Prologue...... 1977........... Timetable

Author's Note

None of this is true; it is just the way I remember it.



The Prologue

It is 1976, Robert Small is sitting in the bath, staring at a huge turd that is floating on the surface of the water before him. Robert is surprised to be faced with the small floating stool and even though he is alone, he looks around as if to find the guilty party. His gaze falls on the toilet, which sparkles spectacularly across the room. He knows the sensible thing to do would be pick up his poo and flush it down the toilet, but his ten-year old mind is confused and he feels sick at the thought of defiling the gleaming porcelain that has only recently been lovingly scrubbed by his mum... so instead he removes the bath plug and as the water drains away, crams his shit into the plughole.

Across the other side of town, Noel Turner waits patiently with his sister for his dad to return home. When they hear a key in the door, Noel runs to meet him. Noel’s dad looks worn out, but he has a wide grin across his face. He tells his son and daughter that they now have a baby sister.
Noel is gutted, he wanted a brother.

At exactly the same time in West Germany, in a small town east of Hanover, Martin Noone is watching Musikladen on the television; a programme that preceded MTV by playing popular music with videos. It is late in the evening and Martin, who is also only ten, would normally have been sent to bed hours ago. He yawns heavily when the rhythmic intro to “Jeans On” by David Dundas begins. As the music starts, the video shows a young women asleep in bed. Martin is tired, his eyes are sore and he closes them momentarily. As his eyelids open again, the woman is now out of bed, naked accept for a pair of white, cotton briefs. Martin is wide awake now, his heart thumping in time with the music. As the songs suggests, the woman pulls on her blue jeans and still bearing her perfect breasts, proceeds to go motorbike riding down country lanes with her man.
Martin does not fully understand the unconscious decisions he is making as the video plays, he just knows that this is the best thing he has ever seen, and although he had never thought about his sexuality at all before, he is aware that he is hypnotised by the naked body of this young brunette.
Martin never sees the video again, or anything like it. However, whenever the song is played on the radio (which is a rare occasion in the forthcoming years), Martin feels the blood racing through his body and a warm tingle all over.

Billy walks his dad home from the pub, having spent the last four hours sitting on the kerb with a glass of flat lemonade. He holds his dad upright as the alcohol pulsing through his old man’s veins weakens every muscle in his wiry body. Billy’s dad curses his son as he feels the contents of his bladder empty down his leg.


Over the next two years Martin’s dad’s job moves the family back to England. Noel and his mum, dad and two sisters move to a bigger house a couple of streets away from Martin’s, to accommodate their new arrival (the house was picked specifically by Noel’s dad because it had a large attic). Robert’s mum is forced to move to a smaller house across the estate from Martin, after missing a few rent payments. And Billy, by staying exactly where he has always been, finds three new boys of his own age on his estate.


There were days before fizzy drinks had the prefix 'diet-' and orange squash had extra sugar added rather than its inherent sweetness removed. There was a time before tobacco companies dreamed of reducing tar in their cigarettes.
During the time prior to twenty four hour interactive digital TV, with its excess of shopping channels, porn channels, holiday channels, news channels, game shows, chat shows, talk shows, cooking shows and can't cook cooking shows, soaps and docu-soaps, dramas and docu-dramas; and long before VCRs, CDs, PCs, DVDs and CFCs became an every day part of living. In the years preceding AIDS, CJD, and the millennium bug; before Thatcher and Murdoch gripped the world in its self-centred, self-promoting, self-congratulatory autocracy. Before the fall of communism and the Berlin Wall, and before any effective remedy for the prevention of cold sores, there were four boys.
There has always been, and there will always be four boys. Four friends that grow up together; who learn, laugh and cry together.. four boys whose world stretches only as far as the estate where they all live, never considering the complex network of human life beyond their own back doors-they are blissfully unaware of the crumbling Labour government, or of the country's slow silent swing to right wing conservatism that would dominate the political arena for almost two decades. The names Carter, Brezhnev, Begin, Amin, Botha, Callaghan or Thatcher mean nothing to them, and are only sounds shaped in the mouth of John Craven. Their world is edited by their limited attention spans; they are extremely selective and fickle, controlled primarily by their five senses, which are developing day by day..

A group of friends is like a living organism. It changes and grows. It is governed by the strength of the individuals within the group and how they interact with each other.
When Martin meets Robert for the first time at school, he likes him because he is also a new face in class and they immediately have common ground. However, more importantly for Martin, he immediately feels superior to Robert because Robert is a chubby boy who is poor at sport and so self-conscious about his weight that he is nervous in company. Martin is not especially out-going and it is an effort for him to make friends, and it is for this reason that the two boys feel drawn to each other.
Noel had been searching for the brother that his mum and dad had been unable to provide. Billy has a wickedly dry sense of humour that attracts Noel immediately. Noel reminds Billy of his younger brothers, and his fraternal instincts are so overwhelming he feels compelled to take this fresh-faced new boy under his wing.
Later Noel and Martin become friends and through their relationship, the four boys begin hanging out together. Although Billy and Noel initially see Robert as something of an embarrassment, they eventually come to tolerate his company... and as four people not wholly suited to each other can easily become acquaintances, so it is with the four of them.





Nineteen seventy-seven.

It looks like the Cheshire Cat, but with more of a grimace than a grin. The lips stretch tight over clenched teeth, nostrils flare wildly, a grunt, a shuffle, the expression changes, relaxes and then contorts again.
It looks like the Cheshire Cat, but it isn't.
The grinning face hangs in the bush, its body obscured by shrubbery. Bright teeth flash in the dense thicket, the teeth become the thicket and then disappear. This is not the Cheshire Cat; we are not in Wonderland.
The teeth belong to Robert, a chubby boy of eleven. He is crouching in a bush, with his trousers pulled down around his flabby white legs. Robert scrunches up his face and strains, his dark eyes disappear into a line of folds around his cheeks and two rows of teeth grind together. He shits, and the expression of pain across his face changes to one of relief.
"Oi Robert!" A voice is heard a little way off. "Come on, you'll miss this."
Robert opens his eyes and looks around. In the distance beyond the bush, three boys are standing solemnly in a dark corner of the woods. One of them kneels and begins to dig a hole in the dry ground. Noel, small and ferret-faced, turns away from the scene and shouts again, "Robert, hurry up."
Robert pulls a leaf from the bush and drags it across his backside. He tosses it to one side and then takes another.
He whispers to himself: "Okay, okay. I'm coming.. Ugh, oh no, shit." Robert looks down at his hand to find the leaf has disintegrated and there is shit all across his fingers. Leaves are not known for their absorbent qualities-they are smooth and then they are brittle. Smooth leaves do not soak up shit, they move it around from your arse to the small of your back; brittle leaves crack and break up in your hand.
Robert tries to flick the fragments of leaf away but they stick to his fingers. He wipes his hand into the ground and the shit mixes with the dirt and crumbles away. Robert pulls up his trousers and sniffs the fingers of his dirty hand, he gags momentarily, but runs to join his friends anyway.
Bumbling across the small clearing in the wood, Robert tries to fasten the belt around his waist. He stops, connects the two ends of his snake buckle and shuffles on. Robert is overweight for his height and he is breathless when he reaches the others. He takes a moment to compose himself.
"Sorry about that," he puffs out. "When you've got to go, you‘ve got to.."
"You almost missed the action," Noel interrupts.
“...go.” Robert finishes his sentence, but is conscious that no-one is listening anyway. He is used to this level of commitment from his friends.
"Can't you control yourself big fella?" Billy says. "You're worse than my little brother." He turns and looks his friend up and down with contempt, but Robert ignores him; Billy's insults fly with such frequency as to render them harmless.
"Hurry up Martin, I'm bored." Billy spits out.
Martin, the boy kneeling on the ground, holds onto a small box sombrely. He makes the hole in the dirt a little wider and tests the box for size. The grave is too small, so Martin scrapes at the soil again.
Billy explodes: "Just put the stupid fish in the ground Mart and let's go."
Martin looks up and says sadly, "Leave me alone, my fish isn't stupid; it meant a lot to me."
"But not to me." Billy turns and walks away.
"You've got no respect," Noel shouts nervously after him.
"Oh bollocks!" Billy calls back and disappears into the trees.
Robert wipes his dirty hand on his thigh and kneels down next to Martin. "Hey Mart, shouldn't you have like a cross or something?"
"Nah, can't."
Robert is slightly confused by the insufficient answer but does not press his friend as Martin pulls the soil over the coffin of his dead pet.
"Aren't you gonna say anything?" asks Noel.
"Like what?" Martin answers as he stands up and brushes the dirt from his knees.
"I dunno.. mum said some stuff when we buried our cat."
"That's cats though."
Noel shakes his head and pats Martin on the shoulder. "You're weird mate," he says.
The three boys walk away from the modest grave and follow Billy through the trees and out of the wood. Robert huffs and puffs trying to catch up with Noel, he calls him and says: "It must be the grief."
"What are you on about?"
"You know?" Robert replies. "Martin." Noel shakes his head as Billy and Martin join them. Robert looks from the face of one friend to the next, they all stare back blankly.
“What is he saying?” asks Billy.
“I don’t know,” replies Noel. “Something about Martin.”
“What about me?” Martin asks, worried now.
Finally Robert sighs deeply and says, "Oh it doesn't matter."
Suddenly Billy jumps back violently, clutching his throat and gagging. "Jesus you stink fat man!" he shouts.
"Yeah," adds Noel. "You smell of shit."
"Piss off!" cries Robert. "I don't." Robert sinks the guilty hand into his pocket.
"You've kacked your pants again Rob," Noel continues. "Look, it's all over your T-shirt."
Robert reaches around his back and feels the top of his trousers. Shit has collected around the waistband and stains the hem of his top. Robert's face clouds over and his heart sinks, he tries to inspect the damage by pulling his T-shirt around to one side. His friends step away, trying to put a little distance between themselves and the foul stench.
"You're polluting my air space," Billy calls back. "Run home to your mum."
Noel is laughing now. "Yeah," he says. "She can hose you down like they do with the elephants at the zoo."
Martin is still lost in the recent ceremony of his pet's funeral, the drama playing over and over in his mind. He hasn't the enthusiasm to bait his friend but nonetheless he whispers to himself and smiles: "Skid marks."
Billy, Noel and Martin are running away now, leaving Robert alone at the edge of the trees. He tries to call after them but he feels the words catch at the back of his throat as he tries to suppress the tears welling up inside.
"I'll.." Robert swallows hard, willing himself to control his emotions. He finishes the sentence but no-one hears; his friends are away across the field, still giggling amongst themselves . "I'll see you later then." Robert walks away in the opposite direction towards a housing estate and he hears Billy's voice echoing off the backs of the houses.
"Fat man?" Billy shouts. "When are you gonna learn to use a toilet like everybody else?"
"You animal," calls Noel.
Robert doesn't cry anymore; like the Cheshire Cat he grins when he is breaking inside. He can hold himself together even when his back is caked with his own faeces and he can still hear the cutting words and boyish giggles of his friends as they fade away to nothing. He has incredible strength for one so young, but the ridiculed are always the first to build emotional barriers, protecting themselves from within-barriers that take years of affection to tear down again, and even then not completely. It's the price you pay for shitting your pants on a regular basis in full view of your peers.

As time rolls on, and the solar system ages silently around us, the human race finds it more and more inconceivable to believe that in a universe so expansive and a sky so full of stars, we can be the only intelligent living beings-because it is equally inconceivable to believe that we could be that lucky.. that special.. or that unique. It is a way of thinking adopted early on in our lives during childhood, and reinforced by all around us-it's the philosophy that human beings stink and that we're eternally damned, cursed by sins invented by our forefathers; that there must be more to the cosmos than our own wretched lives, and that there has to be something better out there.. something worthwhile.
And so for thousands of years, in our twisted arrogance, we attempt to complete an imperfect design and create a more well-rounded universe, by inventing and believing in gods. We have erected temples for them, made sacrifices to them, waged war, and conquered civilisations to bring salvation to the ignorant.. and all as a way of promoting and reinforcing the notion that there is something else out there, that we are at the mercy of higher beings, who have in some way, control over our destiny. It is a way of shifting the responsibility from our own shoulders as our self-confidence becomes progressively weaker.
As the human race looks out onto the universe at the end of the twentieth century, with its superstitions, prejudices, fears and faiths all fully intact, there is a slight but noticeable shift in our understanding and we believe less in the possibility of the existence of God, and more in the existence of ghosts and aliens: it is time we started believing in ourselves. It is time to celebrate humankind, with all its faults, neuroses and behavioural problems.. and even though we are caked in our own faeces, we are precious and need to be handled with care; after all there may well be nothing else...

Robert approaches his house with a heavy heart, dragging his feet through every step; the sound of leather scraping against concrete carries throughout the estate and Robert feels the universe watching and pointing. He does not want to go home, he does not want to face further humiliation; but where else can children go but home?
Robert has lived alone with his mother Celia for five years. He does not remember his father at all, and every trace of his presence has been removed from the house. The story goes that he was kicked out into the street after a blistering row, but Robert has no memory of that day. He only remembers his dad through his mother's recollections; a drunk, a layabout, a good-for-nothing. The image of his father has been manufactured; Robert has no way of knowing for himself... (the truth is that Bob senior is a small, nervous man who was dominated by his wife and her obsessions-a man who writes often to his son, knowing full well every letter is intercepted by her and hidden away. Past, present and future history being written by the winning side.)
Celia is standing at the back door smoking a cigarette. She is a deeply attractive woman with black eyes and a long, elegant face; her clothes hang from her slim body with style, in stark contrast to her podgy, shit-encrusted son. Celia holds onto a small ashtray and taps the end of her cigarette on the lip, careful to catch all the ash. She watches as Robert approaches the house still dragging his feet, and takes another long drag, sucking the tobacco down to the tip. Robert looks up at the last moment as he reaches the back door, the stream of smoke spewing from his mother's lips catching his eye.
"You'll ruin your shoes walking like that," she says.
"Sorry." Robert touches the waistband of his trousers and feels the shit begin to harden; he has become used to the stink, but knows with his mother’s sensitive nose he will be found out in moments.

..these are the days that never leave you; this is one of the memories that takes pride of place in your mind, its images surfacing again and again. The reason you can't remember important names and dates in your 1983 'O' Level History exam, is because your brain's finite capacity for information is already packed with images of your mother's tranquillizing glances-her dark eyes reflecting your acute embarrassment, the there-there smile placing you both there in space, and there in time. This memory takes precedence over the disposable data that is an 'O' for ordinary level of education. We should be excused for forgetting anniversary and birthday dates, phone numbers, PIN numbers, names, times and meeting places.. it is perfectly understandable to misplace your lover's name amongst the A to Z directory of your past, or to lose yourself in your own street.. there is a reason why all this is beyond your recollection, it is because your brain is far happier and more willing to recreate for you, the glorious day you shat yourself.

"Are you all right love?" Celia asks, stubbing the cigarette into the ashtray and then stepping back into the house. "You seem a little tense." Robert remains rooted to the spot, afraid to move and reveal the horrible secret he carries on his back. Celia pops her head back out of the house. "Have you had a bad day Robert?"
Robert clears his throat and says, "Martin buried his fish."
"That's nice... be a darling Robert; come in and wash the poo off yourself. I don't want it to dry into your clothes. We'll never get the smell out of them."
Robert had anticipated this. He had hoped this time he could contain the shame-his shame; pretend the incident had never taken place. But now they both will have to pretend; something else never to talk about.. another family secret. Robert lowers his head and shuffles through the back door. Celia is already filling a bucket with boiling water and soda.
"Let's get you out of those filthy clothes," she says and Robert feels like a leper. He pulls his arms out of his T-shirt and Celia peels it from his round body, plunging it into the steaming water. The trousers are unbuckled and they drop to the floor. Celia whips them up quickly and shakes her head when she notices a small brown stain on the lino.
"Can I have my snake belt?" asks Robert as the trousers, belt and all join the T-shirt.
"Give me your pants too, we might as well do the lot." We. WE. Shame, when shared is never halved, only doubled.. tripled.. quadrupled.
Robert is naked except for a pair of old Christmas socks. He consciously hangs his hands over his wrinkled genitals, waiting to be dismissed.
"Hop in the bath then," Celia says softly. "Get yourself cleaned up." Robert turns obediently and heads for the stairs. "I'll scrub up in here."
Wash this day from our memories.. disinfect and sterilize.







Timetable.

Five PM. On the dot. Tea time. Seventeen hundred hours. Seventeen hundred and one.. and he's late. Martin will learn the value of good time-keeping; he will understand how his lack of respect upsets his mother (when his mother actually loves him enough not to give a shit); punctuality shall be drilled into you young man.. The long hot summer days of youth cut short by curfew.

Today for once, Robert is not the target for ridicule and derision; he can laugh with Billy and Noel as Martin winds his watch back half an hour.
"Your hands are shaking you big girl!" Billy says, always the first to open up a gaping wound and pour salt into raw flesh. "You should count yourself lucky mate, at least he won't batter you."
No, Martin thinks. You're right; not physically.. but mentally.
"They don't actually go for that story do they?" asks Noel. "About your watch stopping?" The thought of a timetabled life bewilders him.
Martin looks up at him as he snaps the winding mechanism back into the watch. "I don't know," he replies. "I've never used this story before." Martin smiles wearily. "I'll see you all tomorrow, yeah?"
"Aren't you coming out later?" Robert inquires.
Billy cuts in before Martin can answer: "This girl will be tucked up in bed before seven. He's a dead weight."
"Sneak out Mart!" Noel offers. Martin doesn't speak, he just shakes his head firmly, already picturing the stern face of his father; his lecture about respect; his valuable insights.. the blurred vision of the tyrant.
"You baby!" Billy says. "Let's get out of here lads."
"Yeah, I'd better go." Martin drops his head and runs. Every minute now is precious; maybe today is the day tea is late, maybe the carrots are still firm.. maybe the match went into extra time and Anfield is lifted by a ninety-second minute winner.. Maybe I'm not late! ...Martin's gravy slowly congeals; steam has long since curled from his carrots; mashed potato cracks and dries up; a skin forms over the white cliffs of a Dover sole; a deep frown sets and stiffens across a granite grey face, eyebrows lower over cold eyes.. a silent oppression is often more intimidating than a blazing row or a smack in the mouth..

Noel and Robert watch Martin disappear into his street, and then follow Billy. Noel talks softly to Robert: "Our family would fall apart if we had to face each other across a table every day."
"Yeah?" asks Robert. "I think it'd be nice to be a family."
"You've got your mum," says Noel.
"I mean a normal family."
"What the hell's normal?"
Billy breaks up the conversation. "What are you old women whispering about now?"
Robert eyes him hesitantly and says, "Hey Billy, would you say you had a normal family?" Billy laughs and pushes into Robert, grabbing his head he ruffles his well-groomed hair.
"One day I'll show you the bruises you little slug," Billy says.
"Get off me!" cries Robert laughing.
Noel launches himself at his two friends and the three of them drop to the ground with a thud.
Billy says: “You fight like your little sister Noel.”
“Oh yeah?“ Noel replies. His thin, bony arms pull back and jab at Billy's side. Billy brushes him away easily.
"Is that a butterfly I can feel?" Billy says. He stands up and Noel jumps onto his back, grabbing him around the neck. Billy laughs: "The slug and the butterfly! I don't know why I waste my time with you lot."
Robert crawls along the floor and takes Billy by the ankles, upsetting his balance. Billy crashes to the floor on top of Noel.
"Get off me!" cries Noel. "Get off you lump."
"Blame the slug!" Billy shouts and kicks out at Robert, dislodging him easily. "Come on let's go, this fighting is for girls." Billy jumps to his feet once more and brushes the dirt from his clothes.
Robert and Noel look at each other and smile: "Defeated!" they say together. Billy looks back at his two friends and shakes his head.
"Yeah?" he says. "Well who's still on the floor?"

Seventeen twenty-three.. Martin is trying to answer the machine gun questions that fly from his father's mouth; he has yet to understand the term rhetorical.. no, Martin thinks, I don't know how long it took mum to cook tea.. yes I do consider her feelings.. and I realise how hard you both work.. yes of course I'm grateful.. Grateful? For what; this weight of guilt?
"Well, we're waiting young man," says Martin's dad. "Have you anything to say?"
What could I possibly have to say, Martin thinks. You told me yourself I'm an idiot-I have nothing to contribute. Unless you want to hear my broken watch story.. or that I'm only playing out a role passed down to me by centuries of a male dominated society.. I'm just a boy. "Sorry dad.." he says finally.
It's funny how a tiny gesture, the slightest movement of flesh around an eye socket can indicate so much. We are taught to read this body language, with its intricate and unruly vocabulary no dictionary could ever document; each user defining their own criteria. We instinctively know how and when to react. The twitch of a muscle; the minute movement of an eyelid, closing or opening across an eyeball; a line creasing at the bridge of the nose; or an eyebrow raised-they are gestures that demand a response.. not the invented broken watch story, not the twenty-three minutes misplaced somewhere in the woods, or the one thousand three hundred and eighty seconds lost today while Martin's mother and father and younger sister tucked into their fine fish supper. No. This calls for a tactical retreat; you win, I lose.. you're right, I'm wrong.. you're the adult, I'm just a boy. An idiot.
Let me go to my room hungry, Martin thinks. I want to get out of your sight. I want to lay awake at night dreading the atmosphere tomorrow. One day you'll be sorry.. but for today, if it makes you happy and a little bit superior, I'll be sorry.
"..sorry mum."
"Okay," she replies.
"Right," says Martin's dad. "Now get to bed."
Martin leaves the room, careful to have the correct expression of woe playing across his face; not overplaying it, but just enough to let his dad think he has won. When Martin is out of sight he curses under his breath, and wishes for the day when his dad is old and infirm, and he can leave him to rot in a pool of his own piss. The thought stays with Martin as he pushes open his bedroom door and steps inside; it gives him some contentment and he manages a smile. He closes the door softly and stands against it-placing a barrier between himself and the outside world.
Martin has his own world and it is populated by his own ideas, dreams and ambitions; he rejects his timetabled family life and everything it stands for. He feels alone in their world and has become withdrawn and introverted, but still he is entirely practical. He dwells in a world of his own invention-a world where he is not bound by the rules of others, where he is free... and it is a real world; it is his own future. Martin sees himself as a grown up, with a job, a house and a life free from his family; not as a spaceman or Peter Pan-he doesn't dream of the never-never, his goals are far closer to earth. Martin's heroes are not actors, pop-stars, painters or writers, but marine biologists: the Frenchman, Jacques Cousteau; the Australian couple, Ron and Valerie Taylor. Real people, achievable targets.. a positive direction. Martin knows exactly where he is going, and that is why he is submissive. The present doesn't matter, it is time to be endured-sacrificed for the good of the overall scheme.
Martin's peace is disturbed once again as his dad's voice echoes up the stairs: "I'll be up to check on you in half an hour," he shouts. "Don't let me catch you still awake."
"Oh piss off." Martin whispers and slumps onto his bed, grabbing a large book on marine life from the shelf above his pillow. He flicks through the pages; poising over porpoises, browsing through barracuda, dipping into dolphins.. dreaming of the days to come.
When he awakes, the door is opening slowly. Martin's reaction time is hampered by the weight of sleep pressing him into the mattress, and he is only just able to stop the book falling to the floor. He wipes the stream of saliva from his chin and straightens his hair, awaiting the disappointed look and the disapproving shake of his father's head.
"Are you awake love?" It is his mother's voice.
Martin breathes deeply and says, "Yes.. sorry."
"Don't worry," she says with great tenderness. "I didn't think you could sleep on an empty stomach." She steps over to the bed and hands Martin a plate of sandwiches and a glass of milk.
"What about dad?"
"Don't worry; let's just keep it our little secret." More secrets. Little secrets, large repercussions.
"Where is he?"
"He's asleep in front of the tele."
Martin takes the glass of milk and drinks it quickly, his ears trained on the door. He looks up at his mum and then at the glass, a white moustache forms over his top lip. She strokes his head gently and smiles.
"Have a sandwich," she says.
Martin takes one and bites into it. He says almost inaudibly through white bread and lemon curd: "I think I hate him mum."
"Ssshh. You don't mean that." (Does the sshh mean, don't say what you don't really believe, or does it imply something else, like; sshh, be quiet, he'll hear us?) Martin's mum can understand her boy's feelings, but she also appreciates the intense moral logic of the man she has lived with for fifteen years. It is a difficult balancing act-protecting both sides; supporting them both equally. "Go to sleep love. You'll feel differently in the morning."
Martin says nothing and feels nothing; not even the warm lips of his mum as they press against his forehead and kiss him goodnight. Martin finishes the sandwiches, undresses and then climbs into bed. He falls asleep instantly and dreams of beating his father to a bloody pulp.

Oh eight hundred hours. Reveille. Martin is still asleep, throwing one last punch-his fist makes no impact on his father's face, and this fuels his rage all the more. Bang! Bang! Stop smiling you bastard. Bang! Each jab rings in Martin's ears. BANG! The noise reverberates around the room.
"If I have to come in there and drag you out of bed Martin, there'll be trouble." BANG! Martin wakes and the sound remains-back to life; back to right now. The door slams open as Martin emerges from his sanctuary.
"Did you hear me?" Martin's dad stands in the doorway.
"I was asleep," Martin says, as if it needed to be explained.
"Get up, get downstairs, and get your breakfast." Martin's dad turns to leave the room, but stops; he has noticed the plate of half-eaten sandwiches. He explodes: "Where on earth did you get them?"
Martin is silent.
"You're walking a very fine line my boy." Martin's dad calls out to his wife and she steps into the room. "He's deliberately defied me," he explains. "Look at that.. he must have crept downstairs in the night."
Let's see if she can keep them all up in the air now.. she's a diplomat; an ambassador; a juggler.
"Love," she explains. "I made him the sandwiches."
There is a short silence, filled only with disbelief.
"Well that's great isn't it?" he says eventually. "I try and teach the boy discipline.." and mum suspends the sentences. "..I don't know why I bother." Martin's dad stamps from the bedroom. "You'll ruin him."
There he is; Martin, a boy of eleven-ruined.
Martin's mum smiles: "Come on love; get ready for school."
Martin smiles back reluctantly and nods his head. "Okay," he says.