Forever After - By David Jester Page 0,75

my wrists which were covered by a light jacket, it was a hot day but my mother wasn’t going to let me out of the house without a jacket for its entirety.

I walked side by side with my brother, a few seconds passed before we began exchanging blows. Throwing soft side-punches, hidden from the view of our mother.

‘You two will behave when you’re with Christine now won’t you?’ she warned.

‘Sure,’ Graham said.

‘Yeah,’ I said, slightly thrown off as a punch landed on my thigh.

‘If I hear that you’ve been getting into any trouble I’ll ground you both for a week,’ she continued, fearful of leaving us alone with the single mother of an only child.

‘Fair enough,’ Graham said before landing a shot on my arm. ‘I’ll look after David, don’t worry.’

I looked at him suspiciously.

‘They do have lions there don’t they?’ he asked sarcastically.

‘What are you planning?’ I stopped to ask.

He held up his hands defensively.

‘Boys! Not now!’

‘But he’s going to throw me to the lions,’ I pleaded.

‘I never said that.’

‘Both of you shut up,’ she began to walk away and urged us to follow. I rushed to walk by her side.

‘Git,’ I whispered to my brother.

‘Play nice with Rob,’ our mother continued to dish out her warnings.

‘Will do,’ Graham assured, kicking me gently on the shins just to annoy me as we walked. ‘How long does it--’ he paused, yelped, flew forward, stumbled and then correct himself. ‘He kicked me!’ he accused loudly, straightening up.

I stood with a smirk which was quickly wiped off my face by my mothers angry stare, her eyes cut through my soul and said more than a lecture could.

‘In my defence,’ I began, ‘he started it.’

‘And as usual you took it too far,’ Graham argued.

He was right and he lived by those words on a weekly basis as small fights and arguments often ended with me losing my temper and reaching for a weapon or fighting dirty. He was a good older brother, we did fight and it wasn’t all me, but no matter what, he would protect me and he never took things too far. Which often meant that he couldn’t fight back after I had taken things too far.

Our mother pulled us both close and bent down, she was a short woman and would soon be outgrown, but for now she needed to bend down to get to our eye level. ‘If you do anything to embarrass me on this trip then so help me God I will kill you both,’ she warned.

Sniff Sniff.

‘Christine has offered to take you and is paying for it.’ She paused to look us both in the eyes. ‘Be good.’

‘We will,’ we said simultaneously.

Sniff Sniff.

She looked at me questionably as she rose to a standing position again, ‘You still have the sniffles?’ she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders, my head held low after being told off.

She felt my forehead and shrugged it off. ‘You’ll be fine.’

We made it to Christine’s in one piece and after she shared a coffee with her neighbour and friend, Mum gave us both a kiss and a quiet word of warning, and then walked back across the street to our house. We were in the car and on our way to the safari park within minutes.

As the car rolled out of the cul-de-sac and began the journey to the safari park I asked how far away it was and received an answer that I wasn’t too pleased with. The park was in Merseyside and we lived in West Yorkshire, we were travelling the breadth of the country and it wasn’t going to be a quick ride.

‘I also have to stop off at my cousins house,’ Christine told us from the drivers seat.

I smiled as politely as I could, but I wasn’t smiling on the inside.

‘She lives a little out of the way but it shouldn’t take that long,’ she explained.

‘How long’s “not that long?’” I wondered.

Christine smiled at the inquisitive child in the back of her car. ‘Just a few hours.’

My jaw nearly hit the floor. When she said a long trip I was thinking an hour max, three hours just wasn’t going to do.

I looked across the backseat to see if the other passengers were as outraged as me. Sat in a line, with me on the right, was my brother and Christine’s son Rob, they were watching the road and seemed oblivious to the fact that we were going to be on it for a very long time. I thought about