart, flame hissing. Eventually, the teacher decided to give a shit what was going on in his class, and yelled at everybody to sit down and tidy up and shut up. [It's always fascinated me that - how a /whole class/ can end up being held responsible for just one or two people's bad behavior.] The yard was icy and seemed to go on forever, and when we reached the playing fields our pursuers were almost on our backs. We split up and ran, skidded, crouched down to make snowballs, fired them and ran, yelled at each other, overtook one another and raised middle fingers and laughed. We were lucky not to get caught and kicked in before reaching the bus stop, where crowds of colourful kids awaited and eventually consumed us. Teachers told us to "get to the back!", first years shot out of the way like lightening, and every- body started screaming when the snowballs resumed. Kempie lived about two miles down the road, he usually caught the bus, but not this time. We managed to squeeze him into the queue and cause a few fights but in the end his bus set off without him. So we ran on, all of us, knackered already, Harding and me in front, Kempie and Holland close behind, Royce's gang simply marks in the distant snow. Some of them had big brothers who'd drive them around in cars, others boarded buses - there were a hundred stops on the way into town. Hardly out of the school grounds, running like mad, panting like a dog, I pissed around in my pockets. "Choo doin?" "Tranna find my fuckin gloves." "What'll your mum say about your eye, ja think?" "Dunno." One of the school buses thundered past us, spurting brown snow out of either side like a boat in a river of shit. Heads pressed to the filthy glass the kids pulled faces and pointed and lashed their tongues as if we were running against them in some kind of futuristic slave-race. Up ahead, though, we saw that the traffic had become conjested, and soon, we were sprinting past the motionless double-decker pulling faces of our own and sticking V's up and laughing. Of course, the monstrous machine won in the end: it spittled victoriously away into the freezing distance, scores of ridiculous faces wallpapered up the back window. Not long later, Harding and I scrambled over the wall of a field and found ourselves knee-deep in snow. Somewhere behind us, Kempie and Holland started yelling "what the fuck're you doin!". We just laughed and carried on ploughing towards the barricade of trees we could make out in the hazy distance. [It reminded me of a scene from a Christmas card - moody blue and soft purple and eye-watering amber. All the way down from school there'd been glowing red streetlights, scarring our vision like streamers.] "My legs are killin." "So're mine." "Shall we wait for't others?" "Fuck em, they'll catch up." Our misty breath was so thick we could hardly see where we were going, our feet so cold we didn't think we'd make it much further. But we trampled on, and eventually scaled another wall and landed in the woods, where we straightened up and waited for the others to get a bit closer. There was no sign of Royce's gang anymore. "You goin past Highlands?" Harding nodded, hands on his knees, spitting on the snow. "Comin?" "Kay," I said. "Warrabout Holland?" "Fuck Holland," He panted. "We don't even /live/ down here." Holland cared about everything, from his shoelaces being neatly tied to me keeping my gob shut about Royce. Kempie cared about most things - his collection of metal miniatures, his hairstyle, and I /think/ his little sister. I cared about a fair lot - my mates, having a laugh, staying alive. But Harding cared about fuck all... except for a High- lands girl called Sophie. She didn't seem to give much of a shit about him, though. Or, at least, that's how it came across to me most of the time. Seemed like it was always Harding who had to arrange when they'd next get together, Harding who'd have to make all the moves when it came to kissing, Harding who'd have to reach down and pick up her hand when they walked. But there must have been something happening between them, because believe me, Harding was the last person to fall for an emotional joyride. He'd been on too many. /Far/ too many. We got to Highlands and waited at the gates for Sophie, shivering and cursing and jumping around on the spot. Kempie and Holland, faces like betroot, came slithering out of the trees, breathlessly complaining that we wouldn't wait up. "Look, we'll meetchoo down Barn Lane, by't bridge, okay?" said Harding, pointing south. Behind us, the bell rang in the Highlands building. I turned and looked, Harding carried on: "If Royce's gang's down there, fuck it, we'll try and get a bus into town. If you wanna meet us at MacDonald's or somethin, that's cool." Holland nodded dismissively. "You waitin for that tart, then?" Harding reached out and touched the side of Holland's arm. "She's alright, man, don't-" "/Fuck off/," Holland swiped him away. "Fuckin touch me, alright." The Highlands kids were pouring out of the doors now, all neatly dressed in their expensive uniforms. Holland slipped away without saying anything else; Kempie burped and slapped Harding's shoulder. "You okay?" "Yeah, go on, Kempie, we'll see you later." "Sure?" "Yeah, just go, man." "Okay then. Chow Finch." "See you later mate." We waited in silence, rubbing hands, kicking snow, until at last Sophie arrived with a gang of girls, who eyed us up, tittered to them- selves and said they'd see us later. [They weren't much like the girls that went to our school, that's for sure. Highlands girls all looked perfect: perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect skin, healthy bodies. I don't know whether I found them attractive or not. In a way I thought they all looked a bit samey. Intelligent, lah-de-dah, chin up ladies. Boring, you know? Gimme a lass from our school anyday.] "Why, what's /wrong?/" "Look... I... somethin's happened, that's all... but I'll see you tomorrow, I promise." "Okay." Harding glanced at me and I got the message. I put my back to him for a few seconds whilst he kissed her. Returned a bit too soon, on purpose I think, and what I saw through my hardworking eye was stunning: my best friend with his lips against a Highlands girl's. For the hundredth time in my life (upper-class bird or not) I wished I was him. "Alright, tomorrow, after school, okay?" "Okay." "By the gates." "Alright." "Will that be okay?" "Fine, whatever." She looked impatient. They paused, fingers interlocked, considering another kiss, maybe, and then they exchanged smiles and untangled and waved each other off. Harding turned and grinned and broke into a jog almost immediately. "S'go, come on." "What's she taste of?" I wanted to know. "Can-it, okay, let's get movin." We didn't hit trouble until we reached the turn off to Barn Lane, where a lad called Ross Harris and a few of his mates were dossing around. They saw us coming and advanced, bellowing, laughing, snowballs everywhere. Harding took a few in the side, a couple on his head, and I got a really painful one on the arm. But Harris wasn't the type to risk a close encounter. He wasn't much bigger than me, certainly a dwarf compared to Harding: as soon as we got the upper hand, he and his mates bolted for it. Except one, who Harding stomach-punched, and that was the end. "Joo think they'll try again?" I wondered as we walked down Barn Lane, shoes crunching, zips jangling, breathing clouds like steamtrains. "Royce's mates, I mean." "Doubt it." "Joo love Sophie then?" He didn't answer and I wished I hadn't have asked. Still, Harding never took the piss out of me, not for anything - he just wasn't like that. Sure, he sometimes got mad and started being sarcastic and stuff, but he'd never rip me to pieces. We were best mates. We listened to the faint rumble of traffic on the main road beyond the valley, glancing at one another from time to time, and spitting, and saying "shit" or "bastard" when we skidded on the ice. "How's your eye doin, anyway?" "Fine, s'okay." "Can you see out of it yet?" "A bit. Not much. S'all blurry." Five minutes later. "You ever had a piss and it's come out in two streams?" "/What/?" I laughed. "Nothin, just kiddin." "Whatchoo on about?" "I dunno, forget it... S'fuckin cold, man, innit. Jesus." He stared at me, open-mouthed. "Yeah I know it's fuckin cold, Finch. I am aware of it, believe me." He looked ahead. I laughed again. "What's funny?" "Nothin." "Then why the fuck are you laughin?" "I dunno. Joo think I /shoulda/ grassed Royce up?" "Yeah," his answer almost overlapped my question. "Why, you regrettin it now?" "Dunno. Kind of." He stopped and looked at me, annoyed. "Think about all't lads who'll get home in one piece over Christmas - includin /us/, Finch. We won't have Royce waitin to duck us at the fuckin gates, okay? Be like fuckin heaven." He carried on walking. "Regrettin it my arse. You made the right decision, Finch, don't fuck yourself over." "Yeah, but warrabout Royce's dickheads?" As if summoned by my words, right there and then, a couple of Royce's bumchums sprang out of nowhere a little up the road. Harding and I came to a halt, simultaneously. "That's not Kempie an Holland, is it?" "No, it's not," Harding replied. "One of em's Rachel Morris, I think the other's Craig Waters." "Fuck," I said and turned around. I patted Harding on the shoulder. He joined me. "Double fuck. Two more." "Yeah. What shall we do?" His eyes darted everywhere. "I say we get the triple fuck over that wall, Finch, /now/, fuckin move! go go /go/-" he pushed me - I slipped, staggered, only just managed to keep my balance. The bumchums, howling abuse, closed in, ammunition at the ready. "/Hands over your head!/" Harding screamed. I followed his orders, just in time; what felt like three lead balls shattered against my upper back and slithered down my coat. "I'll meet you by't bridge!" Harding's distant voice. I couldn't see him anymore, he'd legged it through an opening in the bushes. I couldn't see very much of the world around me, in fact, and I wondered if Harding had forgotten about my disability. It wasn't like him to go sprinting for it without me. Through the wobbling semi-darkness and my own breath I caught sight of a driveway, a house, some privets and a very high brick wall. I didn't realise I'd been running up the middle of somebody's garden until I hit a big, wooden front door. I shuffled away from it, gob wide open, heart hammering in it's cage, and then as soon as I heard the voices of the gang getting nearer, I put my fingers on the handle and squeezed. Perhaps, with only one eye working, the world had become a smaller place. Less threatening. Less realistic. More like a dream being viewed through a keyhole. Such drastic behaviour certainly wasn't /normal/ for me, anyway. My stomach aching with excitement, I stepped into the hall of a stranger's house, put my back to the door and let it close. Click. I held my breath and listened... I could hear the same washing up noise the nurse had been making in her room earlier on that morning. And then behind the door, wellingtons and boots, crunching through snow, people coughing, swearing, spitting, confused. "Live here..." "Me neither, though he lived up in Weathercock..." "Not knockin, /you/ knock..." "Man, I say we go..." "Bout Royce?" "Fuck Royce... tea when I get back.." Snow and ice, crackling beneath weight. Some distant laughter. And then me, staring into the eyes of a middle-aged woman - toast in her mouth, rollers in her hair. "Oh God who're /you/?" she said loudly, pressing one hand to her chest. "Ah... sorry, wrong house," I shot round, wrenched the door open and galloped back down through the garden. I found Kempie not far from the bridge, arse parked on the bottom rise of a stone staircase that led up to Black Road. He was smoking a cig and spitting out blood and holding a handkerchief over his nose. "You alright?" I wheezed and crouched down beside him. "Kempie, let's have a look, you okay?" He pulled the hanky down and stuck his face out at me. I couldn't even /see/ his nose. He took a drag and blew smoke. "Fine," he coughed. "Harding's waitin for you, said he'd give you about five minutes." "Where's Holland?" "Fuck knows." "You comin down with us then?" I wanted to know. Kempie shrugged. "I've had enough for tonight, Finch. Leave us here, okay, you go on." I smiled as best I could, wondering, again, if I'd made a mistake when I'd grassed up Royce. Was there such thing as a proper way to handle these situations? Was there some kind of technique a kid could use to slither his way out of deep trouble? There certainly didn't seem to be. Not to me. Not at that age. And besides, most of the time we /enjoyed/ being chased. Getting caught and beaten up was only a small price to pay for a white-knuckle run to God-knows-where. If it hadn't have been for a chase, Harding would never have made it with Sophie. Hell, if it hadn't have been for Royce, the four of us probably wouldn't have even been friends. Just drifters. Loners. Perhaps even would-be Royces ourselves. Fuckin loop-hole. When I got to the bridge over the old railway tracks it was as dark as night and even colder. I heard voices and thumping and people laughing and crying, and when at last the bridge came into focus I saw Harding, fighting, on his own. I was scared of fighting, to be honest. Hit and run or (just plain run) was more my style. But this was Harding, my best mate, being kicked to fuck by six lads or more. I couldn't just stand there and watch. So I thought bollocks, dropped my bag and joined the party. It started out okay: I kicked Ross Harris up the arse so hard he collapsed and buckled and started crying. George Gibbons flashed a knife, so I left him alone. Craig Waters was holding a branch which I snatched out of his hands and tripped him up with. Rachel Morris, Royce's girlfriend (and, I think, the only girl in his gang) punched me in the face and bust my lip. I caught her legs, though, as I went down, and she fell on top of me and for a comfortable length of time we just lay there, panting. And she grinned at me, you know. Head on my chest, buds on my stomach, Royce's girlfriend /grinned/ at me, like it was all for fun. Like she was on our side and just pretending. I almost believed her, too. /Almost/: she scrambled up and booted me in the ribs and spat all over my face. "He's got me knife, he's got me fuckin knife!" The whole gang rolled backwards like a tide. All of a sudden I was being dragged up off the floor by Harding. He'd somehow managed to get George Gibbons' flick- knife off've him, and was now pointing it like a torch at the enemy. "Come on, come on," Harding tottered around, eyes huge. "Come on you fuckers, let's carry on, s'up? s'matter? s'only a knife." Rachel wiped her mouth. "You wouldn't dare, Hard-on. Just drop it." "Give us me knife, Hardin, don't fuck about with it." George stepped forwards, hand held out. Rachel punched him. "/Shurrup/ Porgie you fat cunt." "Look," wheezed Harding. "You started this bullshit, you finish it." "/We/ didn't start it," the whole gang declared in near-enough chorus. "You fuckin said it were Royce-" "Blame Royce you're fuckin askin for trouble-" "Kinda faggots pin a snowball on-" "Cos it /was/ Royce!" Harding shouted. "It fuckin wasn't!" - another virtual chorus. "He laughed cos he saw that skinny little pansy go down but he didn't fuckin lob it." "Porgie's right, you fucked up on this one-" "Shouldn't a done it, Hardin. S'your arse, man." Harding and I exchanged bewildered looks. "Don't ask me," I whispered "I couldn't see shit, s'not my fuckin fault, I don't know who lobbed the bastard." For a few moments nobody said a thing. The noise of the traffic on the main road droned and whistled in our ears. "So who threw it?" Harding shouted angrily. The gang shrugged and talked amongst themselves, emerging with mixed opinions: "Wasn't it Richard Priestley?" "Darren Davies, I saw him, I betchoo any money." "/I/ thought it was Priestley as well, he legged it when Finchie dropped." "Christ, who the fuck /was/ it?" They all started laughing. Eventually, so did we. It was strange, unsure, hiccuppy laughter. The kind of laughter you're not sure you ought to be enjoying, because the joke's on you, and you're in deep shit. "After three, we leg," Harding muttered as everybody winded down. "Okay?" "Yeah, okay," I kept laughing for the sake of effect. "One, two, /three/" Harding threw the knife over the bridge and burned for it, me - stomach killing from Rachel's kick - hot on his tail. The gang hoofed us for a short distance, then gave up, bored or knackered, I guess. About fifteen minutes later, Harding and I arrived in town, where we bought some sweets and cans of pop, waited for a while outside MacDonalds for Holland, then decided "bollocks to it" and caught a bus back home. The next day we contemplated telling the teachers it had all been a big mistake, and that in actual fact we hadn't a /clue/ who'd fired the shot. There'd been too many snowballs flying around, too many people involved. We'd blamed Royce because, to be blunt about it, we hated the fucker's guts, and... well, that was about the size of it. Anyway, it was finally settled in the dining room after we'd been food-bombed by Royce's gang for nearly twenty five minutes. "Fuck it, he can burn," Harding laughed and stood up and threw his plate onto the next table. It smashed into pieces and bits of food went everywhere. Of course, Harding couldn't get away with /that/ scott- free: the dinnerladies dragged him out of his chair and took him down to the office. "Right then, that's that sorted out," I stood up. "S'up with you, Holland? You okay?" "What? Yeah, I'm alright." A week later Holland told me he'd been chased into somebody's garden down Barn Lane that night, just like I had. Only he'd knocked on the door and shouted for help and been invited in by some girl, who'd told him she'd been home-alone all day, off sick from school. "And I can't stop thinkin about her," he spilt the beans to me one lunchtime, out in the yard. "I keep goin down Barn Lane, you know, to see her. I can't help it, Finch. She's fuckin wonderful." "So she likes you then?" I was jealous. I kept wishing /I'd/ have been the one who'd pounded on this girl's door and been invited in - hell, it was like an unpopular schoolboy's dream. "Yeah, she likes me," he admitted, blushing. "She said so." "Cool," I gave him a smile and a shove. "what's her name? Which class is she in?" "Carrie. I don't know her second name," he glanced at me, looking rather worried. "She doesn't go to this school, Finch. She... She... She goes to goes to Highlands, alright." I thought about that for a moment, then started laughing. Holland simply stood there, hands in his pockets, watching me giggle away and scoop snow off the floor and shoot snowballs at him, gently. "Ah ya traitorin cunt!" I teased. "Ya fuckin traitorin bastard!" "S'not /funny/, Finch, shurrup, man." "Traitorin wanker, course it's fuckin funny!" It took a snowball in the eye for him to laugh. 4400 words. Ish.