Billy Elliot Read Online Free PDF Page B

He’d turn round and look behind him, twisting his neck round as far as he could, over and over again. He said it was just a habit, but what sort of a habit is that? It’s not like picking your nose or biting your nails. Once I took him to the cinema and he spent the whole time twisting round in his seat. He was just stretching the muscles in his neck but the woman behind didn’t know that, she thought he was staring at her. It was so embarrassing. You can’t stop him. He can’t stop himself.
    ‘Your son’s staring at me,’ she said.
    ‘Aye, and I paid good money for this film,’ I told her back.
    It was football for a while, that was OK. He used to go out into the street and practise flipping the ball over his head with his feet, or keepsie-upsies or something like that. He was never all that good on the pitch, mind, but at least it wasgood healthy practice, the sort of thing you’d expect for a kid of his age.
    Now it was spinning round in circles.
    He denied it at first, but I kept catching him at it. In the kitchen, in the hall, in the yard, in his bedroom. All the bloody time. Staring into space like an idiot, holding out his arms and then hurling himself round in a bloody great spin and falling over, half the time. I sent him out to make tea once, and when he didn’t come back for ages I went to have a look. There he was, staring away, just about to go off.
    ‘Billy,’ I said, just as he let himself off, and he went spinning round, trying to look over his shoulder at the same time, and he went crashing into the table and sent the lot flying – milk everywhere, sugar upside down, mugs broken.
    Tony came rushing in from the hall. ‘What are you doing, man?’
    ‘I’m just practising a spin. It’s a boxing move,’ he said.
    ‘It’s not like any boxing move I’ve ever seen,’ I told him. Boxing move! It was another one of his stupid habits.
    ‘Now don’t start doing that all the time,’ I warned him. ‘You’ll wreck the bloody house doing that.’
    ‘Aye, and who’s going to pay for those mugs and all? You’ve got no bloody sense,’ goes Tony.
    ‘All right, Dad, all right.’ But of course he didn’t stop. He can’t help himself once he gets going. He’s like a bloody rabbit with the eyes too big or something. At least he started doing it outside after that. He was pretending to do boxing practice, but was he heck. I crept out into the yard to have a look and there he was, same old thing. Arms curved out to one side, then he flung ‘em round and went hurtling round in a circle. The weird thing was the way he was staring intospace. And the gloves – aye, he had the gloves on. He looked like a bloody madman. He scares me sometimes, our Billy. I don’t know what to make of him.
    I went out and had a word with him.
    ‘What are you doing, son? You look like you’re having a fit or something.’
    ‘I’m practising, Dad.’
    ‘No, you’re not practising. Practising what? Looking like a fanny? Don’t you care what people think of you?’
    ‘It’s just a bloody spin.’
    ‘Well, don’t do it. Not out here where people can see.’
    ‘But you told me not to do it in the house!’
    ‘Just don’t do it, that’s all. OK?’
    I didn’t see it so much after that, but I knew he was still at it. I could hear him falling about all over. Banging on the landing, crashing about in the kitchen. I was forever yelling, ‘Stop bloody banging!’ He fell in the bath doing it one time. It was his Sunday-night bath, there was this almighty splash and when I went up, there he was, staring at himself in the mirror, fully dressed, soaking wet, arms out ready to have another go.
    ‘You’re doing that again!’ I told him.
    ‘I fell in the bath, that’s all,’ he said.
    I didn’t bother saying any more. I just rolled my eyes and left him to it.
    He had me worried then. I had a word with Susan Harris down the road, but she reckoned I should take no notice.
    ‘He’s just a lad, he’s only