Blood Donors Read Free

to have this big poster of Ashley Young. One day me and Con-Con was havin’ a row about our space, ’cos we each got a bed against opposite walls, meanin’ the middle bit is shared territory. Little bruv who ain’t no Man United fan was makin’ big stress about my Ashley Young, pride of place, middle of the middle bit. So I goes to move it. I pull out the drawin’ pins, pull the poster away from the wall and there’s a riot of bugs all runnin’ for cover, and in the corners there’s dozens of little black full stops – which is bug poo – all over it. I screwed up my poster ’cos it was ruined. I was so mad I went over to Con-Con’s poster of Iron Man and I rub my hands all over it, hard as I can, squish all of them bugs behind it. I could feel ’em splattin’.
I’m gonna execute you!
Con yelled, and he punched me between my legs, which hurt worse than any other way you can be hurt. I had to put him in a bear hug till he calmed down. When we peeled the poster off the wall, it was blood carnage, squished bedbugs all over.
    So here comes another, plannin’ on makin’ a meal of Sis. I’m wantin’ to squish it, but I’m stressin’ about Sis seein’ and knowin’ what we bringin’ into her home. I dunno where to look, or what to do.
    I’m a rat, carryin’ disease from neighbour to neighbour.
    Biff. Sis squashes it flat with her bare hands.
Bye bye, little fella
she sings, wipin’ her hand on her jeans. She sniffs her hand.
Poo, those things stink
.
    I’m sittin’ frozen, not knowin’ what to say.
    Sorry
’
bout that
she says.
These’ve been gettin’ worse and worse for months. D’you get ’em in your place too?
    It feel like a cool rain a-fallin’, after months of blisterin’ heat.

Soft Stuart
    I can remember a summertime in my life that was jus’ laughter and play, before bug bites and stinkin’ bins and hot-head fights. Before Con-Con, when it was jus’ me and Mum and Dad. I must’ve been five, six, just a baby. Dad rented a big flat with huge rooms, ceilin’s high as the sky, and places for hide-and-seek and chase, and big bouncy sofas and proper beds and what they call a dinin’ room. The dinin’ room had a wooden table big as a stage. Dad used to lift me onto it and peoples gather roun’ and I’d do the Moonwalk. Everyone whistle and whoop. Dad’d lift me on his shoulders and parade me roun’ to all the cheerin’. My head still didn’t reach the ceilin’ because our house back in the day was bigger even than a castle.
    That’s what we called it, The Castle. Mum and Dad was the King and Queen.
    Mum and Dad used to give parties. Everybody come from miles around and play music and dance and be drunk, Mum and Dad leanin’ into each other, laughin’ together. Like they needed each other to stop themselves fallin’ over, on account of life bein’ too funny to stay standin’ straight. I had a zillion toys. Every toy I jus’ snap my fingers ’cos I was Prince Marshall O’Connor the First. My mum and dad was rulers of the whole wide world.
    Dad used to run his own business, successful, so successful he able to spare time with us at home. Mum used to do part-time nursin’. Dad said she didn’t need to do that, but Mum said she enjoyed it. Helpin’ people. Mum always been like that.
    But that was a different world, back in the day. I remember how jus’ before he lef’, everythin’ gone nasty. He be smashin’ everythin’, and the police invaded our Castle and Dad punchin’ them all but they was more than him. The police punched him back, and they took him. All of a sudden he wasn’t King, but Fighter.
    Mum say I get my temper from him, inherited it like fortune. All them other riches jus’ fell away.
    Me and Mum moved into The Finger. Finger wasn’t so bad in them days. Lift worked and there wasn’t bad smells. I hated it jus’ the same. Mum’d sit around, lookin’ empty, like life had slipped out of her. I suppose I sat roun’ pretty much the same way. They put