Black Sheep Read Free

left hook.
    A poem about her.
    Have you ever seen a black girl blush? It’s the prettiest thing. I could tell from the way her eyes opened wide and the way she bit her lip that she was blown away. I knew I had her then,
so I decided to deliver the death blow.
    “Read some to me then, innit,” I said, handing her the book. “Let’s see if this Golding bredder can spit as good as you say...”
    So she read to me from her copy of
Lord of the Flies
. And that book that had made me die from boredom in English class came alive. I lay down next to her on the grass and closed my
eyes, listening to her reading in that pretty, posh voice of hers while the bees buzzed above us, the afternoon sun warm on my skin.
    MISHA
    It was the thrill of it, really, the thrill of the unknown, the unknowable, that first got me interested. That and his devastating smile. And he had soulful eyes. They
weren’t dead like so many of the others I had seen. His eyes spoke of a depth, a richness, a life within, waiting to be uncovered.
    When he looked at me, looked deep into my eyes, I felt as if he was drinking in every word I said, that everything I said mattered, not because it was perfect, but because I had said it.
    There were teething problems, of course. His street talk perplexed me – so many double negatives! So many grammatical inconsistencies. But once I learned to listen, to tune into the
essence of his words, I fell under their spell. He was a poet: a street poet, a poet with no respect for Wordsworth, but a poet nonetheless. He wove a spell with his words, making them dance and
jive and shimmy – just for me.
    I guess you could say he captured my heart with a poem about chocolate fudge-coloured sweetness, spitting it on a two-step breakbeat.

Thug 4 Life
    DWAYNE
    “I’m out, man,” said Tony, looking down at the playground in front of the estate. “Last weekend was my last rave. I’m done.”
    We were all sitting on the balcony at Jukkie and Tony’s mum’s house, smoking. Misha and I had been seeing each other for a few weeks and I was sending her a text message, the kind I
knew made her melt. When Tony mentioned being ‘out’, I stopped thumb-typing and stared at him.
    “What are you talking about, man?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Tony? Quit raving? “But why, man? What’s up?”
    “You know I took my
shahadah
, innit, a few months ago now. I became a Muslim. And I’ve just been playing around. But now it’s time to quit messing about and do this
deen
ting. Do it properly. No more raving, no more drugs, I’m out of the game.”
    Jukkie kissed his teeth and got up. “Sounds like some lame-arse ting you’re on, Tony. What d’you mean, you’re out? When you’re in the street life, there ain’t
no getting out. As for me, I know what I am: a thug for life.” And he went inside.
    This thing was blowing my mind. “You mean you’re really gonna take this Islam ting serious, bruv? Are you sure?” I tried to imagine Tony living a clean life: no more guns, no
more drugs, no more raving... no more money. “Yo, how the hell are you gonna pay for that new ride and the watches and champagne and ting without food? What you gonna do, sign on?”
    I laughed at the thought of Tony, Mr Big Stuff himself, going into the Job Seekers’ office to apply for a job as a driver.
    But Tony didn’t laugh, y’know. Instead, he chewed at the skin under his thumbnail. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know. But I can’t die like this, y’get
me. Imagine we out raving tonight, bunnin’ weed, drinkin’, and we crash the car and – pop – that’s it! Done! I ain’t goin’ out like that...”
    “Easy on the drama, man! No one ain’t gonna die, not any time soon. There’s plenty of time for that Muslim stuff later, innit? We’re young now, we’re making money
– life is good. Don’t go mashing tings up by getting too serious... now turn up the volume, man, I love this track.” And soon my head was