Mum sighs and lights a fag.
‘This is the end of the trouble, Jess,
innit?
I don’t think I could take another
incident.’
‘I’m late,’ I say,
which isn’t an answer,
but I can’t promise I’ll be good for ever,
and she knows that.
When her back is turned
to the toaster,
I rob a few fags from the freshly opened packet
and have one lit before I’m out the door.
And then I’m inhaling
great gulps,
like it’s oxygen,
like I’ve never had a smoke before,
and by the time I reach the youth offending centre
I’ve finished off all three,
and I’ve got nothing to do except
pick actual litter.
Dawn
sort of smiles at me when I arrive,
like we might be friends.
But she hasn’t got a clue who
she’s dealing with.
And
she doesn’t know it was Rick who keyed her car last week,
and Fiona who nicked her phone.
She’s so gullible,
thinks she’s helping to
reform,
rehabilitate,
reissue us into society,
all scrubbed clean and ready to make nice.
The only one she can probably trust is
Nicu.
He’s the one we all avoid.
Can’t understand much anyway.
And he’s weird.
An immigrant gypsy boy
who looks half-wolf
if you ask me,
picking litter and leaves like it’s cash,
greedy for it.
‘You want my helping you?’
he asks today,
trying to team up
before I’ve even had a chance to get my gloves on,
and I sneer
as best I can.
Sneer at him
and his bullshit English.
Gypsy wolf boy.