Free Dirty Old Man (A True Story) by Moll French

Darren’s funeral if it’s okay with you.” I said through sobs.
         “I don’t know about that. I think you might be too young to experience something like that. Funerals aren’t really a place for children.”
         “But I want to go,” I sobbed, “there will be people going from year nine that hardly knew Darren; I don’t think it’s fair. They’re going to sort me out with a lift there and I’ll come home straight away afterwards.”
    I took the crumpled letter out of my pocket; I wanted to keep it safe on my person in case my dad found it and threw it away.
         “Okay then.” She said softly and signed the form for me.
    I don’t remember much of the next week and a half and it flew past until it came to the day before Darren’s funeral.
     
         I sat in my room almost every evening, often crying myself to sleep. I wanted to write a poem for the school memorial service so I started to use my time constructively. To be honest, as a twelve year old, the poem was never going to win any awards but it held my thoughts and some feelings.
    I was sitting on the top bunk bed reading it over to myself when I heard that all too familiar creak on the stairs. This time they were slow, heavy footsteps followed by a loud sigh.
    He pushed the bedroom door open slowly.
    I showed the poem to my dad and waited for his seal of approval as I thought he should be near the end. I didn’t get quite the reaction I’d hoped as he carefully folded it up and put it in his pocket.
         “This is too much,” he said with a quiet but stern voice, “you’re making too much of it and to be honest, we’re all getting sick of you wallowing in your self-pity. It’s got to stop. You need to move on and put it behind you now.”
    He left the room and I promised myself I wouldn’t let him make me cry. Instead, I tore out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote the whole thing down again word for word. It took me a long time to try and draw the border like I had before but this time it looked better. I put it into my school bag, sliding it between one of my text books in case he came back into my room and went through my things as he often did. I’d poured my heart out and he dismissed it.
     
         The funeral was the next day and there was a dress code, if we had a T-shirt of Darren’s favourite football team then we were to wear it.
    My sister Beryl had the exact shirt I needed, it was the current seasons strip, she also had the very first version of the shirt which I suppose would only have been described as ‘retro’ today.
    I asked her very politely if I could borrow it for a couple of hours until the funeral was over. She flat out refused.
    It was only after I waited up late for my mum to come home, that she would convince Beryl to lend me the older T-shirt. She even held a grudge against me for that and was very reluctant.
    The T-shirt had the same badge with the fox’s head on as the new one, however, it was missing the white and yellow stripes around the collar and sleeves. I would be standing out like a sore thumb. Kids could be cruel; funeral or not. I should have known, I hadn’t exactly been pleasant to people at school for their indifferences. If I wasn’t wearing the right shirt - they’d notice.
    I told Beryl that I’d just go in my school clothes as a last attempt to pull on her heart strings, I told her I’d be teased if I went in the old shirt. She shrugged her shoulders and told my dad that I was being ungrateful.
    I got a lecture again and told I was going to be wearing that dull, colour-drained, over-washed old shirt the next day because I was ungrateful.
         “If you’d have only asked your sister nicely then she might have let you borrow her other one,” said my dad, as Beryl looked pleased with herself.
     
         The next morning came and Beryl left for her job as trainee pot washer as a posh hotel in Quorn. I found where she’d hidden the t-shirt and slipped it