| Alarmingly Strange Stories |
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Tracy Tenchins |
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| . The pedals of the push bike turned slowly as a u-nail spun violently past Sparrow's left ear."Come on mooovvveee," screamed Sparrow pushing down harder on the pedals, his teeth baring like a mad rabid dog. It was no use, the gears were stuck in third. Sparrow could hear the shrills of the chasing pack behind him. His heart skipped a beat when a spinning u-nail clattered off the bikes slow turning spokes. Not far now-thought Sparrow. Two more streets and he would be safe, they wouldn't dare enter his patch. Sparrow let out a little laugh as the road began to slope downhill allowing the bike to pick up some valuable speed. He noticed the beginning of his street, just by the the T-junction road. His house was only two blocks away, along with his brace of older brothers. He turned his head to check the distance between him and his chasing quarry-big mistake. A u-nail took its venomous sting out right dead centre on his forehead. The bike lurched to the left! As Sparrow lost his balance,bouncing onto the pavement and careering straight into a low level dike-wall, flinging the wounded Sparrow face first across a stone chipped driveway.The crunch of black boots on the chipped stones brought the dazed Sparrow back round to reality. Slowly, he lifted his blood splattered face and let out a knowing sigh when a large figure clad only in black stood over him and let out a delirious laugh.Sparrow knew his wings were about to be clipped. The Sun baked the streets of my neighbourhood that Summer of 83. Everywhere you went there would be strips of Tarmac littering the road. Kids just literally tore up the street under the soaring heat. My Family lived in the centre of the crescent, it was like the centre of the World to me. Oh, by the way, my name is Hoodrae Thomson, aged thirteen and twenty one days. Let me explain the geography of our area. Crescent boys rarely left their own patch, outside school that is, for there was really no need. We had it all on our own backdoor. The vast wasteland to the back of our crescent was called 'the Bales' named after an electronics firm, it used to be the pulse of the community, but eventually closed up and left for pastures greener. Now it was our special play area. See some kids have dens and tree houses, we had a factory complete with working telephones, running water and all the mod cons any thirteen year old needed. It was our safety zone and we were completely oblivious to the hazards we faced every time we stepped onto our hallowed ground. Our gang consisted of degenerated kids that only knew one way to play; hard. There was Clayton a live wire with bowl cropped hair and a big toothy smile. Johnny a nervous paramaniac at only twelve years of age. Gibsy the quiet one, dark eyes, hair and soul. Then there was Sparrow the Grifter king, our unofficial leader. This was our clique, there were others of course, outsiders who fluttered in and out, but this was the mainstay and we liked the figures just fine. |
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