Free A Pocketful of Holes and Dreams by Jeff Pearce Page A

proud of me, no matter how poorly or well I did, but of course she loved it when I won. We would walk home laughing and talking about the competition, with me narrating every second of my race and June tagging along, listening with a big smile on her face.
    After one of these occasions, another boy, Paul Cole, started to tease me in the playground. He had a reputation for being a ‘hard case’, which translated into being a good fighter. ‘Who’s a mummy’s boy then?’ he taunted. ‘I saw yer last night, walking home with your mummy!’ His friends were all laughing and teasing me, shouting out ‘Nancy boy’ and ‘Mummy’s pet’, and nasty things about my mother. I could take his taunting me, but bringing my mother into it was a different matter!
    I saw red. Without stopping to think, I ran straight at him, hitting him in the stomach, knocking him to the ground. Landing on top of him, I continued to hit out, and within seconds we were rolling around on top of each other. Suddenly the school bell rang. And as the other boys pulled us apart and we got to our feet, he shouted, ‘I’ll have you at four o’clock, Pearce.’
    The school grapevine worked fast: within a couple of hours the whole school knew that Cole and Pearce were having a fight at hometime. I didn’t want to fight Cole, but there was no way out. He had laid down the challenge, and unless I wanted to be looked down on as a coward, I would have to face up to him.
    Our crowds of supporters started to build, splitting the school in two. Both sides wanted blood. Cole was ranked as fourth ‘cock’ of the school, i.e. the fourth-best fighter. As for me, I was just a nobody.
    As four o’clock drew nearer, my supporters were crowding round to give me advice. From the way they were going on, anyone would have thought they were professional trainers, but I couldn’t recall any of them having been involved in a fight themselves. They were filling my mind with nonsense, my stomach was churning with nerves, and there was nothing I could do except put on a brave front as the minutes ticked away.
    When the school bell announced the end of the day, almost as one, hundreds of boys burst through the school doors, swarmed across the playground and out to the ‘field of honour’ – a wide alleyway nearby. Any teacher watching must have realized that there was something afoot, but as soon as we were out of sight we were out of their minds.
    I was swept along, surrounded by my supporters, pressed in on all sides by helpful advisors. Cole and his crowd were ahead of us, and the lads kept on turning back to continue their taunting. When we got to the alleyway a circle started to form, one half made up of Cole’s followers, the other half mine. Hands were pulling off my blazer, and the advice came thick and fast. ‘Cole is going to kill Pearce,’ someone shouted. ‘Cole is history. He’s a wimp,’ came the retort from my side. ‘Pearce is gonna knock him out!’ ‘Pearce is dead!’
    While the two crowds hurled abuse at each other, I stood there almost paralysed, staring at Cole, who was punching the air with his fists, looking like a professional featherweight. I wanted to turn and run. I wanted to say to them all, ‘I’m sorry, lads, but I have to go and do Mrs Gilbert’s shopping.’ But by this stage, there was obviously no chance of that working.
    If they had wanted blood before, they really wanted it now. And they didn’t care whose it was. There was no way I was going to risk disappointing them. To chants of ‘Oooh, Oooh, Oooh’ and ‘Fight, fight, fight,’ I found myself being pushed into the middle of the circle, face to face with Cole, a few inches away. I knew he was two years older and was bigger than me, but it was his reputation that was scary. I’d been in a couple of small scraps before, but nothing like this. This was my first real fight, and it would determine my whole future at school. The adrenaline was rushing through my body, and