‘The good news is,’ said my dad, ‘you don’t have to go back to the Brant.’
‘A bit of a relief all round,’ said my mum. They looked at each other and smiled. Obviously getting me away from the Brant was a major personal triumph for them. ‘The school thinks you’ve been through enough. You can go back in as soon as you’re ready.’
I closed my eyes and sighed. The thought of school – it just made my heart sink. Yes, I know, I got my bollocks stamped at the Brant, but that was bad luck. I’d been liking it up to that point. It was only half of one morning, but at least they treated you like a human being. It wasn’t sir this and miss that. It wasn’t boring me to death. The other kids liked it. So did I.
And, anyway, I’d made friends with Billie. No one was going to dare even touch me now.
‘Billie Trevors has been arrested for ABH – Actual Bodily Harm,’ said my dad. ‘That’s the other good news.’
‘That’s not fair,’ I said.
They stopped smiling and looked curiously at me.
‘Pardon?’
‘I think we should drop the charges,’ I said.
‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ muttered my dad.
‘You could have been seriously injured. You know that, don’t you?’ said Mum.
It all seemed pretty straightforward to me. Billie had come in to say she was sorry and she got nobbled by the rozzers because of it. It took some courage to do that. She didn’t have to. And, be fair, if someone pulled down your kecks in public, you’d be cross. I was stupid to jump in, that’s all.
You know what they say in a fight? Go for the biggest bugger first. In our family, that’s Mum. It’s like monkeys – there’s always a dominant one. Dad does a lot of hooting and branch-shaking to make himself look good, but it’s all show. Mum doesn’t need to do that. It’s her overweening mental and emotional superiority that gives her the edge – but that doesn’t mean to say she doesn’t have a weak spot.
‘They’re going to lock her up if we let them arrest her,’ I said. ‘The Secure Unit. Prison for kids. And she came to apologize! What’s the point of locking her up if she’s already reformed?’
Dad glared at me furiously. That stuff about reforming people – he can’t bear it. It’s a big point of issue between her and him. She believes that practically anyone, even the most hardened mass-murderer, can be made into a kind and useful member of society given the right circumstances, whereas my dad, he just believes in evil bastards.
‘The longer they lock her away, the better,’ he snapped. Tactics, he just don’t get it.
‘Hang on, hang on – he has a point there. She did come in especially to apologize, even though it got her caught,’ said my mum.
And that was it. They started snorting and glaring at each other. Then the pant-hooting started and they rushed upstairs to ‘talk it over’. Shortly after, suppressed shouting could be heard from an upstairs bedroom.
I had my hopes, but they were soon dashed. They came down together a bit later to announce their decision. I could tell they’d come to the wrong one by the way they were glancing conspiratorially at each other and touching one another on the arms.
‘It’s gone too far, Chris,’ Mum said. ‘You’re damaging your chances at school and now you’re even willing to risk damaging your chances of being a father. Quite apart,’ she added sternly, with a glance at my squirming father, ‘from causing strains inside the family.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I got kicked in the balls,’ I said. ‘It happens.’
‘This is the deal,’ Mum went on. ‘We’ll drop the charges …’ Dad couldn’t help himself and started rolling his eyes and snorting like a horse. Mum glared him into silence. ‘… We agree to drop the charges so long as you promise – promise! – on your word of honour! – to go back to school and get on with your work. Properly.’
‘We want your word,’ emphasized my dad. ‘Properly,’ he added, just in case there was any doubt.
‘Are you seriously telling me,’ I said, ‘that unless I agree to your blackmail, you’ll go straight ahead and get Billie locked up? Effectively ruin what chances she has of getting her life back on track?’ I asked them incredulously.
Mum flinched. ‘It’s not like that,’ she began.
‘Then how is it?’
No reply.
‘How do you justify that? Putting someone’s whole future at risk for your own personal whim?’ I asked her.
It was one of the few times I can remember Mum losing her rag.
‘I justify it,’ she shouted, ‘on the grounds that my son is behaving like a two-year-old child who won’t do anything unless he gets his own way. I justify it on the grounds that I can’t think of any other way of making you knuckle down and get on with your school work and make a future for yourself. Now, Chris – do we have a deal?’
‘You’re holding her whole future to ransom!’
‘Do. We. Have. A. Deal?’ she demanded through gritted teeth.
I turned my back and stamped upstairs without bothering to answer. There was silence downstairs for a while, then they came upstairs and went into the bedroom. See? Like monkeys. He gets his reward for being good. Or maybe it’s her who gets rewarded. I don’t want to know.
School. Even worse – work. Billie, Billie – this is asking a lot. I was going to have to think about this one.
The solution, when it came to me, was easy. As is so often the case, it involved the application of a simple lie. I went and told them that, yes, on reflection, I agreed to their terms.
And they believed me.