Got any Charlie?

My name is Charlie Kray. No, I'm not related to the Kray twins but Ronnie does happen to be my nickname. My mother is a coke head so she decided to name her only child after her greatest love, Cocaine. I grew up living with my Aunt. My cousin, Katie, is more like a sister than a cousin. We went to the same schools and I always looked out for her, she's the intelligent one. I rarely saw my uncle, he was always off working somewhere and used to spend days away from home. He's a good man though and always provided for his family, even if that included me.

School was the usual bollocks. But with tutoring from Katie, I managed to pass my classes with mostly C grades. I even pulled out a B in Media, which my Aunt was pretty happy about. She works in a nursing home, looking after old people. Now I have a lot of respect for the old timers but cleaning up their piss and s**t is something I could never do. My Aunt Sally is a great woman. Charlton Primary & Comprehensive School is where both Katie and I went to. It's also where I met Jack, I knew him all of my school life but it wasn't until Year 9 that we became as close as we are today. One day during registration, both Jack and I were playing cards- we were using the cards with the porn stars on them, Jack had stolen them from his older brother -when a big kid by the name of Joshua walked in. For some reason he disliked us, but he was a dickhead anyway. He picked on everyone because he was bigger than everyone else. You know, taking your lunch money and all that s**t. He came over, pushed Jack off of his chair and stole the cards. At the time we did nothing, it was normal for it to happen. But this day was different.

Danny was the new kid in our year, he'd literally joined that day. He didn't know who Joshua was, however, and made the mistake of confronting him about it. “Hey, you can't just do that!” He said. “That's theft.” The class was silent, no body had spoken against Joshua before. Even a couple of the older kids in year 10 wouldn't touch him. He had a brother and a cousin in year 11, they were nasty b******s as well. “Oh really?” Replied Joshua, and he nutted him straight up. “Well that's assault, now f**k off!” Danny was on the floor holding his nose as it streamed with blood, when Joshua went to kick him. Jack stopped him just in time. “You don't do a guy on the floor, Josh, it's not right.” Joshua was livid, twice now someone had stepped up to him. You could see that he was about to lose it and Jack was going to get the full force of his wild temper. Luckily for Jack, Katie stepped in between them. She was Josh's girlfriend, but only because he threatened to knock me out if she said no. She tried talking some sense into him. “C'mon baby, don't worry about him, he didn't mean anything by it. Just forget about it.”

“Katie, move out of my way. I'm gonna punch his face in for stopping me.”

“Josh, don't! Everyone knows you're the strongest here, you don't need to prove-” Before she could finish, Joshua had pushed her out of the way and into a table, where she fell on her arm and broke it. That's when Jack snapped. See, Jack fancied the pants off of Katie and everyone knew it- everyone but me -even Josh knew it, which is why he wanted to beat him up so badly. I stood up from my chair in amazement as Jack threw a right hook at Joshua's chin. BANG! The kid stumbled back like he'd been hit by football to the face. Jack didn't stop there. He followed up with some jabs to his stomach. One. Two. Three. Four. All the while Josh was backing up against the door. The door was made of glass with those squares of wire mesh-s**t in it. As Jack went for another chin shot, Joshua dodged right and Jack put his hand straight through it. There were screams from the girls as the glass smashed and blood poured from Jack's right hand. Unbelievably, not a single teacher was around to stop it. Probably snorting lines in the staff canteen. Joshua took the initiative and began to pile in on Jack. He was kicking f**k out of him in the corner of the room. My face of awe turned to one of shock and horror. But that's when my gut instinct kicked in. Jack was my friend and I wasn't about to let this fat c**t almost kick him to death. Almost without knowing it, I grabbed a computer keyboard from the PC bay right next to where I was standing. I ripped out the cord from the back of the PC and took a couple of strides to the other side of the room, toward Josh.

As I neared to where he was, I swung the keyboard at him, aiming for his right ear. SMASH! I hit him with such force that the keyboard snapped and the keys splintered everywhere. Josh's head bounced off of the door frame and was dazed. I didn't stop there. As he turned to face me, looking groggy, I landed a sweet right to his face. His head snapped back and he tumbled to the floor. Now I know Jack said hitting a guy on the floor was a bad thing. But this c**t was a bully, he deserved it. I sat on his chest and piled into his face. Left. Right. Left. Right. Non-stop. If it weren't for our tutor finally walking in, I swear to god, I probably would have killed him. Lucky he walked in, eh? Mr Basting was our form tutor. When he walked in to witness the madness that had taken place, he almost dropped dead on the spot. It took him, Danny and another kid to pull me off of Josh, while the some of the girls went to get more help. We were all excluded for a month, including Danny, which we thought was pretty harsh, considering he was attacked. But the Headteacher said that it was him that started it all off by confronting Joshua. Absolute bollocks! She was probably shagging his older brother or something. Joshua spent two weeks in hospital with concussion and a burst eardrum. Katie was in for a day and came out with a cast on her arm. Jack was left with a few bruises and cuts. I think his ego was more bruised though.