Seven years old

I was seven. I wanted to learn the alphabet, how to read and write properly at the same time. Every day my best friend and I would do graffiti with chalk under the motorway, which is more permanent on concrete than you would think. He threw stones across the river, which sometimes hit the houses on the other side and we would do signals to make lorry drivers sound their horns from Huntixx Bridge or go to the scrap yard. Once we discovered bags of old glue in a caravan.

'You'd never want to do this.' He said, 'It's horrible.'
'Never,' I replied. 'It would probably turn me into a zombie.'
I remember we were afraid of his brother. He said he would kill me, for no reason, there was a drowning in the river one Christmas Eve whilst they were joy riding. He tried to save the victim but failed. They always congregated by the railway and I would watch him and the rest of his gang from the top of the path.

My parents wouldn't let me go out for weeks because of the danger. Jeneaxxe was my girlfriend, she was diabetic, couldn't grow, lived by the railway. Often the ambulance had to be called, because she passed out. She was expelled from school for skiving in the 4th year. I remember one morning her obese sister sat on the rabbit and killed it, which caused her Dad to cut his hand open with a knife. He refused to go to causality. Outside we could see her brother through the window, doing wheel spins on his scrambler in the garden.