I managed to last a whole week at home after coming out of hospital. It still amazes me that it worked at all, actually. The way my mum and dad just fell into my pocket. Maybe it was because they were making a deal. They so badly wanted to get the cuffs on Billie they must have felt I owed it to them to tell the truth for dropping the charges. Yes, Mum and Dad – I’ll go to school. Yes, I’ll get on with the homework. Yes, I’ll never run away and live in a tent again, not even the two-man tent you don’t know about, hidden in the garage. Promise.
You’d have thought even a half-wit would have realized that at least a part of that was bound to be not true, if not all. But no. They swallowed the lot.
I had another day off at home, which was crazy because I was fine really. I spent the time usefully though, smuggling out the two-man tent to a top-secret location. I was going up the wall by the evening, so they let me get back to school on Friday. Of course I didn’t stay there. It took some planning, mind.
I went to school for registration, creating the illusion of attendance. Then I left before lessons and went down the Brant to give Jim and Hannah the glad news about Billie, where I was greeted like a hero. Much better than school, thanks. I followed up on Monday morning by ringing the school, as my dad, saying how poor Chris had gone back to hospital for more tests. The receptionist was very sweet about it – wished poor Chris luck and said how much they were all missing him and hoped to see him soon.
Yeah, right.
It lasted till Wednesday. Jim had tipped me off that the school had cottoned on, and I knew Mum and Dad had been told as soon as I got home after my last day. They were waiting for me, both of ’em at the kitchen table. I peered in through the window. You could tell from their faces. They were disappointed. They were angry. They were … out of their depth.
Dad caught sight of me peering in, and if I hadn’t have known I soon would have done by the way he reacted.
‘There he is now!’ he yelled. They both jumped up and ran out of the back door, Dad shouting and yelling at me, Mum shouting and yelling at Dad. Me? I was on my bike. Literally. They’d both been so pleased when I started cycling to school. They should have known better. I simply turned the bike round and swooshed off. They rushed into the street behind me as I sailed away like an eagle towards the main road.
‘That’s why he was riding the bike – he’s been planning this all along!’ my dad yelled.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ hissed my mother – who, despite all the evidence, refused to believe just how cunning I was prepared to be.
Once I was sure I was safe, I stopped and turned round to look. They were standing in the road, the losers, watching their only hope of passing on their ridiculous genes to another generation disappear beyond their eyes.
‘Ah am prepared to follow you to the ends of time,’ I called back, in a heavy cod-American accent. ‘In ma efforts to ensure that you and your progeny do not continue to pollute God’s good earth.’
They just stood there and stared. Then I lifted my foot off the ground and wheeled off into the sunset.