Black Swan Green

‘I want to bloody kick this moronic bloody world in the bloody teeth over and over till it bloody understands that not hurting people is ten bloody thousand times more bloody important than being right.’

The first torrent of vomit kicked a GUUURRRRRR noise out of me, and poured on the muddy grass. In the hot slurry were bits of prawn and carrot. Some'd got n my splayed fingers. It was warm as warm rice pudding. More was coming, Inside my eyelids was a Lambert and Butler cigarette sticking out of its box, like in an advert. The second torrent was a mustardier yellow. I guppered for fresh oxygen like a man in an airlock. Prayed that was the last of it. Then came three short, boiling subslurries, slicker and sweeter, as if composed of the Baked Alaska.

‘Revolting’ was the last word I ever spoke as someone who’d never kissed a girl. I’d always worried but kissing’s not so tricky. Your lips know what to do, just like sea anemones know what to do. Kissing spins you, like Flying Teacups. Oxygen the girl breathes out, you breathe in.

But your teeth can clunk, something chronic.

Teachers're always using that 'in your own words.' I hate that. Authors knit their sentences tight. It's their job. Why make us unpick them, just to put it back together more shonkily?

Norman Bates is one of those cracked stone men you shouldn't mess with. One time, Pluto Noak opened the emergency exit for a doss. Norman Bates went to the back, grabbed him, dragged him to the front, and literally chucked him off the bus. Pluto Noak cried up from his ditch, 'I'm taking you to court I am! You bust me flamin' arm!'

Norman Bates's reply was to remove his cigarette from the corner of his mouth, lean down the steps of his bus, stick out his tongue like a Maori, and stub out the still-glowing cigarette, slow and deliberate, actually on his tongue. We heard the hiss. The man flicked the stub at the boy in the ditch.

Then Norman Bates sat down and drove off.

Nobody's touched the fire door on his bus since that day.

'Some boys' – I fought for breath – 'chucked my bag on the roof.'

The kids 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 burger. But he swung down, nearly knocking me over, jumped down, 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.'

Norman Bates sniffed. 'But only one King Turd, right?'

'One or two.'

'One'll do. What yer need is one of these little beauties.' A lethal Bowie knife suddenly rotated in front of my eyes. 'Sneak up on King Turd.' Norman Bates's voice softened. 'And slice – his – tendons. One slit, two slit, tickle him under there. If he fucks around with you after that, just puncture the tires on his wheelchair.' Norman Bates's knife disappeared into thin air. 'Army and navy surplus store. Best tenner you'll ever spend.'

'But if I slice Wilcox's tendons, I'd get sent to Borstal.'

'Well wakey fucking wakey, sunbeam! Life's fucking Borstal!'

'Why'd you' – Hangman blocked 'nick,' then 'steal,' so I had to use the naff 'pinch' – 'pinch the fags?' I wanted to scarper away from the crime scene as quick as possible, but a slow queue of traffic'd built up behind a tractor, so we couldn't cross the crossroads yet.