Get Me Out of Here! Read online

  To the team at the Reading Agency who do such

  brilliant work.

  A.M.

  To Thomas “Giraffles” Jefferson, Beth Goodyear

  and all my friends at SBT.

  P.E.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Questions with Andy and Phil

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  “Easy,” I tell myself. “Simple. Piece of cake.”

  Then … I don’t move.

  Minutes pass. So many that I start to feel sick from nerves.

  “Don’t be a plank,” I say out loud. “You’ve seen plenty of others do it.”

  I have as well, kids older and younger, plus I’ve jumped waaay further myself. Only thing is, those jumps were at ground level, and this isn’t.

  All right, I’m stood on a brick wall that’s only three times my height, but right now it feels like I’m wobbling on the top of an electricity pylon that someone’s plonked at the highest bit of Everest.

  So here I am, heart sweating, forehead pounding: it might be the other way around, but I don’t know any more. All I know is these two things:

  A. I’m not getting down until I jump the gap to the wall opposite.

  And…

  B. I no longer WANT to jump the gap to the wall opposite.

  I should’ve brought a hat, coat, sleeping bag and pillow up here with me, because by the time I finally do jump it’s going to be dark … and cold.

  I look down at my trainers, high-tops with built-in swoooosh, made to be springy. The sort of trainers you slam-dunk in.

  The only trouble is, my feet aren’t the first ones to wear them. At least one other pair lived in them before Mum found them in the charity shop, and now they feel more like concrete wellies than Nike Airs.

  The glue holding the soles to the leather probably weighs a few kilos alone, and as much as I love them (second-hand or not) I reckon it’ll be these trainers that will see me fall to my death (or at least graze my knee), not the fact that I’m a clumsily short-legged chicken.

  My brain does this for ages, whirring and clunking until I’m pulled back to reality by a gentle tap on the shoulder that nearly shocks me off the wall and into the void.

  “You jumping or not?” a voice asks.

  A voice that belongs to a boy two years below me at school. “Cos if you want, we could go first.” He points to another four lads behind him, one of them even younger than he is.

  I feel my cheeks flush, like I’ve been blowing up balloons non-stop since the day I was born. I want to ask them why they aren’t in bed yet, or in front of the telly in their ’jamas. I don’t say anything, though. Just wave them through, like I’m doing them a favour by letting them get their jump in before their mums call them in.

  One by one they jump. All of them make it. One even does it with a spin and I instantly hate him, but also want to be him. Even though he’s only eight.

  And I have to do it now, don’t I? Especially as they’re all stood there watching, with big beaming grins on their faces.

  I close my eyes and breathe in, then feel a bit dizzy.

  Come on, Danny, I tell myself. Then the boys tell me the same.

  I open my eyes – it’d be daft to jump with them closed – then count to three in my head, launching off my right foot before I change my mind.

  Air rushes past me, and I’m skyward for what seems like ages. I’m going to smash it – probably fly right over the boys themselves. I even get ready to salute as I pass them.

  But then something weird happens.

  The air turns to treacle and my legs turn to lead. I start falling instead of soaring, and I grapple with the air as if I’m trying to find an invisible ladder that quite clearly isn’t there.

  The wall’s close, but not close enough and, most importantly, my feet are miles from it. No way are they going to land on top. My fingertips do though, biting into the bricks, giving me just enough of a grip to hang on. The rest of me slams into the wall, but I don’t feel it. There’s not enough room in my brain to know whether I’ve hurt myself or not.

  I can’t let go – I’d look like the biggest loser ever. One of the kids even tells me so. Another one offers me a hand but I ignore it, pulling myself up with every bit of strength I have.

  It feels like it takes me ages. Like someone could build a wall quicker than I could climb this one, but, eventually, with a grunt so loud it belongs in a zoo, I pull myself on to the top, every bit of me sweating.

  It’s then that I feel my left leg stinging, then the other one, then my left elbow, then the other one – well, you get the message. Within seconds, my entire body feels like a gigantic graze, but its nothing compared to my wounded pride. Feels like I’d need a million stitches to fix that, especially because the boys are standing over me, pointing and grinning. I notice that most of them have lost their front teeth, which is lucky for them, because I’d happily punch them all out otherwise. Well, maybe if my hands weren’t stinging so much.

  “Want me to call your mum for you?” one of them asks. I can’t tell if he’s taking the mick or not.

  “No thanks,” I say, my voice a lot higher than it was two minutes ago, and I pull myself to my feet.

  “Where you going now?”

  I didn’t even know until he asked me, but now I do know – instantly.

  “Back there,” I say, pointing at the other wall. “I’m not going in till I land on my feet.” And with a hobble and limp, I make my way back.

  The boys don’t laugh or giggle or point, but they don’t stay to watch either. They just shuffle off, one of them saying, “Fair play to him,” as he goes, which makes me smile and feel a little bit bigger and in less pain than I am.

  I will make the jump. Even if it takes all day.

  Just you watch me.

  The day starts like all the others, just as I like it.

  I don’t need an alarm because the sun wakes me up, belting through the space where the curtains should be hanging, but instead they’re lying on the floor, curtain pole still attached. It’s like they only fell down yesterday, when actually it was weeks ago.

  I tried to put them back up loads of times, honest, but my bedroom wall has got more holes in it than the surface of the moon and in the end I gave up.

  Anyway, it means I can suck up the view 24/7. Living on the seventeenth floor is brilliant. The skyline’s epic and I can pretty much see everything that’s going on out there without anyone being able to see me, which makes me feel like James Bond on surveillance … except I haven’t quite got his gadgets, just a penknife with a missing toothpick and blunt scissors. Still, I like it up here.

  Breakfast goes the same way as always too, which means trying to duck underneath Dylan as he does chin-ups in the kitchen doorway.

  “Fifty-seven … fifty eight,” he grunts, though I know there’s no way he’s done that many.
To be honest, I am sort of impressed. I had no idea he could count that high.

  “You totting up your brain cells again?” I ask, but regret it immediately as he wraps his legs round my neck and squeezes like a famished python.

  “Don’t mess with the best,” he hisses, “cos the best don’t mess.”

  It’s a line I’ve heard pretty much every day of my life, and I’m not concerned when the blood pumping in my ears blocks most of it out. I think he heard it in some army movie years ago so rolls it out whenever he can. He even went through a phase of scrawling it on his arm like a fake tattoo, but didn’t like it when I volunteered to scrawl it on his forehead instead for maximum effect. I got an extra-tight squeeze that morning, I can tell you.

  As per usual, there’s only one person who can release me from D’s death grip, and that’s Mum.

  “Dylan, put your little brother down, please,” she sighs, without looking up from her phone. She must be able to hear me choking from the other side of the room. Ears like a bat, she has. She doesn’t look up when I sit next to her either, gasping and rubbing at my poor strangulated neck. I don’t get cross that she’s distracted, though. It’s not like she’s on Facebook or anything; she’s looking at the same thing she’s always looking at, her banking app, frowning as she does it.

  She works like a Trojan, my mum. More jobs than Dylan can count up to, that’s for sure. Most mornings I don’t get to see her before school as she’s long gone, cleaning first down the hospital before trooping across town to the big offices, where she scrubs up after even more people. She must be amazing at hoovering, the amount of it she does. I just wish she could vacuum up a few of the red numbers that are flashing on her screen. It might make her look a bit less stressed.

  “All right, Mum?” I ask.

  “Living the dream, love,” she replies, though from the bags under her eyes, it looks like the dream is full of rats, vampires and blocked toilets, instead of unicorns, rainbows and five-star living.

  “Nice one,” I say, before asking for lunch money, which she plucks, coin by coin by coin, from her purse. By the time she’s finished my pockets are going to weigh a ton and I make a note not to walk by the canal. If I fall in, that’ll be it: death by small change.

  “Right, I’m off,” she says, kissing my forehead but not even thinking about doing the same to Dylan, who’s doing the most elaborate floor exercises ever witnessed outside a breakdance class. “No joining the SAS before I get home Dyl, you hear?”

  “I wish,” he grunts, with a far-off look in his eye. “Anything to get away from this loser.”

  “Play nicely with your brother…”

  “Or else?”

  “You’ll have me to deal with.” She smiles. “And remember, don’t mess with the best…”

  I stifle a snort, loving the fact that maybe it’s not just me – maybe she knows just how big a loser he is too. But before I can ask her, she tucks her mop under her arm like it’s a rifle and marches out the door, leaving me to follow behind.

  I don’t want to hang around, the last thing I need is to be used as Dylan’s punch bag, so I decide to leave with my nose intact.

  8.23 a.m.

  Time for school.

  And Giraffles will be waiting for me downstairs.

  That wasn’t a spelling mistake by the way. I know you think it should say “giraffe”, like the animal, but don’t be getting your red pen out, because Giraffles is actually spot on.

  Thomas Jefferson Raffles to give him his full, posh name, though no one calls him that, not even his parents or teachers. Because, by some brilliant coincidence, Tommy was born with a proper, PROPER long neck, leaving him with only one possible nickname: GIRAFFLES.

  Don’t bother to try and make up any other gags about him either, because they’ve already been made:

  YES,he always beats the lunch queue by craning his neck to the front of the line.

  NO,he never loses in a race because he always wins by a neck.

  YES,he can cheat in any test. It’s easier to cheat when you can see everyone’s answers.

  But the best thing about Giraffles is that he’s my best mate, and he’ll always stick his neck out for me if I need him (in both ways).

  I find him in the usual place, waiting by the lift on the ground floor of my block, gazing dreamily into the distance.

  “All right, G?” I say. “What you looking at? Juicy leaves at the top of that tree?”

  “Yes, mate. Though I wish it was a slice of toast. Woody ate all the breakfast before I even got up.”

  I nod, feeling his pain. Big brothers are cretins, no matter whose roof they live under.

  “You limping?” he asks.

  I hadn’t noticed before, but my knee is sore, and not just because the lift has broken down again.

  “Little bit,” I say.

  “War wound from dissing Dylan?”

  “Nah, bashed my knee up on the wall over there.”

  “You’re not still dreaming of being a free runner, are you?”

  “Well, there’s nothing else to do round here is there? I haven’t got near the Xbox in months, since Dyl saved up for the new Call of Duty, and I’m not much cop at footie am I?”

  “But … free running? You have to be mental to do that. Call me boring but I can’t see the fun in backflipping off the top of a garage. And anyway, aren’t you a bit small for it? Them lads who are good at it are all built like spaghetti and you’re more of a baked bean. No offence.”

  He had a point, but I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

  “Maybe you should climb the wall with me. Then I can use your neck as a bridge.”

  “Hilarious,” he said, though his face said otherwise. He’s heard every insult before, after all.

  We rest the banter for a while and settle on a bit of moaning instead: teachers, brothers, homework; there’s nothing we can’t grumble about if we put our minds to it, though to be honest I haven’t got much to complain about, other than being too young to do the lottery. A new pair of high-tops with built-in bounce won’t buy themselves…

  It’s not long before the school crowd builds up around us. Marcus and Maureen tag along as always, finishing each other’s sentences and reading each other’s minds as only twins can.

  “Are you limping?” Marcus asks me.

  “’Course he is,” Maureen answers for me.

  “Dylan dead-leg you again?” he asks.

  “Not this time,” Maureen says, making me wonder if she can read my mind too. Though I bloomin’ well hope not, as she’s doing my head in right now.

  “He’s been falling off walls again, haven’t you, Danny?”

  I nod. No point lying about it, especially if she really is inside my brain.

  Does make me laugh though, their names: MandM, you know, like the sweets. And what makes it worse is that their mum and dad are called Mike and Molly. You couldn’t make it up, could you? They must’ve had the rubbishest baby name book going.

  Anyway, I try to shut them up about my limp by running at every wall I can see, to show them I have got skills, but to be honest they don’t look very interested.

  Giraffles’ head is in the clouds, almost literally, while MandM are talking in some sort of twin code that could be either highly sophisticated or complete gobbledygook.

  Either way, it leaves me to focus on the dream of being the best free runner on the estate, and by the time we reach the school gates, I’m smashing it left, right and centre, front-flipping off postboxes and swallow diving off walls, leaving the lanky spaghetti lads trailing in my dust.

  Too bad then that the bell has to go and ring, right at my most triumphant moment. I sigh heavily and file into class. Reality sometimes really does suck.

  School isn’t a dirty word.

  Puddle kind of is.

  Mud definitely is.

  But school?

  Not so much.

  Others disagree, they moan about it non-stop, and that’s all right, I don�
�t have to listen or anything. I don’t have to agree either.

  OK, there are bits of it that suck. Whoever invented fractions was a bit weird, and don’t get me started on the idiot that came up with conjunctive adverbs (I mean, what even are they anyway?), but there’s loads of stuff about school that’s all right really.

  PE for starters, and history, and that magic twenty minutes every day when we drop everything and get read to. Who doesn’t like sticking their head on their desk while someone tells them a story? Weirdos, that’s who.

  Anyway, school’s all right with me. And it’s particularly all right this year because we lucked out and got Miss D as our teacher. The teacher every class wanted and only we got. Cue much flossing to celebrate.

  Miss D is cracking, in every way.

  It’s like being taught by someone who is one part mum, one part cool auntie, one part mate and one part encyclopaedia.

  She isn’t tall. She’s real short, which is maybe a big part of why I like her, but she’s not a pushover. No way. She’s strict when she wants to be, a proper pocket rocket, but she just makes everything … fun. Well, almost everything. She makes conjunctive adverbs bearable, which is a feat in itself.

  “All right, Danny, manage to avoid your Dylan this morning?” She smiles as we file in, finding something different to say to every one of us, whether it’s about new trainers or what we watched on the telly box last night.

  It makes me grin and feel good as I take my seat next to Lucky. Lucky Success.

  Never has a name suited anyone more. Honestly, it’s like he has the Midas touch.

  Everything he touches doesn’t just turn to gold, it’s like the gold is encrusted with jewels too. And

  I mean, everything.

  I swear that boy sneezes diamonds and farts unicorns.

  He’s the most skilful footballer in school, the best at maths, and has a lighthouse smile that my mum says could charm the birds from the trees.

  Lucky lives in the biggest house, with his own room and Xbox, plus his sister’s dead lush (tell anyone I said that and I’ll put you in one of Dyl’s chokeholds), but he’s also a good’un, is Lucky. He doesn’t milk being ace at so many things, or lord it over you. If he’s got a bag of sweets he’ll share ’em with you; if he’s got a new game on his new phone he’s well happy to let you have a go. And that makes him all right by me.