Sour: My Story: A troubled girl from a broken home. The Brixton gang she nearly died for. The baby she fought to live for.. Tracey Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ Tiefing Timmy squealed at the prospect of a bitch fight. “Go on yerself, gerls!”

      I took a swing, but missed. She did the same and didn’t. I lunged for her face, making a grab for her hair and jewellery. I wanted to rip that stupid piercing from her ignorant face. But she was older, tougher. Unlike me, she had been in fights before.

      Before I knew it, Tyrone and Tiefing Timmy were dragging her off of me. There was no doubt about it. She had won that fight. I wasn’t angry. I was blind fury livid.

      On the way home, Tyrone seemed disappointed. He was a cool kid, and clever. He never got into fights. He wanted to be an engineer. But he was no pussy. He knew how to handle himself. He knew I could have done better.

      “How come you didn’t have her? You can handle yourself.”

      He seemed genuinely puzzled. I felt I’d let him down.

      “Dunno. She riled me, I guess.”

      “She ain’t all that.”

      We took the long way home, through the underpass and by the Chinese takeaway. For most of it, we walked in silence.

      “You know what, Tyrone?”

      “What?”

      “You’re right. That shit ain’t going to happen again. I’m going to be well known.”

      “Oh yeah?”

      He laughed it off.

      “For real. That doesn’t happen when you’re a name to be known.”

      I remembered something I’d seen on the lyrics of an album: reputation of power IS power.

      “I’m going to be serious, Ty. Wait and you’ll see.”

Dick Shits

      “Why did you go telling everyone my mum was crazy? I’m gonna fuck you up for what you done, girl!”

      I didn’t wait for an answer. I thought Natasha was my friend.

      “You make me sick.”

      I barged forward and pinned her to her desk in the religious studies classroom, lifting the kitchen knife high in my hot, sweaty palm so everybody in St Martins could see it.

      “Sour, stop!”

      The others tugged at my uniform and begged me to stop, but I wasn’t listening. What goes on at home was one thing. Broadcasting it here, around school, the only place I could escape, was another. I didn’t care about the consequences or the rules no more. I was angry. And I wanted to hurt that bitch.

      Fast forward half an hour and Mrs Edwards, the humourless headteacher with the Margaret Thatcher helmet hair, was telling me what was going to happen. What she was really doing, though she didn’t know it then, was giving me the first big break of my criminal career.

      “You are being expelled, Salwa. I’m referring you to Dick Shepherd’s. From now on, you will be attending school there.”

      I was destined for Dick Shepherd’s, the rejects’ school all the rest of us knew as Dick Shits.

      Phillip Lawrence had just left his post as headmaster of Dick Shits when I arrived. Three years later, he’d be dipped in the chest by some 15-year-old yout as he tried to break up a fight in another playground just eight miles away. Black boys killing their white teachers! That soon woke up the world.

      But let me let you into a secret: lawlessness reigned supreme long before then. What happened to that man was a tragedy, no two ways about it. I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

      First off, if I wanted to be respected at Dick Shits I knew I was going to have to step up a gear to thrive and survive. St Martin’s was junior league. This was the Premiership.

      My uniform was angelic, my pleats were proper fresh, but I was determined to be demonic.

      I wore my new knife in a belt under my blazer. It was made of rabbit skin and had a rabbit’s foot dangling from the belt. I’d bought it from a gypsy boy, and wore it with the kind of pride the other girls wore their Claire’s Accessories.

      I wasn’t at Dick Shits to learn. I was there to make money. It was time to become top dog.

      I soon found that if you’re loud enough and strong enough, there’s always someone quieter and weaker who wants to follow you. Over time, I recruited several associates willing to take my lead. They were the Two-Tails to my Sonic. Some of them, as a joke, even started calling me “Mum”.

      “Y’alright, Mum?” they’d shout at me in the corridor.

      “Yes datter, yes son,” I’d reply, with a grin. “How are you?”

      “Me alright still, y’naw?”

      If any of my sons or daughters got into a little scuffle, I’d know about it.

      It helped that a lot of the Somalian kids were tiny. Three foot nothing, some of them. It was easy to pick them up by their ankles and shake them.

      Sometimes, a brave friend would try to step in.

      “Put him down, what’s wrong wit you? He said he ain’t got no money.”

      Lo and behold, the coins would fall from upside-down pockets. I’d leave the two-tails to pick up the change.

      The kids soon learned at lunchtime to step aside and let me through. There were plenty boys doing the same. But a girl? That caught their attention.

      If a girl got a bit rude to a blood, someone I considered an ally, she’d get slapped about. Spin and turn and kick. Just like the video games. I had no interest in female friends. I liked being one of the boys.

      Now, you might think a place like Dick Shits would have a problem with truancy. Perhaps. But the really bad kids, the ones who caught my attention, were the ones who weren’t even meant to be there at all. Dick Shits wasn’t somewhere to learn, it was somewhere to meet, somewhere to talk business.

      Doing the register was hilarious, man. You could have a room full of children with only 15 of their names on the list. A teacher could walk into a classroom dotted with grinning, unfamiliar faces.

      What were they going to do? Tell them to go home?

      Those who did try to eject them soon learned life was easier just letting them stay where they were.

      Some had been expelled elsewhere, and didn’t have much else to do. Others just didn’t want to attend their own schools. Ours was like a youth club. A youth club where we were in control.

      Yeah, Man Dem came to Dick Shits because it was loose and relaxed.

      Better to be here with the rest of your bloods in a lesson, rather than out in the street alone.

      Killer P – he СКАЧАТЬ