I didn't want to do it

I must have been about 6, and as usual I was the only girl. Only boys in our neighbourhood – ‘something in the water’ old ladies sniggered to each other. And I was small. Unusually small. A head and a half shorter than the boys who stood around me as we looked down at the dead bird.

It was fascinating to us, stinking in the summer sun, crawling with insects. A broken pile of feathers and bones. ‘I don’t want to do it’ I said, but secretly I did. I chopped its head off – chopped its head off with a spade. I don’t know why, but death was as yet something abstract, exciting. That act of violence was a need, a desire.

The thing I know for certain is that those boys - those tall 6yr old boys with snails in their pockets and scuffed knees – were softer than me. They were upset by the bird, shocked by the decomposition that drew me in, a gory little girl in frills and pigtails.

And then we were older. 13 now, Jason and I, two survivors from that earlier crowd. I was still small and he was a strapping boy, the tallest in his class. ‘Come over this wall’ he said, ‘don’t worry, they won’t catch us.’

‘I don’t want to do it’ I said – but I took his hand and scrambled over into our paradise of dereliction – a deserted china clay mine a mile or so from Jason’s house.  

‘I don’t want to do it’ I said, as I eagerly broke the lock of a gated tunnel and ventured into the damp dark. I pressed on ahead when Jason said ‘we should probably go home’, and navigated broken glass and falling masonry with glee as he followed on behind me. I laughed when he tripped and fell – couldn’t help it – he was still softer than me, this tall boy with tears on his cheek and blood on his hand.

And then we were older still – 18 and trying to jam as much into every minute as our little home-grown minds could take. ‘I don’t want to do it’ said Jason, as I dragged him, reluctant, behind me.