Free The Knife That Killed Me by Anthony McGowan Page A

perfectly still in the air. I can see the shape of them, pulled long, like teardrops. I can even see some that have just hit the ground, bursting like tiny bombs. The faces around me are wet. Hair is slicked down and darkened by the rain. And then everything changes. Each drop of rain is suddenly nearer to its explosive little death. And the knife again is closer, the knife shining in the rain.

THIRTEEN
    I got
in at about ten. My mum and dad were watching the lottery draw on the telly. The living room had layers of stale smoke hanging in it, and Mum was holding a cigarette straight up, balancing a crooked tower of ash. I’d given up nagging at her about smoking. It just annoyed her.
    I was supposed to be in by nine. My dad looked round from the sofa.
    “Where you been, Paul?” He sounded like he wanted to make the effort to care, but couldn’t quite be bothered.
    “Just out, Dad. Like I told you, with some friends.”
    I waited for a couple of seconds to see if he said anything else, or if Mum would say something. But they were lost in the numbers on the telly.
    “Is there anything to eat?”
    A pause.
    They didn’t even play the lottery.
    “Put yourself some oven chips on,” said Mum after the last ball had bobbled into place.
    I went to the kitchen and looked in the freezer compartment of the fridge. There weren’t any oven chips. There were some peas and a tray of ice. I found some cheese in the fridge, and some white sliced bread in the bread bin, so I made a sandwich. The cheese was hard and cracked, like the skin on an old man’s foot. I thought about Shane and the beautiful kitchen in his house, and about his parents listening to classical music with their eyes shut.
    Dad came in to put the kettle on. “Cup of tea’ll help wash that down,” he said, nodding at my stale sandwich.
    I should say more about my dad. He’s quite tall and broad, and his belly is big and solid, not the kind you can stick your fingers into. But, despite the fact that there was a lot of him, there’s something about him that makes you think he’s smaller than he is. It might be his head. He’s going badly bald, and all his features are squashed into the middle of his face.
    My dad’s loud. He shouts a lot. And laughs a lot. But his laughing is really a kind of shouting. Even hisordinary talking is loud, as if everyone else is a bit deaf or too far away.
    But he’s OK, my dad, he really is. Sometimes he collects me from school, either just in the wagon, which was what he called the front bit of the truck, or sometimes the whole thing, with a container hooked on the back. It was worst when the container was for something embarrassing, and it said it on the side. Once the container was full of, you know, ladies’ sanitary things, and the next day some kids sang the song from the advert at me. Another time it was for pies, and they all said it was because my dad used to eat a truckload of pies every night. Either way it was pretty embarrassing. He’d honk his horn when he saw me and shout out my name. Sometimes when I saw him waiting out at the front of the school, I’d go back inside and hang around until he’d gone.
    Although I hated being collected by him in it, I actually liked it inside the wagon. The seat was worn smooth, and you felt really high up and powerful, and it was where my dad was at his happiest. All the things he used to tell me about when he was at school, and about wars from the past, he told me when he was in his wagon. We didn’t talk very much apart from then.
    But, like I said, my dad’s OK really. He’s rough, but he never hits us or anything. He’ll sometimes grab me and rub his fist into the top of my head, and that hurts, but he’s only playing. I remember when I was little he used to tickle me,but so hard it felt like he was hitting me, and I’d beg him to stop, but he never would. I mean, in my memories he doesn’t stop, but just carries on, until I think about something else.
    The main