Danny Differ

Danny Differ could grow a beard at 13, which he often did. I was a year older and struggling to get my bumfluff seen. He looked like he was from the fair or a modern day pirate, the girls loved him. So did his mum, who bought him four cans of Breaker lager every night.

He could roll a cigarette with one hand and smoke it in 4 drags while hiding it by putting his hood up. Which he had to do at the special school he went to for people who never went to school. I saw the bus taking him there and bringing him back while I was on my way to boring normal school.

We got to be friends after he'd knocked at the door at my mum's house and offered me out for a fight. He'd even brought a referee and some spectators. I muttered no with as much strength as I could find and went back to try to finish my tea feeling like a coward. Next time I saw him we shook hands and I started hanging out at the front of his house every night after school.

He had a stepdad who wasn't much older than him, which seemed a pretty good novelty. They used to go shooting rabbits and once brought me back a rabbit's tail. It started to stink about a month later so I had to stop carrying it in my pocket.

Danny was the eldest, but even his slightly younger brothers and sisters never seemed to go to bed. His family never seemed to go anywhere. There were always loads of people coming and going at his house. I never went round and they were all out.

His stepdad went away for a weekend though. No one said where but his mum said excitedly 'we're having a party', and I was invited. The party didn't seem to be for anyone specifically, so I didn't need to buy a present. That meant the tenner I had left from my birthday could be used to buy a stack of Breaker. Danny's mum offered to go and get it, which saved me the job of hanging around outside the offy. I thought it would have bought more cans than what she returned with.

There was lots of other booze though, even after they'd started without me when I went off to get ready. There were loads of other people I didn't know as well when I came back. Lads a bit older who seemed really interested in his mum and sister. They just tried to stare the rest of us out. I just grabbed as many cans as I could before they had them all. They disappeared after a while. And so did his mum and sister.

We went wandering about as we got drunk and thought we could hear someone upstairs behind a closed door. I'd never been upstairs in his house before. Keen to have a look about we sneaked a look. His mum, sister and two of the lads I didn't know were all in the same bed. Danny shut the door quickly.

I stopped hanging about with Danny Differ after that. But I still saw him with his beard and cans of Breaker. From across the road I'd crossed getting back to the normal.