Free Billy Elliot by Melvin Burgess

around all over the place. On horseback. In cars. On motorbikes. All over our town.
    It wasn’t getting them anywhere, though, we were running rings around them. The miners always found a way to get to the pit no matter how hard the police tried to stop them. They hid on the school buses and lorries taking goods to the shops. We had people from all over, not just miners, coming in to fight for the mines. Young people, old people, all sorts, all gathered round the pit chanting, ‘Here we go, here we go, here we go’ and ‘Maggie Maggie Maggie – out out out!’ Tony reckoned we were going to bring the government down, but we had no money left at all. People were chopping down anything you could burn just to keep warm. We pulled our little wooden shed in the yard to bits for firewood. We were – well, I never went hungry but I was geting really sick of sliced bread and marge. I’d have died for a bacon buttie. There was nothing to spare, no treats, no money for anything. They were trying to starve us out, see. And frighten us and all, with the police. It was scary.
    It was the ones on horseback that scared me the most.They were so big, and the policemen had these long sticks to hit people with. You know? Galloping up behind one of the miners and whack! Right across their backs or round the head. There was blood and everything. I’ve seen it. You’d never ask a policeman the time again if you’d seen them do what I have.
    What’s got four legs and an arsehole in the middle of its back? A police horse.
    Our Tony told me that one. I was getting on better with him lately, maybe it was because we were both not getting on with Dad. I was pissed off with him because he wasn’t letting me dance. Tony was pissed off with him because he was a silly old bastard who’d had all the juice sucked out of him. That’s what he said. He was always shouting at him. Dad never said much back, he just let him go on. I felt sorry for him, it wasn’t his fault the mines were being closed down. But Tony was right. He’s just a silly old bloke. Stuck in a time warp.
    He stuck up for himself when Tony pushed him too far, though.
    It was the middle of the night, just about a week away from the audition. I was woken up by Tony getting out of bed.
    ‘What’re you doing? What’s the time?’ I asked.
    ‘Shurrup, get back to sleep,’ he told me. He was standing there pulling his jeans on, trying to be dead quiet. I looked at the clock. It was four in the morning. What was he up to, this time of night?
    ‘Get back to bed!’ he hissed. I lay back down and rolled over. He tiptoed out. I lay back down and listened. A couple of minutes later the shouting started and I got up to have a look.
    Dad was standing in front of the back door. Tony was in front of him, white as a sheet. He had a bloody great hammer in his hand.
    ‘Get out of my way,’ Tony was saying. He was bloody furious.
    ‘Put that down.’
    ‘I said, get out of my way!’
    ‘Put it away.’
    Tony suddenly lost it. He rushed up to Dad waving the hammer right under his nose. I thought he was going to lump him with it.
    ‘No!’ I shouted, but they both hardly glanced at me.
    ‘You wanna just stand around getting the shit kicked out of you, that’s your problem,’ Tony yelled. He was pushing his face right up to Dad’s. ‘Fine. But some of us are ready to fight back for once. You might be finished but I’ve only just f***ing begun. Now – get out of my way!’
    Dad just stood there like a rock. ‘You’re no use to us in jail,’ he said.
    ‘I’m not planning on getting caught.’
    ‘What are you doing?’ I cried.
    ‘Get back to bed – both of you!’ roared Dad. Tony took a step back. He was almost ready to do as he was told, like he was a kid again. But then he lifted up the hammer and stopped himself.
    ‘F*** you,’ he said.
    ‘Put it down!’
    ‘Are you going to make me?’
    ‘I’m warning you.’
    ‘You haven’t f***ing got it in you! You’re