Some of the kids had laughed. I knew they were afraid of Jake and they would never have laughed if BJ had not been there. At that time our families—BJ’s and mine—were in a generational feud. It was only recently that Jake and BJ had uprooted the barbed fences between our families. Since everybody knew about our feud they had thought they could ingratiate themselves with him by laughing at me.
But in a flash he had come up to me and helped me up. Even then he was a big lad with a Mohican hairstyle, and the other kids were scared of him. They had immediately ceased laughing then.
‘Are you all right?’ he had asked.
I had been so mortally embarrassed that it was him who should have witnessed my humiliation that I had lashed out at him. ‘Take your dirty hands off me, you filthy Pilkington, you,’ I snapped.
He had gone bright red and jerked his hand away from me.
I had turned on my heel and limped away on my twisted ankle. I knew he was watching me but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of turning back to look. After that we became enemies. And now he had caught me in his bedroom.
Finally, he could exact his revenge. He walked past me, sat on his bed and turning to me said, ‘Ready when you are.’
- Sexy Beast will be available in July 2015 -