Graffiti My Soul Read Free

but I don’t want people thinking I’m from one of those ‘multi-cultural’ families that has a hundred relatives and needs to do everything together. Just the thought of that kind of set-up is excruciating.
    We end up riding the lifts, pissing about like a couple of ten-year-olds. They’re see-through and small, like coffins, running at two miles an hour, but still manage to get us excited. Mum looks disappointed when we meet her outside Tesco empty-handed. She likes her routine, and keeps Wednesdays for the supermarket run, but pushed it forward because we were making such a big deal of hitting the mall to get our stuff.
    â€˜That CD’s not out yet. I got the dates wrong,’ Moon goes.
    Mum nods like she doesn’t believe a word, but doesn’t ask me about my laces, in case I give an even more useless lie than Moon.
    She’s more than made up for our lack of purchases though, with enough House of Fraser bags to fill two cars.
    â€˜From the sales, OK?’ she goes, before I can get a word in.
    People love shopping in this town. You never see anyone on the high street or leaving the mall without a carrier bag. I’m not as fussed. As long as I get some new CDs every couple of weeks (the ones that I can’t download for free that is), and a new hoodie or a pair of trainers once in a while, I’m happy. Can think of several hundred things that are more important than money and the things that it can buy you. Don’t understand everyone’s preoccupation with it.
    I don’t lay any of this on Mum, though. I’m not a name-and-blame person. She works hard for the things she shops for. Deserves to buy what she wants. One of the benefits of no longer having Dad around is that Mum doesn’t have to hide her shopping in the garage, eking everything out a couple of days at a time. It almost makes up for the fact that he was such a bastard.
    In Tesco, Jason is stacking shelves in the Tastes of Italy aisle, which makes Moon’s day. She’s had the hots for him since last Tuesday, when he smacked Chris Pearson one for saying that Lizzie Jennings is a fat twat. Every girl in that classroom was in his thrall after that. Even I have to admit, there was a certain grace about my mate Jaseas he cut Pearson’s nose open. The way the blood hit the floor in one thick spurt, like the cold tap on max, was pure poetry.
    He sees us first from behind his boxes of imported pasta.
    We break into a round of hugs. Hugging is the new thing – everyone has to hug everyone else. Hello mate, hello geezer, hello darlin’. It’s bollocks, but I have to do it too, whenever I’m with any of that crowd. With Moon it’s a given, and if I’m not showing willing, she gives me a prod, and if that doesn’t work, a punch. Funny, isn’t it, I can’t remember the last time I gave my mum a peck on the cheek, and here I am in aisle 33, passing the love like a fuckwit. At school it’s worse, half the people you hug in the canteen you fucking hate. Girls hugging girls. Boys hugging boys. No one believes you when you tell them how tough it is to be a teenager.
    â€˜What you two doing here? Come to see how I line up the vermicelli next to the rigatoni?’
    â€˜Always wanted to know how they do that.’
    â€˜Heard it was a new Olympic sport.’
    â€˜Mentalists. If I wasn’t working, I’d be having a cheeky spliff before dinner, not poncing about here.’
    This one has smoking on the brain. He probably still hasn’t registered that I never touch the stuff. Don’t see the point. Jason is madder than the rest of us, but to most people at school, he’ll always be known as the guy whose sister was killed in that hit and run. There’s no getting away from it.
    Aside from me and Moony Suzuki. We’re not into labels and all that shit. At least that’s what we’re currently telling ourselves.
    Moon giggles at the first