First time I nearly died was a bit pathetic, Mum too caught up with the rest of the kids, I was bored; Mel said there was this girl in her year who\u2019d downed a box of Paracetamol, and she\u2019d got two nights in hospital, weekly counselling and family therapy, thought I\u2019d give it a go. It felt absolutely grim, but Mel and Jasper visited on the bus. “Blake, you\u2019re too young for this sh*t. You\u2019re ten.” Only got 24 hours on a ward \u2018til Mum picked me up for discharge. Didn\u2019t get any therapy, don\u2019t think she took the calls.<\/p>\n
Year later, Mel long gone, Jasper moved in with his girlfriend, five of us left plus new baby Jackie\u2013a right tool, howling all night, hogging Mum\u2019s attention. But Lee became the new Mel: sixteen with an epic beard; I tried but nothing growing. He took me to Drop Zone, smuggled in his coat, more people than in my whole school, squashed like those paper wads you spit in class; same dampness too but slicker\u2013sweat, smooth moves, drinks sliding down like honey; lights like explosions, beats like lightning, strutting my tatty trainered-feet, aping Lee. “Monkey boy, eh?” he laughed, handing me a lemonade. Hadn\u2019t heard of spiking, horizon flipped its lid, stomach danced in a whole new way. Mum didn\u2019t pick me up, but Jasper came, and I got to see his new \u2018tache, writhing like a caterpillar. He wanted me to tell Mum something, but I was mesmerized by this insect invasion. Smaller than his earlier brush, reasonable aim I reckoned.<\/p>\n
Six months later, stole Lee\u2019s new moped, seen him handle it enough, but wasn\u2019t prepared for all the trees and pavements driving at me. Awesome blood cascade from my skull, glistening brain worms vomited on tarmac. They used a siren that time, but it was hard to hear. Mum cried a bunch, and the whole family got together\u2013great to see Mel, but no one spoke to me as per usual.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all good though; my chin\u2019s smooth as Jackie\u2019s little bum now but reckon I\u2019ll get hairs soon. Just you wait, world: Blake\u2019s still growing and he\u2019s coming up dope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First time I nearly died was a bit pathetic, Mum too caught up with the rest of the kids, I was bored. Only got 24 hours on a ward \u2018til Mum picked me up for discharge. Didn\u2019t get any therapy, don\u2019t think she took the calls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":24463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","writer-ellen-arwen-tristram"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23530"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24464,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23530\/revisions\/24464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}