Broken. Daniel Clay

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СКАЧАТЬ the room, Cerys had laughed, which was unusual for Cerys. Skunk asked why she was laughing. Cerys nodded in Archie's direction and said no one in their right mind would buy a house opposite a row of Housing Association properties that could be rented dirt cheap to scum like the Oswalds.

      Skunk had thought they were both talking rubbish. The dump was cool, and so was Shamblehurst Lane South. There were always loads of fallen branches to use in light-sabre battles with Jed, and people often walked their dogs there, which meant she sometimes got to pet one. It was also where she and Jed met Dillon.

      He was riding his bike, but it wasn't his bike, it was a bike that had been left outside the One Stop. It was far too big for Dillon, so he was weaving all over the path. He nearly ran Jed over.

      ‘Watch yourself,’ Jed told him.

      ‘Watch yourself yourself,’ Dillon said, and then fell over. Skunk couldn't tell if he'd ripped his jeans when he'd fallen, or if they'd already been ripped. They were so big on his hips that they practically hung off his buttocks. His Calvin Klein boxers were worn like a badge of pride, as was his pale pink hoodie. Glowering from underneath it, Dillon had scraggy blond hair and bucky-beaver teeth. His skin was freckled and greasy, and his knuckles were bleeding from falling over. He held them out towards them. ‘Look what you made me do.’

      Jed blew smoke out through his nostrils. ‘Didn't make you do anything. Not my fault you can't ride your bike.’

      ‘Not my bike. I nicked it.’

      ‘Stealing's bad.’ Skunk knew this. Archie had told her. Cerys had told her. And she'd been taught it at school.

      ‘Shut your face, dick-splat.’

      ‘You shut your own face, twat-head.’

      ‘Both of you shut your faces.’ Jed stepped closer to the bike. ‘Where'd you nick it?’

      ‘Just outside the One Stop.’

      ‘Aren't there cameras at the One Stop?’

      ‘Duh. That's why I put my hood up.’

      Jed nodded his approval, then offered Dillon a drag on his cigarette. Dillon said cheers and took it. Skunk could tell Dillon didn't smoke much, because he didn't take it all the way back the way Jed said you were meant to: he just sort of inhaled, kept his mouth shut for a second, then puffed out a big grey cloud. Jed took his cigarette back, but Dillon's blood had stained the filter, so Jed heeled it and put his hands on the bike's handlebars. ‘Couldn't you nick one more your size?’

      ‘Didn't nick it cos I wanted it. Nicked it cos I could.’ Dillon wiped his knuckles on long grass. ‘Who're you, anyway?’

      ‘My name's Jed. And this is Skunk, my little sister.’

      ‘I'm Dillon,’ Dillon said. ‘Skunk's a crap name for a girl, though, ain't it? What happened? Did she stink when she was a baby?’

      ‘No,’ Jed told him. ‘Our mum liked Skunk Anansie.’

      ‘And anyway,’ Skunk said to change the subject, ‘Dillon ain't much better. Where's Zebedee and Florence?’

      ‘Yeah,’ Jed laughed. ‘Where's your roundabout and Dougal?’

      Dillon looked from one Cunningham to the other. ‘What the fuck are you two on about?’

      Jed took the bike from Dillon and tried to pull a wheelie before Skunk could admit they both watched The Magic Roundabout on Children's BBC. It was then that the bike's owner saw them.

      ‘Oi. You little wankers. Give me my fucking bike back.’

      He was a big bloke with a shaved head. He was running towards them. His belly heaved with the motion, and his two bags of shopping knocked against his legs.

      ‘Give it back,’ he yelled. ‘I'll kill you.’

      Before Skunk knew what was happening, Jed had climbed off the bike and was running in the direction of the Shamblehurst Barn Public House. She turned round to ask Dillon where Jed was going, but he had run off as well. In their absence, the bike remained standing of its own accord for a second, then fell over on its side. Its owner kept sprinting towards Skunk.

      ‘You stay where you are, you little fucker.’ His face was all red and there were sweat stains under his armpits. Skunk felt her legs turn to jelly. The man was going to kill her. She could see it in his eyes. He was going to grab her by the throat, pick her up and smash her to bits on the pavement.

      Possibly he would have, but his shopping bags split before he reached her, and cans of Stella spilled all over the path. His charge towards her was halted and she turned and ran off as well. Ten minutes later, she found Jed and Dillon hiding out in the bus shelter by the train station. This is where they got to know each other. Jed told Dillon his and Skunk's ages and about their dad who was called Archie and their live-in au pair who was called Cerys. He didn't mention their mother, but, then, since the day she'd done a bunk to Majorca, nobody ever did. Dillon, in turn, told them he was a Gypsy. He was fifteen years old and this was the eleventh county he'd lived in since his mum, dad, two brothers and younger sister had all been killed in a fire started by another Gypsy who had caught Dillon's older brother having it away with his wife. Dillon had only escaped because he'd been arrested that afternoon for trying to rob a sausage roll off the deli counter in the Great Yarmouth branch of Asda. Now Dillon lived with his aunt and uncle outside the old Halfords store that had shut down the previous winter. Even though he was older than Skunk and Jed, he couldn't read or write anywhere near as well as they could, but he did have the ability to steal from a sweet counter with the shopkeeper staring straight at him, and the shopkeeper would never know. His ambition was to rob a house. Jed's ambition was to be a professional footballer. Skunk's ambition was to get married and have lots of babies and never ever leave them, so she asked Dillon back to play Xbox, which Dillon thought was cool, because all the other kids he'd met in Hedge End so far had called him a stinking pikey and left him to play on his own. As they made their way back to the Cunninghams' house, two police cars sped down Drummond Road and screeched into Drummond Square. Thinking the bike's owner had dobbed them in for stealing, Skunk turned and started to run, but Jed grabbed her by the shoulder. ‘They're not looking for us, Skunk. They're parking outside the Buckleys'.’

      Skunk turned back and looked at the police cars. Mrs Willet from Drummond Primary had once got a policeman to come into school and tell them stealing's bad, but he'd come on a pushbike, so this was the first time she'd ever seen them with lights on and sirens wailing other than on the motorway. Now, close up, they were huge and gleaming and there were two policemen in each one. All four of them got out and ran towards the Buckleys'. The front door was already open and Mrs Buckley was standing under the porch roof. Her house was a giant behind her, the biggest in the square, and Archie looked at it dreamily each time he got in his car. Unlike the Cunningham place, which just had a double driveway, it was set back from the road and partially screened by swaying horse chestnuts that had recently lost their blossom and would soon start to lose their leaves. Mrs Buckley looked much the same as the trees; a tall woman with auburn hair that was greying, her face looked haggard and bloodless. She ran towards the policemen and the five of them formed a huddle. Skunk, Jed and Dillon moved as close as they dared and they listened.

      ‘It's my son …’

      ‘… his name?’

      ‘… Rick. Rick Buckley … he hasn't been acting himself…’

      ‘… СКАЧАТЬ