Beatles

by Lars Saabye Christensen

Genres: Coming of Age; Young Adult

Synopsis

'"Beatles" is the story of Kim Karlsen and his three buddies, Gunnar, Ola and Seb - and, yes, they occasionally like to think of themselves as the Fab Four. They were born in 1951, and the story starts with the first wave of Beatlemania in Norway, in the spring of 1965. Each chapter tales a different Beatles song (or, near the end, post-Beatles solo songs) as its title and theme - all the way through the winter of 1972. There's drinking (lots of it), football, some love-fumblings (Kim has two girlfriends that he has to semi-juggle) and the sort of minor adventures that are part of growing up. "Beatles" is a well-written account of a generation, and of growing up in a specific time. It feels very real' - "The Complete Review".

Release date: June 25, 2009

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 534

Sample

Spring 1965

I am sitting in a summer house and it is autumn. My right hand is irritating me, stitches everywhere, and my index finger in particular. It is crooked, bent like a claw. I cannot stop looking at it. It is clinging to a ballpoint pen, which writes in red ink. It is an uncommonly hideous finger. It’s a shame I am not left-handed, I once wished I were left-handed and played the bass guitar. But I can write backwards with my left hand, just like Leonardo da Vinci. Nevertheless, I am writing with my right hand and tolerate the disfigured hand and revolting finger. There is a smell of apples in here. A strong aroma of apples rises from the old table where I am sitting in the middle of the dark room. It is the evening of the first day and I have taken the shutters off only one of the windows. The windowsill is covered with dead insects, flies, mosquitoes, wasps with thin, desiccated legs. And the scent of the fruit is making me light-headed, my shiny head releases something inside me, shadows dance along the walls in the moonlight which shines in through the sole window converting the room into an old-fashioned diorama. Now I turn around, like Ola’s father, the barber of Solli, who on birthdays always put the film the wrong way round in the projector – we watched three Chaplin films from the end – and go backwards in time. And although I don’t think about it, the reel behind my eyes stops at a particular frame, I hold it for a few seconds, freeze it, then let it roll, for I am all-powerful. I give it voices, sound, smell and light. I can clearly hear the shingle crunching beneath our shoes as we traipse across Vestkanttorget, I can feel the giddiness after a mega drag and I can still feel Ringo’s elbow digging gently into my ribs, and we stop in a line, all four of us, and John points to a shiny, black Mercedes parked outside Naranja pet shop.

George was the first to speak. He said, ‘It’s yours, Paul.’


Everyone knew that I was the specialist as far as Mercs were concerned. Didn’t even need tools for them. Just a question of twisting the round badge to the left three times, letting go and pulling, because the clip had already snapped. We raced up the steps and felt a hot tingle under our sweaters. We took stock.

‘Too many people around,’ John whispered.

The others agreed. There were two men standing under the apple trees in the corner and an old lady was crossing the street close by.

‘No point takin’ r-r-risks,’ Ringo mumbled.

‘We’ve already got an Opel and two Fords,’ George said.

‘But it’s a 220S!’ I protested.

‘We’ll nick it some other evenin’,’ John said.

However, there was no guarantee it would be there the following day. And then I felt the rush that I have felt so often since, and I was no longer listening to the others. I sauntered across the street, alone, bent over the bonnet, my heart still beating in a relaxed, unconcerned way. A couple was coming downhill from Berle, the two men standing under the apple trees glanced over, the parrots in the shop window squawked mute shrieks. I twisted the Mercedes antlers round three times, let go, pulled, and stuffed the badge up my sweater. John, George and Ringo were already a long way ahead, they were supposed to be walking as naturally as possible, but from behind they looked like three lamp posts fitted with red bulbs. John turned and waved furiously, I smiled and waved back, and then they broke into a run towards Uranienborg Park. I was still at the scene of the crime, looked around, but no one had reacted. I began to follow the others, slowly, as if to drag the whole thing out, to get a real sensation of how it felt, to give the car owner a chance to catch me. That wonderful warm tingle spread through my body. And no one was following me. I pulled out the booty, brandished it in triumph and ran after the others.

They were waiting by The Man on the Steps corner shop, each with a packet of juice.

‘You’re c-c-crazy,’ Ringo said.

‘One day we’ll get bloody caught,’ John muttered.

He looked up at me, didn’t smile, seemed a little resigned, almost unhappy from where he was sitting with a packet of freezing cold juice and a cigarette bobbing up and down.


It was almost nine. Night had fallen without our noticing. The Man on the Steps switched off the shop lights and we ambled down what locals called Farmers’ Hill. I gave the Mercedes badge to George, he was the custodian, he kept them under magazines in a box beneath his bed.

‘We’ve got six of ’em now,’ he said.

‘But no 220Ss!’

‘Can’t see any d-d-difference,’ Ringo said.

‘Seein’ isn’t the point, it’s knowin’ that counts,’ I said.


‘How many Fiats have we got then?’ John wondered.

‘Nine,’ said George. ‘Nine Farts.’

‘My brother brought back a porn mag from Copenhagen,’ John said. We lurched to a halt, looked at him.

‘From Denmark?’ Ringo whispered, forgetting to stammer.

‘He was playin’ handball in Copenhagen. Yuk.’

‘What’s… what’s it like?’

‘Classy,’ said John. ‘Have to be off now.’

‘Bring it with you tomorrow,’ George said.

‘You do that!’ Ringo shouted, waving a screwdriver in the air. ‘Don’t forget!’

I joined John. We were going the same way, down Løvenskioldsgate, George and Ringo trudged off to Solli plass. Neither of us said a word. Sand from the previous winter crunched under our shoes and there was congealed dog shit all over the pavement. They were sure signs of spring even though it was still cold and dark, only mid-April. I gazed down at my shoes and was happy that Mum had promised me a new pair in May, the ones I was wearing now looked more like heavy ski boots and were a lead weight. John’s shoes were not a lot better as he wore hand-me-downs from his brother, Stig, and he was two years older and one metre eighty-five, John’s shoes were always so big that first of all he had to take a step inside them before he could set off.

‘Think we may have enough car badges now,’ John said, without looking at me.

‘Perhaps we should just collect lots of different makes,’ I suggested.

‘We’ve got enough,’ he repeated.

‘We could sell the ones we’ve got a lot of.’


John stopped dead and grabbed my arm with force.

‘Look,’ he shouted, pointing to the pavement.

I froze. There was a piece of string in front of us. String. White string on the ground right in front of us.

‘Hand Grenade Man,’ John whispered.

I did not say anything, just stared.

‘Hand Grenade Man,’ John repeated, stepping back.

I stood where I was, a metre, perhaps even less, from the cord. It was tied round the bars of a drain in the gutter and disappeared into a hedge.

‘Not sure that’s the Hand Grenade Man,’ I said quietly.

‘What shall we do?’ John stuttered behind me. ‘Ring the cops?’

‘Doesn’t have to be the Hand Grenade Man himself, even if there is some string,’ I went on, to myself mostly.

‘Those two boys up in Grefsen rang the cops,’ John hissed. ‘We could be blown to smithereens!’

At that moment I seemed to melt. I dissolved into nothing. I took a pace forward, bent down, heard John screaming behind me and tugged with all my might.

There was a hell of a racket because six tin cans were tied to the end of the string. John was long gone, on the other side of the street, entrenched behind a lamp post. I presented my catch and he climbed out of his trench. At that moment we heard laughing and giggling from behind the hedge. John was white-faced and his teeth were chattering, and with one leap he was over the hedge and dragging two small brats into the light. He shoved them against an Opel, frisked them, pointed to me and the cord and said:

‘D’you know how many years inside you get for doin’ this sort of thing?’

The brats swung their heads from side to side.

‘Five!’ John shouted. ‘Five years! You’ll be sent to Jæren. You don’t even know where that is, right, but it’s a helluva long way away, and you’ll be breakin’ rocks! For five years. Have you got that?!’

The brats nodded.

Then John tied them together with the string and chased them down the street. They ran like lunatics, and everyone was at their windows thinking it was a wedding. We heard the clatter of the tin cans from several blocks away.


‘Why don’t they take ’em off?’ John wondered, scratching his ear.

‘S’pose they think it’s fun,’ I said.

‘I s’pose so.’

We ploughed on. After a long pause John said, ‘You’re mad! You could’ve been blown apart!’

‘What are the pics in your brother’s mag like?’

‘Big twats. Twice as big as those in Cocktail.’


He fell silent. I didn’t have the pluck to ask him any more, so I just waited for John to tell me the rest.

‘And they aren’t even hairy.’ It burst out of him.

‘No hair?’

‘Not one pube. Shaven off.’

‘Is that possible?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Ringo’s dad is a barber,’ I said.

‘You can see everythin’,’ John said.

‘Everythin’?’

‘Yup.’

We parted in Gimle. John went down to Thomas Heftyes gate, I went on to Skillebekk. I couldn’t get the shaven twats out of my mind. I tried to imagine them, but it was totally beyond me. The closest I got was the picture of the naked woman in the medical book, but I think the photo had been touched up, at any rate, the twat was just a smooth surface, there didn’t seem to be any hair on it, but there wasn’t a crack to be seen, either, and I presumed they couldn’t show that sort of woman in a family medical book.

As I turned into Svoldergate the rain started, a light, warm drizzle that hardly wets you and you can’t see, and I thought it felt just like a lot of hairs touching my face, tiny little dark hairs, and there was a strange smell in the whole street, a bit like the school shower, and no one around anywhere. Down the last stretch I broke into a run because I was already three quarters of an hour late.

But I stopped by the postboxes in the entrance. I saw a brown envelope. Next to it the postman had left a note. There was no one in the block called Nordahl Rolfsen. Could anyone help him? I could. The letter was for me. I shoved the envelope up my shirt, crept upstairs and sneaked into my room. There I carefully opened the letter and sat with my ears on stalks. No one about. What the ad said was true. Discreet and well-packed. From Alt I Ett. A dozen Rubin-Extra, pink. Eleven kroner. But I didn’t need to pay. No one knew who Nordahl Rolfsen was. Cunning. I didn’t dare open the smooth package, just held it in my hand, heard the light rain outside, the hairs brushing the window. Then I hid the whole lot in the third drawer, under Pop-Extra, Beatles magazines and a Conquest crime magazine.


It was Thursday, must have been because we had an essay for the day after, the last before the exam, and essays always had to be handed in on Fridays so that Lue, our form master, had some entertainment for the weekend. I still hadn’t written a word. In fact, the plan had been to start coughing that night, long, barking, despairing coughs that kept Mum and Dad awake till way past midnight. And the following morning all I had to do was heat up my forehead on the pillow so Mum would confirm a temperature of 39.5 and instantly prescribe a day off. But I didn’t want to be the last person to see Gunnar’s brother’s porn mag. I decided to write the essay after Mum and Dad had gone to bed. And all of a sudden my mother was in the doorway with my supper and a glass of milk.

‘You could say hello when you come home,’ she said. I took the plate and glass.

‘We’re in the sitting room. That’s not so far away, is it.’

‘I know,’ I said.

‘Where have you been?’

‘At school.’

‘So late?’

‘We were playing footie.’

She came a step closer and I knew this was going to drag on. And I knew exactly what she would say and how I would answer so as to be polite.

‘Do you have to stick all those horrible pictures on the wall?’


‘I think they’re fab,’ I said.

‘Are they fab?’ my mother almost screamed, pointing to a picture just under the ceiling.


‘That’s The Animals,’ I said.


Mum sent me a stern look.

‘You need a haircut,’ she said. ‘It’ll soon be over your ears.’

I thought about Dad, who was almost bald, and then I blushed because an eerie apparition, a monstrous head, a crazy hybrid, appeared in my mind and Mum came closer, asked me what was up.

‘What’s up?’ I parroted in a gruff voice.

‘Yes. You suddenly went all funny.’

Now the conversation was taking a completely unexpected and dangerous turn. I began to make a show of eating, but Mum stood her ground, leaning against the door frame.

‘Have you been out with a girl tonight?’ Mum asked.

The question was insane, way off the mark, idiotic, a bolt from the blue and, instead of laughing her out of court, I lost my temper.

‘I’ve been with Gunnar! And Sebastian and Ola!’

Mum patted me on the head.

‘I still think you need a haircut.’

Still? What did she mean? What trap was being laid now? I summoned my last ounce of strength and used the argument that always had some effect on my mother because once upon a time she had wanted to be an actress.

‘Rudolf Nureyev’s got long hair, too!’

Mum nodded slowly, a smile spread across her face and then, so help me, she put her hand on my head for the second time.

‘You can bring her home with you.’

I was sure that I had the reddest pale face in the western world, not including Jensenius, the opera singer on the floor above, who drank thirty bottles of Export pils a day and said it was the deposit on bottles and art that kept the world going.

As usual, Dad was sitting in the chair by the bookshelves with a copy of Nå and a picture of Wenche Myhre on the front page. He was concentrating hard on the crossword. Then he raised his narrow, pale face and looked at me.


‘Have you done your homework?’

‘Yes.’

‘How’s your preparation for the exams going?’

‘Fine. I think.’


‘You shouldn’t think. You should know.’

‘I’m well set.’

‘Looking forward to going to realskole?’


I nodded.

Dad mustered a brief smile and subsided back into his crossword. I said goodnight and, as I turned, Dad’s voice was there again.

‘What’s the name of the drummer in The Beatles?’

He looked very strange as he said that and I think he even blushed. To justify himself, he pointed energetically at the magazine.

‘Ola,’ I started to say, but caught myself. ‘Ringo. Ringo Starr. In fact, his real name is Richard Starkey,’ I informed him.

Dad filled in the squares, nodded and said:

‘Excellent. That fits.’

I lay awake waiting for my mother and father to go to bed. If I switched on the light now they would come and ask what was wrong, because they could see from the crack under the door whether the room was dark or not. I heard the rain outside, I heard the trains puffing past only a few hundred metres away, between my room and Frogner Bay. I knew exactly where they were going, but then there weren’t many railway lines to choose between. Even though they were not going that far and just stayed in Norway they always made me think of distant countries, the ones on the maps behind the teacher’s seat. Listening to the trains, I thought about the stars too, and space, and then everything glazed over and I plunged backwards, inside myself it seemed, and if I gave a shriek Mum and Dad would come rushing in, they were tiny dots a long, long way away and they gently pulled me back. But I wasn’t screaming now. I heard the trains, and the Goldfish – the tram – screeching its way across Ole Bulls plass. And in the middle of all this there were Mum and Dad’s low voices and the radio that was always on, and it was always opera, and it sounded so lonely, sadder than anything I knew, songs from another world, a world that was grey and still, the singing was so cold and dead. On the walls around me were pictures of faces that also sang, but not a sound emerged, the guitars and drums were silent. The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Dave Clark Five, The Hollies, The Beatles. The Beatles. Pictures of The Beatles. And I dreamt about Ringo, John, George and Paul. I dreamt that I was one of them, that I was Paul McCartney, that I had his round, sorrowful eyes that all the girls screamed themselves half to death over. I dreamt I was left-handed and played bass guitar. I sat up in bed, wide awake. But I am one of them, I thought aloud, and laughed. I am one of The Beatles.


It was half past eleven and Mum and Dad had gone to bed. I set to work. There were three titles. The first was impossible. My Family. Dad works in the bank and does crosswords. Mum wanted to be an actress when she was young. My name’s Kim. That was no good. The next title was: A Day at School. Impossible. Even lying has limits, even for me lying has limits. You can lie up to a certain point and make it sound good. After that it is just insane. I had to take the last one: Your Plans After Leaving Folkeskole. Folkeskole until sixteen, then realskole. I retrieved my exercise book from a pile of sandwiches. I had been given an E for my previous essay, but my father had written that one: My Hobby. Of course he thought that I should write about stamps, even though I only had two three-sided stamps from the Ivory Coast. My father got an E. Then I took a risk. I put a new cartridge in my fountain pen and wrote in ink straight on the page. There was no going back. My spine tingled, the excitement seemed to inspire me to greater things. First of all, I would finish realskole and afterwards gymnas. Then I would study medicine and become a doctor in a poor country where I would spend my life working with sick black people. I stretched it out to three and a half pages and finished with something about Fridtjof Nansen, but couldn’t quite get the North Pole to fit with black people, and I realised I should have taken Albert Schweitzer, but by then it was too late. I shut the book without reading through what I had written, and the time must have gone unusually fast because I heard the last train to Drammen thunder by, and the whole world was quiet. The rain had stopped. The trams had stopped running. Mum and Dad were asleep. And I was about to fall asleep myself when a limpid falsetto filled the room, coming from above, but it was not God, it was Jensenius, the nightingale, who had started his nocturnal wanderings, back and forth while singing old songs from the time he had been world-famous.


With Jensenius singing upstairs it was impossible to sleep, even though his voice was nowhere near as sad as those on the radio. Listening to Jensenius was more on the creepy side, but when you saw him it was just comical. He was so colossally big, not so unlike the picture of the man on the IFA salt pastilles, and he was also an opera singer, by the way. That reminded me of something. In the fifth class I had cut out the signature of the man on the pastille packet, Ivar Frederik Andresen, and told Gunnar it was a rare autograph of a world-famous opera singer. Gunnar paid two kroner for it – he collected autographs from everyone from Arne Ingier to Comrade Lin Piao. Gunnar did wonder, though, why it was written on such thick paper. Not paper, I said. Cardboard. The finest quality. But why was it so very small? I cut it out of a secret letter, I explained. Three days later Gunnar came over to me and asked if I wanted a salt pastille. And then he took out a packet of IFA and thrust it in my face. He wasn’t angry. Just astonished. I refunded his money and since then there have been no further financial dealings between us.


But, well, Jensenius, our block’s opera singer, he looked like an airship and from this colossal vessel issued a voice that was so high and reedy and heart-rending that a tiny schoolgirl seemed to be inside him, singing in his stead. I suppose he must have been a baritone at one time. There are several stories circulating about Jensenius and I am not quite sure which to believe, but people say he gave sweets to small girls, and small boys, too, and liked to hug them. He had been a baritone at one time, but they had fiddled with his undercarriage, and now he was a soprano, he drank like a bear and sang like an angel. And I like to call him the Whale because whales sing, too, they sing because they are lonely and the oceans are much too large for them.

And then I fell asleep, the first day.

The essay was handed in during the first lesson, after we had said Our Father with Dragon as prayer leader. But he didn’t get any further than ‘hallowed be thy name’, he fell quiet and reddened and his knuckles were pressed white, and Goose had to take over. Now everything went as smooth as butter and the rest of us stood there, straight-backed, by our seats, mumbling as well as we were able. Class monitor that week was Seb. He buzzed up and down the lines collecting the exercise books and putting them in a tidy pile on the desk in front of Lue who scanned the class with incredulity.


‘All present and correct?’ he asked in a low voice.

Seb nodded and went to his seat. He sat at the back of the window row while I sat behind Gunnar in the middle row and Ola sat at the front by the door and was always first out and last in. In fact, it was a good place to be behind Gunnar, his back was broad enough to mask the whole family medical book. He turned to whisper:

‘Which one did you write about?’

‘Future plans.’

‘What are you goin’ to be?’

‘Doctor in Africa.’

‘Seb’s goin’ to be a missionary. In India.’

‘What about you?’

‘Goin’ to be a pilot. And Ola’s goin’ to be a ladies’ hairdresser.’

‘You got the mag with you?’

Gunnar gave a quick nod and faced the front.

Lue was still scanning the class as though we were a new landscape that had manifested itself in all its glory, and not 7A, twenty-two striplings with greasy hair and spots and our hands in our pockets.

‘Has everyone handed in an essay?’ he repeated.


No reaction.

‘Who has not handed in an essay?’ he asked, rephrasing the question.


Silence in the classroom. You could have heard a pin drop. The Briskeby tram clattered past, a long way down in the world, for we were the school’s finest and occupied the top floor.

Lue stood up and began to pace the podium, to and fro, in front of us. Whenever he reached the desk he patted the pile of essays and his smile became broader and broader.

‘You’re learning,’ he said. ‘You’re learning and perhaps my endeavours have not been in vain. You will soon come to realise that punctuality is one of the corner stones of the adult world. Now that you are going on to the realskole you will be faced with new and much greater demands, not to mention those of you who are aiming at gymnas and university, you will soon understand, and the best time to understand this is now. This wonderful pile of essays may indeed bear witness to the fact that you have understood if not everything, then at least a part.’


I was sitting in the middle row, behind Gunnar’s comfortingly broad back. Lue was marching around up on his stage, speaking with a warm, tremulous voice. No one was listening to one single syllable, but we were content because we didn’t have to parse main clauses or read Ibsen’s Terje Vigen, and after a while his voice faded away, it is a quirk I have, I seem to be able to cut off the sound, as it were, and it can be very pleasant sometimes. Lue became a silent movie, his movements were jerky and exaggerated and his mouth was working with such vigour that his mentally distant classroom audience could guess what was on his mind. Now and then illustrative texts appeared on the board – When you sally forth into the great wide world, be prepared – Fight for your country and the Norwegian language – Practice makes perfect – Turn your left cheek and always ask first – Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. And just before the bell rang, I knew he was happy. He was so happy because for the first time, and the last, we had handed in our essays on time. Lue was happy and he was happy with us. Then the bell rang and everyone raced to the door even though Lue was in mid-sentence and, recalling him now, I see a small, grey figure wreathed in an over-sized smock, with thinning hair falling over his forehead and a face shiny with his exertions and happiness. He is still speaking without sound as twenty-two crazy boys charge out, stampede, and he is still standing there, in his own world, as lonely as Jensenius must be, but he is happy because irony has finally released its grip on him, and he is sincere and warm and likes us.


But that is now and not then. At that time the silent movie came to a sudden end when the bell rang. Lue was gone in an instant, like a technical fault, and I clung to Gunnar. The trail led straight down to the toilet where eventually ten to fifteen boys had gathered, so someone must have had a big mouth and that mouth belonged to Ola, who had the world’s worst face for playing poker, his whole mug began to twitch as soon as he had a pair of threes in his hand.

‘Where is it!’ Dragon hassled.

‘This isn’t the circus, you know,’ Gunnar said.

‘You’re havin’ us on,’ Dragon said. ‘You haven’t got it!’


Gunnar just glared at him, without wavering, and Dragon felt ill at ease. He was fat and sweaty and shifted weight from foot to foot.

‘When’ve I ever had anyone on?’ Gunnar asked.

I remembered the time with the IFA pastilles and looked away, for everyone knew that Gunnar would not deceive anyone, and Dragon was slowly but inexorably pushed out of the circle, ashamed, red and breathless.

Gunnar regarded us for a while. Then he pulled up his sweater and shirt and produced a large white envelope. And the circle around him closed in as at last he opened the envelope and took out the magazine. Then, as though he had lost interest, he gave me the magazine without a word and disappeared into a cubicle and locked the door.

So I became the centre of the circle and everyone moved towards me, pushing and shoving, because the break would soon be over. I flicked through it. I could feel the agitation at once, I was agitated myself, it wasn’t as I had imagined. The first pictures were close-ups of shaven twats and there was not a sound to be heard, no one laughed, no one grinned, it was as quiet as a burial chamber. I flicked through faster. There were twats from above and from below, whole pages of huge slits spread diagonally from corner to corner. But, at last, towards the end some normality began to return, whole women, huge knockers, loads of hair, but then there was a picture of a guy lying down with his whole face between a woman’s thighs.

‘What’s he doin’?’ a voice asked.

‘He’s lickin’,’ said another, and it was Gunnar’s, he was out of the cubicle and grinning.

Everything went quiet for a while, completely quiet.

‘Lickin’?’

‘Lickin’ the woman’s cunt, can’t you see!’ another voice said.

‘Lickin’ her cunt?’

Dragon stood on the outer perimeter, his eyes rolling.

‘Yup.’

‘What…what… does that taste like then?’

‘It tastes of grass,’ I said, quick as a shot. ‘If you’re lucky. But if you cop a bitter ’un, it tastes like stale salami and gym shoes.’

Someone was coming down the stairs. A shudder ran through the great flock of white faces. Gunnar threw me a bewildered glance, thrust the envelope in my hand and moved towards the exit with the others. I stood there with my back to the steps and put the magazine in the envelope. The senior teacher grabbed my shoulder and spun me round.


‘And what have you got there?’ he asked.

For a moment I saw the whole world falling apart, everything fell, and it all fell at the same speed, a never-ending fall. The teacher towered over me like a figurehead on a galleon and I had to lean back to look him in the eye. Everything fell, we fell together, and it was more exhilarating than standing on the edge of the ten-metre board in Frogner Lido just before the big leap, even though I had never dived from such a height.

‘My father’s magazine,’ I said. ‘Which I’m going to show herr Lue.’

‘What sort of magazine?’

‘A travel brochure about Africa. My uncle was in Africa this Easter.’

The senior teacher regarded me for a long time.

‘So your uncle has been to Africa, has he?’

‘Yes, he has,’ I said.

He leant over me for longer still, his breath was unbearable, herring, fish oil and tobacco. Then he took a step back and shouted, ‘Well, get outside then, boy!’

I ran up the steps into the sunshine. At that moment the bell rang and it felt as though it was inside me, somewhere between my ears. The rest of the skunks were standing by the gym, staring at me as if I had just landed on earth and was small, green and slimy.

‘How… how?’ Dragon stuttered.

‘He likes ’em smooth with cream on,’ I said, strutting past them.

And all of sudden I felt drained, absolutely shattered. The gym teacher shouted to us from the door and we shuffled down to the sweaty dressing rooms with wooden benches and iron hooks and the floor that was always wet from the showers. I didn’t care if we weren’t outsi