Chapter Two.

A Chapter by Milnever

I'm starting with chapter two, we meet Richard, our main character and get an insight into his home life and how he's treated at school.

September 1st, 2015.

Today started okay, and by okay, I mean terrible. But it started the same as every other day. I woke up early, too early, really, I wasn’t meant to be in school until 9a.m. but I woke up at 5. Not naturally or deliberately by an alarm, that would have been too easy, too normal. No, I was woken up by the familiar sound of Dad bursting in the front door, fuelled by alcohol and a lifetime of bad decisions.

‘OHHH-OHH, SAIL AWAYYYY’, he sang at the top of his voice, ‘SAIL AWAY, SAIL AWAY, SAIL AWAY!’ he’d sing these songs like they were chart-topping hits but they were just nonsense, They were normally jingles from adverts on the T.V. or old folk songs that drunk men who worked in coal mines sang swaying down barely lit streets coming home from the daily grind, like that song they sing in Jaws. How does it go again? I can’t remember. They’re all drunk sitting around the table in the middle of the ocean. I can’t remember it, doesn’t matter.

‘OHHHH, SAIL AWAY, SAIL AWAY, SAIL AWAY!’ and I could hear him bumping into tables, throwing his keys on to counter tops, opening the fridge looking for another drink that he’d somehow forgotten from earlier or he was looking for cheese or bacon or whatever he wanted. He’s a loud man, an unfriendly man. These songs he sings, they would be okay, they would make sense if he had any sailing background, if he was in the NAVY or just loved yachts, but he doesn’t, he hadn’t been, they were just words to him that he could sing as loud as he could to make him feel as free as possible. Dad’s a mechanic, I think. He doesn’t talk about it and I don’t ask nor do I know where he works, I’ve never been there and neither has Callum, my older brother. The only reason I think he’s a mechanic is because there’s always spanners lying around the place, tool boxes, bolts and screws and duct-tape and he occasionally comes home in overalls, tarred up, covered in oily fingerprints, like a man with oil for blood was bleeding and begging for his life. Maybe that’s what Dad does. Maybe he kills people covered in oil…

I went downstairs at about 8a.m. when he had passed out on the sofa, the banging had stopped and the singing had calmed. There’s no calm before the storm with him.

It’s storm-storm-storm-storm-pass out-storm-storm.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

I tip-toed downstairs, stepping over crushed and empty cans of lager, treading on screws and bolts and muting any cries of pain it caused. He lay flat out across the sofa, one leg hooked over the top of the seat and his shoe dangled from his foot. His gold chain hung loose around his neck and his scabby, dry hands nestled together on his chest, the way an undertaker would rest a body in its coffin. His receding hair line sweaty and his few remaining black curls glistened greasy in the morning sun that seeped its way through the curtains, illuminating clouds of dust that danced in its path. I made my way to the kitchen, where dirty plates were left out, the rubbish bin was almost overflowing and the netted curtains that hung down the rooms’ only window knotted together with globs of dried out bacon fat, splattered up from the grill below. To the right of the window, the back door leading to the garden. The patio and slabs outside housed the puddles of rain water from the night before, slabs that are normally a light grey, now looking almost black. The rain from last night was torrential, I heard it smacking down on the roof, onto the small thin window in my room that’s cracked around the sill. I looked around, searching for food for my school lunch or a bit of spare change, pound coins, notes, nothing more than £5 otherwise Dad would know something had gone missing and that wouldn’t be worth the hassle.

I remember, I was just about to think of Bertie, the little white terrier dog we own, I hadn’t seen him for a day or two, and just as I was about to whistle him quietly, obviously, I heard scratches at the back door. Dog scratches. Panting, desperate clawing from outside. The rain still spitting a little bit, nothing too bad, nothing like it was a few hours before. When I opened the door, his paws fell down, he looked up at me with his fur soaked through. If dogs weren’t full of admiration and love for their owners, he would be barking at me, ripping at my leg, attacking me, he may have even pissed on me and I wouldn’t have blamed him. Instead of doing any of those things, he shook his coat, a spray of rain water leaping from him and half making its way to Dad, landing on the carpet instead. He walked in, with a defeated look on his face, went to drink water from his bowl but there wasn’t any, obviously, that would have been too easy to refill. Too normal. I half filled the bowl and placed it back in the corner. I hate that stupid dog. Stupid dog with its stupid face and its stupid wet mouth and its stupid little black eyes that are the only thing I see when I come home. The only thing happy to see me. The only positive thing about coming home. I hate that dog.

Tip-toeing back through the lounge, dancing past the sofa with Dad on it, I made my way to the front door. It was around half past 8 now and I had school in half an hour. It was time to go. The front door, not fully closed, but still with an inch gap between door and wall where Dad had obviously left it open when he came home, I half opened it, put on my shoes, tied the laces an�"

‘What the f**k are you doing, kid?’ Dad had woken up, his voice sounded like he’d been awake for a minute or two.

‘I’m just…going to school, Dad, you know.’

‘What the FUC-school? What f*****g day is it? I thought it were Saturday…’

‘No, it’s a Tuesday. I have school, I’ve got to go. Bertie’s in, he was out all night.’

‘I don’t give a s**t about that f*****g dog. It’s not my problem.’

He sat up, rubbing his palms against his temples, a little bit of spit left his mouth and fell to the floor, narrowly missing his feet. His head flung up, he was trying to stare at me but couldn’t find me straight away. His eyes, weary and blood-shot caught me and just as I’d started to make my way outside, he shouted me once more.

‘Look, kid. I want you back early today. If you’re not back by 4 o’clock then there’ll be f*****g Hell to pay,’ I didn’t reply immediately, but I wish I had because he then shouted, ‘ARE YOU F*****G LISTENING TO ME?’

‘Yes, Dad, I heard you.’

‘Good. Now piss off.’

I shut the door behind me, telling myself that I would never open it again. Every day I have told myself that I will leave, run away but every day I come back for reasons I can’t explain. The same way a beaten dog will never disobey its abusive owner. I am a dog. A weak and worthless dog.

I got to school, which is a high school. I’m 14 years old, by the way, I forgot to mention that, sorry. I got to school, my uniform hadn’t been cleaned for a week or two and when I did have the chance to clean it, it was at a weekend and I had a few extra pound coins lying around to use at the laundrette. I could use the washing machine at home, but it doesn’t work. I asked Dad to try and fix it once, a few months ago. I think he hit me and called me a c**t for asking. Some mechanic he must be.

So my uniform was dirty, and probably smelled a little bit as well, I couldn’t tell what had a nice smell and what didn’t anymore. All of my surroundings are piss stained with an extra scent of stale lager.

School is bull-s**t. I get why they make kids come to school, but I don’t-I just don’t get it. There should be a choice. You don’t learn anything there, it’s all a big popularity contest and the only people who can enter that contest are the kids with happy parents and call themselves middle class, they come to school every day, showered, clean shirt, clean cardigan, everything smelling fresh and soft, their shoes glisten under the classroom lights and their hair neatly styled with expensive gel or wax. Kids who get an allowance, kids who walk their dogs with the Moms and Dads and occasionally go to Pizza Hut and will routinely order Chinese food and watch the television together and go to bed at the same time, smiling, happy. These are the only children allowed to enter the popularity contests. These are the ones accepted. These are the happy.

F**k them all.

First thing to do every morning of school is go to your forms room to do the register, tell the school you’ve turned up and then you can leave to the lessons you actually turned up for. When I arrived, the room was full of kids with friends, laughing in their respective social circles all in their wrong allocated seats. It’s funny to me because when the teacher, Mr. Gregg turns up, they’ll all run off like the scared little children they are back to the seats they’re assigned. Screw that. I just sit on my own in my correct seat. At least then I never have to rush around the room.

Yeah, that’s why I sit on my own.

With the classroom door closed, the kids had time to throw paper aeroplanes, drink cans of Red Bull like it was going out of fashion, and generally be very f*****g annoying. Mr. Gregg is heard muttering outside, chatting to another teacher or a dinner lady about whatever they were chatting about. The kids jump up like startled Deer, heading to their seats like heat-seeking missiles. On his way back, Steven Suffolk had to walk past me, which he did, picking up my bag which I’d left beside my feet. Before I could react, before I could say anything, he’d thrown it on top of a cupboard, standing at least 6 foot tall. I couldn’t reach it. No one apart from Mr. Gregg could have.

‘Why? What’s the point?’ I said, reasoning with the unreasonable.

‘I dunno. Why not?’ If I’ve learnt anything from school, it’s that that question was rhetorical.

‘You’re such a dick.’ I said, hoping it was a lot quieter than it came out as. The classroom gasped like a theatre audience. HOW DARE THE WEIRD KID HAVE AN ATTITUDE, HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY, they must have been thinking.

‘What?! What did you say?’ Steven said, biting his lips, stepping up close to me.

‘Oh, nothing, just nothing, don’t worry about it.’

Before Steven could reply with what was definitely going to be a clever, witty remark, the classroom door swung open. When I say swung, it crept open. Slowly. ‘SIT DOWN, STEVEN.’ The voice shouted from behind me. He backed away, Steven’s eyes still fixed on me. The funny thing was, if I had stared into his eyes for that long, with that much intensity, I would have been declared gay on the spot. But no, when Steven Suffolk does it, he’s hard, a child that should not be messed with.

Mr. Gregg paced his way towards us, his mere presence being enough to make both me and Steven sit down straight away. He stretched to the top of the cupboard, dragging down my dirty bag that only had 2 text books and a pencil in it, and placed it back down at my feet.

‘Right,’ he shouted, sitting at his desk and opening up his register, ‘why don’t we shut up and say, quite simply, “Yes, Sir” when I call out your names, okay?’

No one said anything.

‘Is that okay?’

‘YES, SIR.’ The room gasped again, a theatre audience in action.

He got halfway down the list of names, and then he shouted, ‘Richard Griers.’ That’s my name, I thought, popping my head up. I coughed a little bit, clearing my throat, ‘Yes, Sir.’ I said, clocking in for the daily grind. I was officially at school. Brilliant.