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blokes, Longman and Foreman. They ghosts?’

       ‘Ghosts? Nah, Nipper. They’re real. Same as you and me. They ain’t dead, you know.’

       ‘What’s Ringman doing in that stone?’

       ‘Waiting.’

       ‘What’s he waiting for?’

       ‘Tonight.’

       ‘What’s happening tonight?’

       ‘Depends.’

       ‘Oh, come off it, Missis. Tell us. I ain’t come all this way in that stupid bus just to fuck about.’

       ‘You watch your language, girl. Or …’

       ‘Or what, then?’

       ‘Or Ringman might decide he don’t like you, after all.’

       ‘What d’you mean?’

       ‘He’s good looking, Ringman is. A sight better looking’n that wanker Ian you mess with.’

       ‘So what?’

       ‘If you was to play your cards right Ringman might make you his girl.’

       ‘What if I don’t want to be his girl?’

       ‘I reckon you will. Oh yes, Nipper, there ain’t much doubt about that.’

       ‘What’s he like?’

       ‘Oh, he’s nice, Ringman is. And he’s good. Very, very good.’

      My mum made one hell of a stink when I didn’t come back that night. There were pigs out all over the place looking for me. God, the fuss they made. Where was I? Who did I talk to. Did I get raped?

      Raped! Took most of my cool, but I kept a straight face. I mean, who’d tell the fuzz about the old girl and the bloke? Bloody fascists, the lot of them. And my mum, she raved so much I reckoned it was funny-farm time for her. Tried to ground me, she did. Locks me up in my room. But I got to go to the bathroom now and then, ain’t I? And when I goes, it ain’t my fault if the window’s just above the extension roof. And it sure ain’t my fault if I just tests it to see if I can climb down. Which I done nice and quick. Then I borrows old Dixey’s bike and cycled the six mile up to Yalderton Ridge for another visit with the bloke.

      It was all them social bloody workers what made me do it. If she’d have left them out I might have let her be. But she always had to be in charge, did my mum. I suppose I didn’t mind when I was a kid but now I tells her I’m a grown woman she just laughs at me. And I won’t have that.

      I thought maybe the old girl could do something about it. And I thought right. Mind you, the old girl give me one hell of a time joshing me but I sticks to my guns.

      ‘How’d you like it,’ I says, ‘if you had some prying old cow asking you questions night and day about everything you does and getting a pack of half-arsed women coming around too? Bloody nosy bl—idiots. Would I like to change school? Am I happy? Happy? ’Course I’m ruddy happy long as they leave me alone.’

      The old girl had a little brood and she says she’ll fix it for me. Which she done.

      I got to roar each time I think about it. She got made up as one of them social workers, see? She come visiting my mum. They shuts theirselves in the kitchen and I hears Mum making her a brew and later they comes out and the old girl goes off. Didn’t even look at me, she didn’t, but she grab my hand niftyish and squeezes it and I knows she’s pulled a stunt.

      Mum went all pale after that like she’d had the spunk taken out of her and she stop fussing and telling me off and trying to keep me home. It was as easy as peasy. It was wicked. Excellent.

      Dixey come round next day. ‘What’s the matter with Lynda?’ she asks me. ‘Why’s she gone so quiet?’

      ‘Dunno. Got a cold, probably,’ I says.

      Dix give me a nasty look and I gives her one back. And that worked too. She goes off like a little white mouse and don’t even give me no grief for cheeking her while she’s going.

      It was more or less the same the rest of term. What’s more I got bloody good at cycling.

      In August Mum says Uncle Mick’s gived her some dosh and she wants to go to Majorca with Dix and her brats. I says that’s well OK by me just as long as I don’t have to go. And that was OK with them. So I nicked Dix’s tent and went up to the Ridge. I was there all August with the bloke and he weren’t shy at all.

      In September he goes back to sleep so I comes down again and gets back in harness. I don’t mind school too much, see? They learnt to treat me right now. In fact, I got school taped.

       ‘What you done to all them creeps, Missis?’

       ‘What creeps?’

       ‘All them folks at school and my Mum and Dixey. All them people.’

       ‘I ain’t done nothing to them.’

       ‘You must’ve. They don’t mind what I do. They don’t even mind me thieving and smashing things.’

       ‘I ain’t done nothing to them. I done something to you.’

       ‘What you done, then?’

       ‘That’d be telling, Nipper. You just be grateful I done it.’

       ‘It ain’t wrong, is it, what you done?’

       ‘You slimy little squirt! I never heard such hypocrisy in all my born. You really take the cake, you do! You beat the rest of them hands down.’

       ‘What you mean? What rest of them?’

       ‘You think you’re the only little tart I’ve ever talked to?’

       ‘Yeah, I did … You ever talked to Dixey Foster?’

       ‘Might have. Yeah, I remember. Snotty so and so she was. She weren’t no good.’

       ‘No good for what?’

       ‘No good for nothing.’

       ‘What about me, then? I’m good, am I?’

       ‘Ringman says you are.’

       ‘How long’s Ringman going to kip for?’

       ‘You missing it? I could get you some more, you know.’

       ‘He woken up then?’

       ‘Not Ringman. Someone else.’

       ‘Who?’

       ‘Longman’s good at it. He’s even better than Ringman.’

       ‘I don’t fancy Longman though.’

       ‘Oh, you will, love, you will.’

      *

      In October I missed my third period and I got dead worried. I went to see the old girl and she thought it was a right joke, she did. I goes on about an abortion but she really let rip. I’d got to have the kid according to her. Abortions wasn’t right. I told her it was all right for her to say that. She wasn’t in the club.

      She took me to see Longman. He was down by the copse over near the motorway

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