an autobiographical extract

An Autobiographical Extract

When my father was posted to the town of King’s Lynn, our family moved into a police house in a cul-de-sac in the quiet suburb of South Wootton. It was the sort of street in which kids could play football and catch without fear of any traffic, and soon a gang of us had formed and sworn allegiance to each other, as was fitting.

The street ran behind a ruined Victorian pile called Folly House, its wealth of green roof tiles and shuttered windows all now spent. Its riotous gardens were now a sanctuary for birds, animals and insects, including a few iridescent peacocks whose forlorn and redundant calls we would imitate to infinity, much to our parents’ irritation. We would stalk each other along overgrown paths, make dens from the cascading foliage of willow trees and stone frogs to death by the side of the rank, stagnant pond.

Ian Cordwell was a year older than the rest of us, so we all paid him far too much respect. When he chose me for a confidante, I glowed with foolish pride. He pulled me to one side conspiratorially while the others were piling into one another and made me swear on my mother’s deathbed not to tell, which I did mechanically, impatient for the gift he bore.

He’d noticed that this van had been parked on the verge of the long sweeping approach to the front of the house for over a week. We were desperate for adventure.

‘Betcha someone’s dead in there!’ he declared, confidently enough to fire my easily-led enthusiasm. We reconnoitred one evening, just him and me, as the dusk was falling. My heart was thumping in my ears as we crept closer to the white box van, certain that some ghastly corpse would spring out at us to reach for our souls…

But it was a duty to investigate. Ian forced the doors open with a screwdriver that he’d stolen from his father’s tool bag, and we jumped up into the black interior, closing the door behind us.

What we found…was nothing more interesting than packets of sugar. We sat there in the dark, feeling a little disappointed, crunching on handfuls of sugar …until Ian started to stab the packets with his father’s screwdriver. It wasn’t long before we were engaged in a frenzy of ripping and tearing, showering each other with prickly crystal until the back of the van became a disaster zone and we were hot, breathless and stickily uncomfortable. We had to get out.

Just as I was climbing down, a brand new shiny brass padlock hanging on the inside of the door called out to me: ‘Take me home , take me home.’ I slipped it into my pocket without thinking of looking for a key. On returning home for tea, I hid my trophy in the well of an airbrick in the wall of our house, covering it with crispy leaves. I thought nothing more of it.

The following day is a windy autumnal day, and when I get home from school, I find my father waiting for me. I know, just by looking into his policeman’s eye, piercing, steely-grey, that for some reason, the game is up. A nauseous panic grips me by my entrails.

‘Well, what’ve you got to say for yourself then?’ He growls, toying with the evidence, the signature of my crime.

‘Ian Cordwell made me, Dad, ‘ I splutter, already blubbing…