Free The Life of Lee by Lee Evans Page A

enough to go on a Nanny shopping trip, as I was one of the youngest and never had the strength or the speed to get up to her flat before the others. But on this occasion there were only four of us, so maybe, just this once, the odds might be in my favour.
    I needed no second invitation. I was off, with the three other boys, suddenly realizing I had legged it, in hot pursuit. As I made it to the entrance to the flats, though, I was grabbed from behind and pulled back through the doors, allowing Tony, Wayne and Alex to barge past me. I took off after them, as they fought tooth and nail up the stairwell. Suddenly, Tony lost his footing and fell on the first landing and Wayne and Alex fell giggling in a heap on top of him. This was my chance. Stepping over the hysterical pile, I was suddenly out in front. I had to take advantage of my lead – I knew it wouldn’t be long beforethey were on my tail. This was survival of the fittest, and I wasn’t that fit, so I needed to get a real head start.
    As I reached the last flight of stairs, just feet away from Nanny Norling’s door, my legs were on fire, my muscles burning from all the stairs I had galloped up. I took a quick glimpse over my shoulder to see Wayne bounding up behind me like a giant antelope. With all my energy, I put in a last, exhausting sprint along the passageway to her door, but Wayne was already on top of me.
    We hit the doorway together in a human crash. Wayne popped forward through the unlatched door and into Nanny Norling’s flat. I watched from where I lay and it seemed his upper body was going way too fast for his legs to catch up. The momentum propelled him forward and down on to a metal bucket that had been left in the hall. Crack! Wayne’s nose hit the side of the bucket, splatting in as many directions as a compass.
    Wayne rolled over and lay on the floor moaning, clutching what was left of his hooter, as blood oozed out between the gaps in his fingers. It looked like the only place he would be going was A&E.
    I couldn’t have cared less; I had my eyes on the prize. This was it, this was my moment, my time to shine, to bask in the sunlight that would lead to the Nanny Norling treasure trove and wealth beyond my wildest dreams. I snapped to my feet and slid quietly past the groaning lump that was Wayne. The treasure was mine.
    I went to enter triumphantly through her living-room doorway, but, ‘Nann–aaaargh … bollocks!’
    A hand had grabbed my ankle and I was gone, whipped back out of the door without so much as a by-your-leave.All that Nanny Norling must have seen was some scruffy kid appear, then just as quickly disappear from view. I was gone, sucked back through the door in a flash, like some demented cuckoo clock on the stroke of one.
    As I lay sprawling on the floor beside him, Wayne quickly got to his feet, trying desperately to cup the blood now flowing like a river from his nose. I watched as he entered Nanny Norling’s front room, cool as you like, as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, and say, quite calmly, ‘Do you need something from the shops, Nanny Norling?’
    I entered the room behind him, battered, exhausted and breathing heavily. I was too late. Wayne had secured the lucrative contract.
    This was the first time I had been in the famous Nanny Norling flat. It was jam-packed with all sorts of odd artefacts, not unlike the set of Steptoe and Son . These objects had clearly seen better days. She had, it appeared, at some point fallen on hard times.
    Up against the far wall of the front room was a four-poster bed where Nanny Norling lay. The mattress was thick and high enough above the window sill so that the poor old dear could, as she liked to, constantly stare out of the window. A huge grandfather clock loudly tick-tocked away at the foot of the bed, a cabinet with dusty, faded, black-and-white photos of men in uniform sat on a lace cloth across a chest of drawers, and by the window next to the bed was a stand supporting a