Mosi's War Read Free Page B

wanted to keep their heads down. Live quietly. Like Mosi and his parents. And so many of the people here had been helpful and kind. People had offered them furniture, clothes, even food. There were a lot of good people here. But of course, that didn’t make such a good story for the media.
    Mosi had a tight knot in his stomach. Fear. He recognised it. Had felt it so often before. Something inside him was warning him, bad things were coming. And he didn’t know how to avoid them.
    After dinner he stood at the window. Looked out over the grey concrete concourse. Black clouds hung so low over the tops of the flats it seemed he could reach out and sink his hands into them. It had begun to rain hard, hitting against the glass like needles. It was a grim estate, Mosi agreed, thunder-grey skies, dark stone, cold winds. Not like his own country – cornflower-blue sky, the hot sun.
    But there was no homesickness in him. He missed the sun, but that was all. Even hemmed in by all this grey concrete he felt safer here, safer than he could ever remember.
    Yet, he knew he wasn’t safe. Would he ever be?
    A figure ran out of the flats and across the concourse. A boy, his maroon hood pulled over his head. He stopped for a minute waiting for a car to pass before he crossed the street. For a moment he turned and looked up. Almost as if he was looking up at Mosi. Instinctively, Mosi stepped back from the window. The figure was Patrick.

Chapter 7
    ‘Here’s wee Patrick.’ Cody was waiting for him by the betting shop. He was surrounded by a group of boys. Some Patrick knew, some he didn’t. ‘Are you up for it, Patrick?’
    Patrick stopped in his tracks, spread his arms wide. ‘Ready for anything, me.’
    That wasn’t completely true. Sometimes Cody got up to things Patrick didn’t want to take part in – smashing the chip-shop windows came to mind, or the night they set fire to one of the derelict buildings on the estate. But once he’d started running with Cody’s gang, it was hard to say no. And Cody liked him, Patrick was sure of it. He made Cody laugh, and not a lot of people could say that. Most important for Patrick, he had somewhere to go at night, people to share things with. It was always exciting, and Patrick liked exciting.
    ‘We’re going to the underpass,’ Cody said, pulling Patrick on.
    ‘The underpass?’ Patrick was already running alongside him.
    ‘They’ve cleaned it up. Fresh walls just waiting for us.’
    No one ever used the underpass, not at night. It was a short cut under the dual carriageway, leading from the estate to the retail park on the other side of the road. But at night, people would rather take the long way, use the pedestrian crossings, or cross over the bridge. Some people even used the old cemetery that stretched right up behind the estate as a short cut. Safer than the underpass at night-time. The lights were always broken. People had been mugged in there. Only recently a headless cat had been found hanging by its feet, its blood dripping on the ground. That had caused quite a stir. Some people blamed the asylum seekers, especially the African ones. Convinced it had something to do with the voodoo rituals they must have brought from their own countries. Others blamed the gangs of boys who roamed the estate at night, trying to cause trouble. Gangs like Cody’s, or his older brother’s.
    Only one dim light was working. It gave the underpass an eerie glow. But even in this semi-darkness Patrick could see that Cody was right. The underpass had been cleaned up. The walls had been freshly painted white – ready and waiting. Patrick couldn’t help feeling excited. There was something about a blank wall that made his heart beat faster. Did that mean there was something wrong with him? He would never tell anyone how much he enjoyed this. He had a talent, he knew he did. A talent his teachers didn’t appreciate, a talent his mother had never noticed. But Cody had. That was maybe why he wanted