Church Group Read online

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  That evening Al called round for me as usual and we headed out on our bikes. It was becoming an almost daily occurrence now, and I’d grown accustomed to being ready to leave the house as soon as I saw his lanky form swaggering up to the front door, running out before my mum could ask where I was going, or why I was never at home anymore. To be honest home was the last place I ever wanted to be, but this wasn’t something I gave a lot of thought to. Just avoided it as much as possible.

  We set off but less than ten minutes later our plans appeared doomed.

  “It’s starting to piss it down!” Al yelled out as the heavens burst, his bike skidding to an alarming halt and almost swerving into the path of an oncoming moped which sped past at what must have been its top speed of thirty miles an hour, rider beeping with annoyance, one finger stuck up at us as he disappeared into the distance. My heart sank, I didn’t want to head home yet, it was still light.

  “No worries,” Al said, “let’s go back to mine, I’ve got a wicked video we can put on.”

  I followed him back wondering to myself what video he was talking about, but more than that I had a question regarding who would be in when we got back to his. I liked going to Al’s well enough, when it was just the two of us, what I couldn’t deal with was seeing Al’s mum.

  As a teenager there is something you learn about your mum very early on, and that is, you are the worst behaving child in the world; and just to rub it in further, your closest friend is the best behaving child in the world. When you bring a friend home it is obligatory to cheek your mum back at every opportunity to prove that you are an independent young adult and that you don’t take being told what to do by anyone. To emphasise just how bad you are, your mum will then ask your friend whether he talks to his own mother that way, the response to which will always be a smile and an overly polite no, combined in a single lie. Giving the impression that you are the only teenager on the planet who doesn’t do what they’re told. I don’t remember ever being told to act that way so assume it is in our genetic code somewhere, regardless it was the way it was and the way it always had been, so it was with this firmly in mind that I asked him, “Where’s your mum mate?”

  There was no need to worry. “She’s out at some quiz night shit,” Al replied, not a clue that I couldn’t have actually cared less as to her whereabouts. I breathed a sigh of relief. Quietly though. One rule of friendship, never, ever, slag off a mate’s mum when there’s just the two of you. When one person does it it’s insulting, when a group joins in it’s banter.

  “Good plan Al,” I smiled, lying back in their big beige living room with a whole sofa to myself. We’d had to sort out our own drinks and food, but how much easier was that than having them presented to you alongside questions about your own family and how you were getting on at school. Plus we had free reign of the fridge.

  “No worries,” Al replied.

  Paaaarp!

  “Was that you Al?”

  “Obviously,” Al said. “There’s no one else in the house. Unless it was you?”

  “You know it wasn’t me Al. Seeing as it was you,” I said. “That’s rancid, I can smell it over here where my crisps are.”

  “I know mate, I willed it to go over there. It’s like a cloud of shit particles,” Al said. “I actually made it come out of my arse just so it could flavour your food.”

  I sat in the dining room while I finished my crisps, more than happy with just the salt and vinegar taste they were supposed to have. When I came back images of motocross bikes danced across the screen, the ever present sense of danger to the riders giving me a warm feeling inside. Even though I knew it wasn’t live, I was hypnotised, feeling that a mistimed jump could have killed one of the riders magnetically imprisoned on the VHS. I wanted to experience what they were experiencing, as they flew through the air. I wanted to feel that close to the edge, to have people watching me with their hearts in their mouths. I knew that for now life would continue as it was, but I felt on the verge of something new, something exciting.