‘Always respect ten-year-olds, Luke. Always.’

I’m Luke and I turned ten the weekend we left Dad in a mad rush, before Christmas, before I’d ever robbed a house. Now I share a bed in the grey-walled box room where Mam slept when she was my age, with faded My Little Pony stickers peelin’ off a headboard that smells of old dust. I talk to meself in the mirror sometimes now. When Nana’s house is all empty and echoey. And I’m always tellin’ meself I’ll forever respect ten-year-olds, in case I grow up and forget. Most people grow up and forget, far as I can see. Old people’s worries shove other things out of their wrinkly grey heads? important things like talkin’ to ten-year-olds and looking them in the eye.

Ten-year-olds can sense people’s problems in their walk and their talk. We’re like dogs, trained to the stench of trouble. May as well just tell us what’s goin’ on. Best I can do is promise Mirror Me every day that if I ever have a child I’ll be straight with them, y’know? And I won’t just pick them up from school on a hail-stoned Wednesday and drive to Nana’s and say ‘this is where we live now, Lukey love’.

Just once, I want to be in charge, to take action and let everyone else deal with it. Like, if I burned this house down tonight we’d be homeless, but at least I’d be the one who knew it was going to happen.

Somethin’ I’m learnin’, mainly from listenin’? secretly, on the stairs? to Mam and Nana talking in the kitchen, is that kids are resilient. Rez-ill-yint. Nana says it to Mam when Mam cries.

‘Ah, Emma, they do be very resilient at that age.’
‘He’ll make new friends? Luke’s a resilient youngfella.’
‘Children are very resilient, Ems, he’s probably forgot most of what happened already.’

Kids are resilient. It’s somethin’ old people tell each other so they don’t have to feel guilty when they mess us around. I looked it up on me phone? means you can give us loads of stress and we won’t break. Like one of them bluey see-through shatter-proof rulers.

 

‘Always respect ten-year-olds. Always.’

The more I stare into the mirror, the more I can kinda make out me abs. Swear I’m gettin’ a six-pack. But I’m still a bit ‘heavy set’, as Nana would say. I get all these videos on me phone now on how to get perfect abs. And I do bicep curls with cans of beans, and then I eat the beans ‘cos they’re rammed with proteins. Goin’ to get like Ronaldo and Conor McGregor. Eight-pack. Mam already guaranteed me that I’ll get abs when I’m a teenager and not to be worryin’ about it. She used to be right about everythin’. I hope she’s right about this.

Last time I saw Dad I asked him if he could see me abs. Said nothin’ for ages ‘cos he gets all sleepy sometimes, like he’s dreamin’ with his eyes open. I shouldn’t have kept askin’ him because he said it makes him mad when I don’t shut me trap. Said I was a round little runt. Said I looked like I’d grow tits sooner than I’d get abs. That was the night him and Mam got in their big scrap, with the worst bad words and all the cryin’. That’s why we moved to Nana’s, I think.

I hate Dad and I love Dad and I hate that I love him. Maybe he’s the same about me.

The night after we left Dad, Nana brushed my teeth for me with a new Superman toothbrush. Bit babyish maybe. But he has a serious set of abs on him, Superman. Totally ripped. I got new Superman jammies as well. Jesus, I love them. But I wouldn’t wear them to a sleepover, if I ever got invited to one. And I got a three-pack of pants (dinosaurs, embarrassin’) and new socks (Minecraft, fine). That’s all the clothes I have right now but I’m gettin’ more when Mam gets money or if she can sneak back into the flat where Dad lives.

 

I go to a mixed school near Nana’s now. Boys and girls. First week in, I met Holly. She’s new as well, and proper funny. Holly tells the truth. About everythin’. Told me her Dad is dead and her mam goes into hospital on the regular. Holly doesn’t know whether her mam is sad because she drinks too much or if her mam drinks too much because she’s sad. ‘Six of one, half a dozen of the other,’ she says, but I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean.

Showed me a faded circle on her hand where a cigarette burned her years ago. I’m ragin’ all me marks are gone. It’s all pain, no gain for me. Some days in Nana’s I put me hand on the kitchen rad and see how long I can keep it there. It’s hoppin’ hot. I hold it tight and concentrate on other things: Mam, Dad, Nana, abs, Holly, Marvel, blood, YouTube, punches, Túsla, Man United, cops, court, Roblox, MMA, Fuck! It’s good to be able to take the hand off when the pain gets too much. Like I’m the Master of Pain, in control, for a few seconds. But if I could leave it long enough to get a scar, I’d have somethin’ to show for me tortures, y’know? It wouldn’t be a lie, really. I’m entitled to be marked.

Holly was in a ‘care home’ last summer when her mam was sick?  ‘It wasn’t home and they didn’t care’, she says. But now she lives with her Nana as well. Bein’ a Nana is a full-time job. It’s not like on telly when they show up at Christmas with presents and hugs. Holly says her Nana is mad old and doesn’t give a shite what anyone thinks. She just ‘tells it like it is’. Which means she’s rude but nobody minds. That’s an old people thing. Mam says our Nana was always that way, like she’s been in trainin’ for her old age since she was a girl. Wish I could tell it like it is, but I’m not sure adults are resilient enough to hear how I’m feelin’. Better to give Mam a bit more time to get used to this ‘brand new life’ she tells me about, wearing her big sad smile.

 

Nana asks me every day, more than once, did I make a friend at school. Woman’s obsessed. That means she talks about it all the time. Holly taught me that word and I told her about resilient.

‘Here’s the man of the house now. School good? Any pals yet?’

I was kinda glad? relieved? to tell Nana about Holly. But Nana acts like Holly doesn’t count. ‘Oh, he has himself a little girlfriend now,’ she says, and pucks me in the arm. I might not talk about Holly any more to adults. Holly says grown-ups are always goin’ on about boyfriends and girlfriends. When she was in playschool, the teacher did a pretend weddin’ for Holly and this ginger-freckled lad called Liam. Her mistake was to share crayons with him, she said. All of a sudden they had Holly in a little veil made of crepe paper and Liam with a pipe-cleaner flower on his jacket, and the teacher playin’ Here Comes The Bride on her phone.

Now everyone’s makin’ a big deal about me and Holly like they want me to be her boyfriend. But Holly says it all changes when you’re a teenager. When you’re a teenager, adults suddenly don’t want boys and girls to be friends at all. Holly’s sister’s 14. She was hangin’ out with fellas from her school and the Nana gave out stink to the lads when they called to the house. ‘Dirty little scuts!’ Nanas all say ‘boys only want one thing’, and they push their lips out and shake their heads when they say it. (I don’t think the ‘one thing’ is a killer set of abs.)

Marryin’ off four-year-olds and complainin’ about teenagers hangin’ out together. Adults can’t make up their minds about some things.

 

Me Nana is more happy about me makin’ friends with boys on her road though. Boys like Leo and his brother and the brother’s friends. Leo is twelve but small for his age and he stayed back in school, so he’s only a year ahead of me. Same height as I am, but he’s dead strong, I think. I saw his abs when we had a water fight and he had to take off his United jersey ‘cos his brother was after drenchin’ him. I don’t take off me t-shirt even if it’s wet after water fights. Not until me abs come in.

Leo’s big brother, Donal, and his friends are dead sound. They have money and cans of Coke and cinema bags of sweets. And they treat me like I’m older. Maybe they tell themselves in the mirror to always respect ten-year-olds. There are six or seven of them and they nearly live in Leo’s garage. Leo says Donal works for his dad. But his eyes go weird when he says it. Like it’s a joke or a lie. Remember what I was sayin’ about sniffin’ out problems? Well, there’s a bang of trouble off the dad. You can feel him in the house even if you don’t know whether he’s there. If he opens the garage door and calls Donal, everyone goes quiet like he’s the Parish priest. Then sometimes Donal comes back, sits down and says nothin’. Other times, he sticks his head back in, nods, and everyone follows him.

I laugh so much in the garage sometimes that the sides of me face and throat are sore. Once I start, I just can’t stop. I don’t even get all the jokes, but I laugh when they laugh and shout ‘bullshit’ when they shout bullshit. They were playin’ porn videos on their phone and sayin’ that was what they did to a girl from the estate at the back of ours. I’ve seen sex in films before. Loads of times. I know what it is. But this was something else. All chokin’ each other in one video, and another clip was of an orgy. That’s a new word for me, but I’ll keep it to meself. Not goin’ to impress Holly with that one. I can’t imagine ever doing that sex-fight stuff to a girl I like. And I wonder if me willie is too small for sex anyway.

Holly sees her Mam every week, like I see me dad. She goes to the hospital with a social worker for an hour; I go to Dad’s flat with Suzie from Túsla? a rich-lookin’ woman with big, smiley eyes, aged between thirty and sixty. A mam but not a nana. Suzie from Túsla says she looks out for kids and tries to give them better relationships with their parents. She’s nice, Suzie, but she’s not doin’ a very good job on me and Dad. It’s only an hour, but it feels like a big long night where you can’t sleep. Dad looks at his phone, never at me. I look at the Casio watch I got from Nana at Christmas. Suzie tries to stay in the background but sometimes she says ‘Your dad might be interested in your new school,’ so I have to say somethin’ about that. Suzie doesn’t know what Dad’s interested in. And neither do I. He’s not interested in new schools anyways.

Dad has eyes that look through me. If I can’t have respect, I want his attention. One of these days I’m goin’ to get it, and he’s goin’ to see me.

He’s very worried all the time now. When Suzie from Túsla rang the door he took ages to answer. He just roared ‘Who is it t’fuck?’ when she buzzed the second time. Then he opened the door only a small bit and we had to squeeze in like envelopes through a letterbox. He’s convinced someone is tryin’ to kill him, but Suzie says that’s his mind playin’ tricks and there’s nothin’ to worry about. We put another hour in together.

When it’s over, I feel worse than when I went in, even though I was lookin’ forward to it. It’s never the way I hope it will be, but tomorrow I’ll probably forget about how long and quiet that hour of brain pain was and I’ll look forward to the next one. Like a stupid idiot.

 

Leo and Donal? and even their Da? are treatin’ me real good lately. Like I’m just one of them. We all work together now. See, Leo and Donal’s dad sometimes has to rob houses. He got hurt in work yonks ago and he has no money unless he takes it off rich fucks. Lads in school say he sells drugs as well but I don’t know anythin’ about that.

I just have two small jobs: one is to cycle around estates with Leo to see which houses look empty. Then once? or twice? Leo boosted me in an open window because I’m the youngest in our gang, even if I’m not the lightest. I don’t rob anythin’. I just open a door once I get inside, and then I leg it. Especially if an alarm goes off. Leo’s dad has a baton and a knife on him just in case they get caught, so I never want to be there when that happens.

Every time I help I get a tenner from the Da and we all have a little party back in the garage and play Mario Kart and the new Grand Theft Auto. Leo’s dad is a better dad than my dad. He calls me ‘son’ sometimes. We both know I’m not his son, but I like when he does it. Means I’m part of the family, y’know?

I think if I ever got in really big trouble, I could ask Leo or Donal or their Dad to sort it. Trouble has it in for me right now. All the teachers look at me like a criminal, just because they hear things about me family and because of all the fights I’ve been gettin’ in. Some kids think they’re better than me, even the ones that don’t say it to me face. Broke a shatter-proof ruler on Dylan Harold’s elbow for laughin’ at the holes in me school shoes. The screams of him. Dylan needs to build up his resilience.

I’m angry all the time now. Ragin’. Dunno why or when it started. I even called Holly a ‘nosy fucken bitch’ for askin’ how yesterday’s visit went with Dad. Now she’s not talkin’ to me. The only one who looked at me straight and treated me right.

Truth is, the visit went bad. Real bad. Dad wouldn’t sit still. Kept lookin’ out the windows and askin’ me if I was followed. Then he grabbed me by the face with his cigarette hands and started accusin’ me of leadin’ them to his door. Suzie from Túsla shouted ‘stop’ and he flung a Man United cup at her head. She pulled me out of the flat by the sleeve of me coat and said she’d call the Guards. Dad was roaring’ bad things at me about bein’ fat and he said I was a little faggot? which I know I’m not ‘cos I’ve seen all kinds of videos and that stuff’s not for me. It was the way he said it though. And then he shouted things about Mam that made me fingers squeeze into a fist and I wanted to scrab his eyes out and bite through his nose until it came loose behind me teeth.

 

I spend loads of time at Leo and Donal’s and even stay over sometimes. Haven’t seen Nana in a couple of days. Mam’s not good. Some of the things people say about her are true. She might be goin’ the way of Holly’s Mam if she doesn’t wise up. I didn’t go to school today. None of us did, and nobody seemed to notice. Teachers enjoyed their bit of peace, I’d say. See, we have a bit of work on this week. Leo and Donal’s dad needs to get money in a hurry so we have to find at least three houses to do by Friday. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but he’s lookin’ very fucken frowny when we say we only have one, maybe two, that look handy.

So, I got an idea. Good for him, maybe good for me. I told Leo and Donal’s dad that we already did all the easy houses around our way. But I said there was another estate with a few ground-floor flats that would be dead easy. We’d just have to take a little spin to where I used to live. The wee man with the big plan, Donal called me, and I wished and wished there was another way to get what I want.

I put the pin code into the gate outside where the apartments are. ‘Clever little fucker!’ said the dad, rubbin’ me head when he said it. We were all laughin’, even though I was shakin’ with nerves and me voice was all wobbly. Happy and shittin’ meself, I was.

‘Are you sure this gaff is empty, yeah?’

‘Hundred percent,’ I said. ‘I half-know the fella who lives in it. Works in town. Gone all day.’

Place is in darkness, curtains drawn as always. It’s at the end of a row of three-storey blocks: a ground-floor one-bed and a double on top. Door is around the side, so nobody can see it. Estate is deserted anyway.

Here we go.

No windows open. I knew there wouldn’t be. It takes the dad about ten seconds to rattle the door open? ‘These locks are a fucken joke,’ he whispers, grinnin’ without front teeth. I hang back on me tippy-toes, dancin’ like a sprinter between warm-ups and the startin’ gun.

Leo and Donal’s dad strolls into the flat like he’s visitin’ an old friend. Heads straight to the kitchen as if he might stick the kettle on and cut himself a slice of Madeira cake, but instead I hear him pullin’ through drawers and presses. I stay in the hall, actin’ like a lookout, waitin’ for the fireworks.
‘Da, there’s a wallet here with forty quid in it! And a phone!’ Donal shouts.

‘Get the fuck out!’ the dad roars back. ‘Where there’s a phone, there’s a man.’

Then I see him. Me dad, right on time. Baseball bat raised over his head, runnin’ from the bedroom and cryin’ out of his crazy mind. He floors Donal with a smack to the shoulder. Goes to strike again but his backswing catches a lamp. Bulb smashes, the room dims to match the darkness of the moment.

‘Luke?!’

Pause game.

My name bounces off the walls. Dad’s eyes, locked onto mine, a sea of confusion. There is no time for his recognition to grow into respect, but I savour it all the same. Spoiled for one sweet moment with attention that cannot last.

Resume game.

A deep roar echoes in the air, like a cow close to death. And then Dad’s down, white eyes bulgin’ wide in his head. A puddle of black blood drains from his middle.

‘Go!’ says Leo and Donal’s dad, pullin’ his blade from Dad’s back and haulin’ Donal to his feet.

 

Leo hands me a burger wrapped in paper and dishes out the chips, but nobody’s eatin’. I feel guilty. Sick in me tummy and in the middle of me heart. Donal has a bruise the size of a sliotar on his shoulder and he can’t lift his arm. Never seen him cry before. I rattle for an hour, wishin’ that bruise was mine, and walk back to Nana’s house where I’m the only one who knows sorry-faced Gardaí are on their way to break the news.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel sad that I don’t have a dad. Holly always says no dad is better than a bad dad. Really hope she’s right. I don’t want to miss havin’ a shit dad.

Pictures are churnin’ in me mind as I go up the stairs to Nana’s spare room. I look at meself in the mirror and know I’m not just some kid that the world happens to. I’m resilient. A man of action.

And when I hold me breath, I can defo see at least two abs hidin’ just under me ribs. I’m growin’ up, but I won’t forget.

Always respect ten-year-olds. Always.