As the seasons change || remember how I used to be
Night. Dark Alley. Raining.
I should have been home ages ago. Not that it matters much. Mum and Dad won’t be back from their nine-to-whenever jobs any time soon and Cedrick doesn’t really understand the meaning of babysitting. His mind is just on the money and the amount of “booze” he can buy with his paycheck. Anyway, I don’t need a babysitter.
I need to get out of this alley. It’s giving me the creeps, and plus, I keep tripping over trash cans. And there’s that little problem of this being an East End alleyway and the fact that since I can’t see anything at all, those trash cans could easily be dead bodies.
There’s a cold mist in the air. Probably something to do with the rain, but somehow, it doesn’t feel like rain-mist. It clings to my skin and gives me goose bumps. And it’s not really cold, not physically, but it makes me feel like I’ve been chilled to the bone. I turn left at the end of the alley and enter a wide, completely deserted road. There’s only one streetlamp on it, and its bulb is flickering despondently. A few cars are parked in front of shabby-looking homes. Somewhere in the night, a dog barks. This first word that comes to my mind as I glance down the street is “shady”. Almost instinctively, I stuff my hands into my pockets and hunch over, trying to look smaller than I am, and pray that no hooligan will peak out from his window, spot me, and decide I look like good mugging-material.
And then I spot it. Right where I saw one last time. The same? Different? Am I losing my mind? This is the reason I have come to this crooked neighborhood during the dead of night. A large, floating, slinking thing, a black, dark creature, a creature that spreads cold and fear and makes the night darker than usual. It makes strange rattling noises, and is faceless as far as I can see. I have never been up-close to one. Ever. Wouldn’t want to be. Get within thirty meters of them and suddenly you’re gripped with a feeling “ something that scared the pee out of me the first time I felt it. I almost fainted on the spot. The cold, something that makes you feel like dead hands are snaking around your neck and just asking for an excuse to squeeze.
I leap behind the nearest tree, crouch down, my knees quaking and my teeth chattering. I’m scared and cold, but for the love of God, I cannot make myself turn back and run “ the thing, the creature attracts me like a magnet. I can’t get any closer to it than I am, but I can’t flee either. My brain cries out warnings, my legs just ignore them. Like noticing there’s been a pileup of cars on the road you’re walking down. You don’t want to look, don’t want to see it, but oh, how can you not look?
I peer out from behind my tree. The creature is floating, gliding down the street. It sucks and rattles and because the street is so silent, I can hear its noises clearly. The flickering streetlamp goes out. The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stand on end. This has never happened before. And then, as quick as a snap, the street is bathed in darkness. The bit of light that had been coming from the moon and the stars “ gone. My heart skips two beats in a row. Time to leave! screams my mind, and for once, my legs agree.
I spring up, and run back into the alley I just came from. Trip over two trash cans, get up again, knees skinned, palms bruised from trying to break my fall. Keep running. My breath comes in gasps, and then “ out on another street, this one lit with another lonely, flickering street light, but who cares? It’s light, light, precious, wonderful light! I want to kiss the tarmac. I don’t. Instead, in a moment of regrettable insanity, I run down the empty street, and whoop my heart out, my eyes closed and my hands in the air.
And then I slam into someone. My eyes fly open, and I freeze in mid-whoop and mid-jump, my hands still punching air, and think, Damn. Because I recognize the gorilla-proportioned kid I’ve bumped into “ his name is Jack Eton. He goes to my school and he doesn’t particularly like me. In fact, I think it’s safe to say he hates me.
He stares down at me for a moment, as surprised to see me, as I am to see him, here in the middle of the East End. Both of us live on the richer side of the East End. I’m here to find my creature… and Eton? There’s only one thing Eton could be here to do.
‘I’ve been looking for you, mate!’ he says, smiling viciously. He grinds his right fist into the palm of his left hand. ‘I expected to have to look long and hard to find you, but look at this: you’ve found me!'
Eton, though unfortunately sized, and cursed with the looks of your average idiot, isn’t stupid. He’s clever, calculating, ruthless and unforgiving. He has a gentleman’s accent and speaks charmingly and kindly “ when he’s in the presence of adults or people he’s buttering up. The Eton I know retains his gentleman’s voice, but has never spoken a charming word to me. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t read too much into that fact, since our meetings don’t involve much chit-chat.
From behind him steps his number one crony, a lovely strawberry-blond haired girl named Patience. Tall and slim, she looks like a model out of a magazine with a perfect face and a big Hollywood smile. Why she would go for a guy like Eton is beyond me. Why she would lower herself to being Eton’s crony is a mystery. She could be anyone, anything… but she chooses to be a bully.
Eton’s tired of standing around. He grabs at me with a hand that could be mistaken for a baboon’s, but for once, I’m too fast for him. I duck; he grabs air, and roars in frustration, ‘O’BRIEN!’ I spin around and begin to run down the street. It is fairly level for a while, but before I know it, the road has dipped into a practically vertical descent. I gasp, try to balance myself on the slant, but slip on the rain-soaked street. My shoe catches on an uneven bit of tar and that’s it. In a matter of seconds, I’m down. Rolling, rolling, rolling. Everything aching. Grunts escape my throat as I slam repeatedly into the road and the air bursts from my lungs. I’m dead. I know. I’m as good as dead.
As suddenly as it started, it’s over. I don’t even remember stopping. I’m just there, at the bottom of the road, lying on my back, staring up at the star-strewn sky, raindrops falling onto my face, leaving the skin tingling as they slide down my cheeks.
‘THERE!’ Patience.
I hear their footsteps, make a last ditch effort to get up and run, but it’s not happening, no way, I’m completely winded and the shot at movement leaves me dizzy. A heartbeat later, they are upon me. Fists, two pairs of fists, attacking every part of me, beating, beating, beating. Kicking sometimes, when they tire of the fists, just plain old pounding the hell out of me. I don’t know how long it takes for me to blackout. Feels like years, but maybe it is only a second or two before the edges of my vision darken. I breathe a sigh of relief “ at least I won’t feel the pain any longer, but after so many beatings Eton’s come to recognize my actions and expressions so when I sigh, he quickly increases his onslaught. Something explodes into my throat and then “ nothing.
‘Conner, hey, Conner.’
Shaking. Someone’s shaking me. I open my eyes, but it’s harder than usual, as if something has been crusted over my eyelids. It’s morning. The only reason I know that is because it’s a dull gray sky, and not a blue-black cloak of darkness that I see. Thick clouds coat the heavens. Snow… or rain maybe. Wasn’t it just raining last night?
Last night.
Everything comes rushing back to me with a suddenness that leaves my head aching. My vision blurs abruptly and I have to close my eyes to stop a wave of nausea that threatens to engulf me.
‘You okay?’
No, you complete moron, I am not okay. I open my eyes again and stare up at the person kneeling over me, working to bring the face into focus.
‘Hey,’ he says, smiling when he sees me looking at him. I know the face. Dimitri. Dimitri… something. An East Ender. A cockney, I suppose, but not a Cockney. Something about not being born within the sounds of Bow Bells.
‘What happened to you mate?’
I was at a tea party.
‘Eton and Patience,’ I mutter. I try to sit up, but as soon as do, something warm and thick surges into my throat. I gasp (a mistake) and immediately start coughing violently. Dimitri reacts quickly and grabs my shoulders, turning me over so that my face is towards the tar-coated street. The nausea I was feeling earlier evolves into full-blown vomiting. I struggle to hold myself up, even as my stomach contracts, pressing my palms against the hard road, but my arms and legs are shaking violently. Dimitri keeps a strong grip on my shoulders.
By the time I’m finished, I’m shivering and my teeth are chattering. Dimitri helps me to my feet, leads me away from the sick. It’s laced with blood. A lot of it. We sit down on the edge of the road (much safer than dead center) and Dimitri pats my shoulder, not at all awkwardly.
It’s drizzling, but my face is wet with more than rain. I hate myself for it, but I can’t stop. I put my head in my arms, not wanting Dimitri to see, but of course, he probably knows. He’s sitting right next to me, and I’m not exactly being quite. I can’t help it.
‘It’s alright, mate,’ he says quietly, squeezing my shoulders reassuringly.
I hiccup.
‘Why are they after you?’ Dimitri says after a moment. ‘What have you done?’
If I knew the answer to that, all my problems would be solved. Instead of replying I wipe my face with the front of my shirt. It doesn’t do much good; my shirt, I realize, is caked with blood. Probably from my nose. I settle for using my hands and as I wipe away salty tears and smeared blood, I notice my arms are covered in blue-black and yellow bruises. As I stare at them, my entire body begins to ache again, and it feels like someone has set a boulder on my shoulders. I just want to go to sleep. But the thing is, the bruises, the aches and pains, aren’t really that bad. Not as bad as they could be. I wonder why I blacked out. Maybe a blow to the head…
Dimitri notices my inspection and grimaces slightly. The hand of the arm not wrapped around my shoulders goes up to my hair. ‘Red on white,’ he says, lifting a few blonde locks. ‘You must have cracked your head open.’
Great.
Just then, when I’m finally beginning to regain my composure, one of Dimitri’s many friends leaps out from behind a tree. He takes one look at me and cries out, ‘’ey, the chuffin 'rich Saucepan Lid's 'ad the bloody stuffin' beaten aahhht of 'im! Did ya do it Dimitri? Mother's pearly gate Corn on the bloomin' Cob!
That’s enough to cause my regained composure to hit the road. He “ Johnny, I think “ sounds much too happy. Plus, I’ve only understood a quarter of what he’s said.
‘No, I didn’t do it,’ replies Dimitri. He catches the confused look on my face and smiles. ‘He said, “Hey, the rich kid’s had the stuffing beaten out of him. Did you do that Dimitri? Great job!” Quoted verbatim, of course.’
Of course.
Dimitri turns back to Johnny, who is now swinging by a thick tree branch, belonging to the same tree that he leaped out from behind moments ago.
‘What are you doing here, Johnny?’ he asks, talking normally. Being the polite boy he is, Dimitri usually speaks in a language all those present can understand. It’s not that he can’t revert to cockney rhyming slang it’s that he just doesn’t. ‘I thought you finally decided you would go to school.’
‘I changed me Chinese Blind,’ answers Johnny, grinning, and letting go of the tree branch. He doesn’t care if everyone can understand him or not. He swaggers over to where Dimitri and I are sitting on the curb. ‘I'm not a bookworm loike ya, Dimitri. Can't risk tarnishin' me reputation, can I na?’
‘I suppose not,’ says Dimitri, laughing.
Dimitri goes to school. Don’t know how that makes him a bookworm, but there you are.
Dimitri goes to school. School being, either the lady tutor near Petticoat Lane, or the school I attend. Usually the tutor. Don’t know how that makes him a bookworm, but there you are.
And then, surprise, surprise, just as Johnny makes to sit down next to Dimitri, the heavens open. Johnny’s rear hasn’t even hit the curb, and already we’re soaking wet. Sheet after sheet of rain pours from the sky, and immediately the wind picks up. Every now and then it hits the rain-sheets just right and pushes the drops together, concentrating them into a prominent sheet, discernible from the rest of the rain around it.
‘I have to go,’ I say, standing up suddenly. Mum and Dad aren’t completely insane “ they’re usually home by morning. And because of the cloud covering I can’t tell what time it is.
‘Okay,’ says Dimitri smiling. Johnny doesn’t even bat an eyelid. He’s busy arranging his hair with a red comb that’s missing half its teeth. Dimitri offers to come with me, but I can tell he really doesn’t want to so I turn him down quickly. Except for school, he never visits my side of the East End. For kids like him and Johnny it’s not completely safe. I mutter a quick goodbye to both of them, and turn away.
As Conner walks off, Johnny returns his comb to his pocket and asks, ‘Why do ya trust ‘im?’
Dimitri shrugs and wipes some of the hair that has taped itself to his skin away from his eyes. ‘He trusts us.’
‘Maybe… but that’s not a guarantee of aahht. Something’s Pete Tong wif that Saucepan Lid. ‘oo beat ‘im up?’
‘A bloke and his girlfriend. From school,’ answers Dimitri, still not speaking in the cockney slang, for no reason whatsoever.
Johnny follows Dimitri’s lead and reverts to slang-less speech. ‘A girl?! Blimey, ‘e’s more pathetic than I thought! The crying baby.’ They’re both silent for a moment. Dimitri is frowning. Rain drops slide down their smooth cheeks and noses. Then, Johnny: ‘They got summit on ‘im?’
‘More like… he has something on them. He says they just beat him for the heck of it… but it feels like they’re trying to keep him quiet.’
A/N: Reviews would be nice!