tree with Gary Drake, Ant Little, Wayne Nashend and Darren Croome. They’d’ve loved me to make a run for it. I didn’t. Planet Earth’d shrunk to a bubble five paces wide.
‘Home,’ I said.
Wilcox flobbed. ‘Ain’t yer go-go-go-going to t-t-talk to us?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Well, yer ain’t goin’ to yer poncy fuckin’ home down poncy fuckin’ Kingfisher Meadows yet, yer poncy fuckin’ maggot.’
I let Wilcox make the next move.
He didn’t. It came from behind. Wayne Nashend pinned me in a full nelson. My Adidas bag was ripped out of my hand. No point in shouting ‘That’s my bag!’ We all knew that. The crucial thing was to not cry.
‘Where’s yer bumfluff, Taylor?’ Ant Little peered at my upper lip. ‘Ain’t yer got any bumfluff left?’
‘I shaved it off.’
‘“I shaved it off”’ Gary Drake mimicked me. ‘That s’posed to impress us?’
‘There’s this joke going round, Taylor,’ said Wilcox. ‘Have yer heard it? “D’yer know Jason Taylor?”’
‘“N-n-n-o,”’ replied Gary Drake. ‘“B-b-but I t-trod in s-s-some once!”’
‘Yer’re a laughing-stock, Taylor,’ spat Ant Little. ‘A piss-flaps toss-pot laughing-stock!’
‘Going to the pictures with your mummy!’ said Gary Drake. ‘You don’t deserve to live. We should hang you from this tree.’
‘Say somethin’, then,’ Ross Wilcox came right up close, ‘Maggot.’
‘Your breath smells really bad, Ross.’
‘What?’ Wilcox’s face arseholed up. ‘WHAT?’
I’d shocked myself, too. But there was no going back. ‘I’m not trying to be insulting, honest. But your breath reeks. Like a bag of ham. Nobody tells you ’cause they’re scared of you. But you should clean your teeth more often or eat mints ’cause it’s chronic.’
Wilcox let a moment drag by.
A sharp double-slap crushed my jaw.
‘Oh, and you’re saying yer not scared of me?’
Pain is a good focuser. ‘It could be halitosis. The chemist in Upton could give you something for it, if it is.’
‘I could kick your head in, you dickless twat!’
‘Yeah, you could. All five of you.’
‘On my fuckin’ own!’
‘I’m not doubting it. I saw you fight Grant Burch, remember.’
The school bus was still by the Black Swan. Norman Bates sometimes gives a bundle to Isaac Pye and Isaac Pye gives Norman Bates a brown envelope. Not that I was expecting any help.
‘This – oily – spacko – maggot’ – Ross Wilcox jabbed my chest with each word – ‘needs – a – GRUNDY!’ A grundy’s where a bunch of kids yank you up, hard, by your underpants. Your feet leave the ground and the crotch of your pants is forced up your bum-crack so your balls and dick get crushed.
So a grundying’s exactly what I got.
But grundies’re only fun if the victim squeals and tries to fight. I steadied myself on Ant Little’s head and sort of rode it out. Grundies humiliate rather than hurt. My attackers pretended to find it funny, but it was heavy, unrewarding work. Wilcox and Nashend trampolined me up and down. My pants just burnt my crotch rather than split me in two. I was dropped on to the soaking grass.
‘That,’ promised Ross Wilcox, panting, ‘is just for starters.’
‘Maaaaaaggot!’ Gary Drake sang out of the mist by the Black Swan. ‘Where’s your bag?’
‘Yeah.’ Wayne Nashend booted my arse as I got up. ‘Better find it.’
I sort of hobbled towards Gary Drake, my bumbone smarting.
The school bus revved up. Its gears cranked.
Grinning this sadistic grin, Gary Drake swung my Adidas bag.
Now I saw what was coming and broke into a run.
Tracing a perfect arc, my Adidas bag landed on the roof of the bus.
The bus jerked into motion, off to the crossroads by Mr Rhydd’s.
Changing course, I sprinted through the long wet grass, prayed the bag’d slide off.
Laughter acker-ack-acked after me, like machine guns.
One ½ p of luck rolled my way. A combine harvester’d made a slow traffic jam from Malvern Wells. I managed to reach the school bus while it waited at the crossroads by Mr Rhydd’s shop.
‘What,’ snarled Norman Bates as the door opened, ‘d’you think you’re playing at?’
‘Some boys,’ I fought for breath, ‘chucked my bag on the roof.’
The kids still on the bus lit up with excitement.
‘What roof?’
‘The roof of your bus.’
Norman Bates gave me a look like I’d shat in his bap. But he swung down, nearly knocking me over, marched to the end of the bus, climbed up the back-end monkey ladder, grabbed my Adidas bag, lobbed it at me, and climbed back down to the road. ‘Yer mates’re a bunch o’ wankers, Sunbeam.’
‘They’re not my mates.’
‘Then why let ’em push you around?’
‘I don’t let them. There’s five of them. Ten of them. More.’