Somewhere Only We Know ....... Read Online Free PDF Page B

we
weren ’ t caught in the first
week, I was cooking enough food out of the freezer to feed an army.
But the truancy went on for months, sometimes I stayed home and
sometimes I actually went into school for registration and then
skived off before the first lesson. The woods behind the school was
a good meeting place for all us truants. There was always tabs to
be had and everyone always seemed to have the foresight to buy food
to take with them using their dinner money. These were good times,
there was always a different crowd so every time was different, but
it was all brought to an abrupt end when my mam and dad were called
into the school, my attendance was atrocious and as well as being
put on report I was kept in - every night for a month, and the
worst of this was I wasn ’ t
even allowed to my Granny ’ s.
    I made lots
of friends, but there was no one I could call my best friend. There
was a large group of us girls and we rarely broke into anything
smaller than groups of three, this suited me fine, I had done the
best friend thing and that had ended up hurting me, so to have
light weight friendships didn ’ t phase me.
    The party
scene in Kinsley was sparse. Groups of us tended to hang around the
local park or bus shelter. There was rarely an opportunity to party
as even if me and my friends did have a parent free house, the
neighbours were always quick to disperse any groups of people,
Kinsley was like that, everyone knew everyone
else ’ s business. We drank
and smoked though and some people sniffed glue, I
couldn ’ t get my head around
that at all, it seemed to make them appear weird and a little off
balance. I was bad enough with my alcohol so never dared to try the
glue and aerosol thing but I still liked to go with
boys.
    Around this
time I discovered my weakness for crushes. I had them on all sorts
of people, a lad in my class, some celebrity or other, a
friend ’ s dad, even my
science teacher, who was a pretty 20 something with gorgeous
brunette hair, a petite body and the biggest boobs I had ever seen.
No one was out of bounds. For the whole of the duration of the
crush I was totally and unblinkingly obsessed. I fantasized about
them, mimicked their mannerisms and would do anything to make sure
I was noticed by them.
    Darren Roberts was a crush. He was
beautiful. He was in my year group at school. He was Mr Popular and
at 13 looked much older. His body was big and toned with the amount
of sport he played and at 6 foot he towered above the other lads in
our year. Being the school football captain he had no shortage of
girls around him, he oozed maturity and wore his prowess with
pride. On the back of his black leather jacket he had blatantly
attached a football stud, he was a stud and God did I want him.
    I started to
hang around places where I knew he would be. Football matches,
shops, the bus stop where he and his mates always met up and
eventually he noticed me. I don ’ t think that he hadn ’ t not noticed me before, but streetwise sexy Caroline had
come out to play and there was no way I was going to let him out of
my sight. His friend asked my friend to ask me if I wanted to go to
a Newcastle match with him the following Saturday - what a
result!!
    As confident
as we both appeared when we were around our mates we both turned
out to be really shy on our date. The conversation never stopped
but it wasn ’ t edgy, it was
nice, he was nice and I really liked him. When we got back from
town he asked if I wanted to go to his, his parents always went out
on a Saturday night so he said that if he could get rid of his
younger brother we would have the place to ourselves. I was over
the moon, that day just got better and better.
    And that was the start of my first proper
relationship. For the next 3 years we were inseparable, we went to
school together, spent breaks together, came home together and as
soon as we had finished our teas we were back together again.
    Darren was
the one that distracted me