Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman Read Free Book Online Page B

showed a picture of the dog and he looked just like Harvey. The little girl must have pulled his tail. Dogs only attack people who are cruel to them. Somebody should have told her to never pull a dog’s tail, they don’t like it. Nobody told her and that’s why she’s dead.
    Mamma likes it best when it’s a child who died. That’s when she prays the hardest. She prays proper hard and squeezes you until you think you’re going to burst. Grown-ups love sad news, it gives them something special to pray for. That’s why the news is always sad. They haven’t found the dead boy’s killer yet.
    Newsman: ‘Police are still appealing for witnesses.’
    Me: ‘What do you think the killer looks like?’
    Mamma: ‘I don’t know. He could be anybody.’
    Me: ‘Do you think he’s black or white?’
    Mamma: ‘I don’t know.’
    Me: ‘I bet it’s one of the junkies from the pub.’
    Mamma: ‘Where did you get that from? Lydia, why do you tell him these things?’
    Lydia: ‘How! I didn’t tell him anything!’
    A killer is the same all over the world, they never change. They have little piggy eyes and smoke cigarettes. Sometimes they have gold teeth and spiderwebs on their neck. Their eyes are red. They’re always spitting and they get their blood from the shadows. The pub is probably full up of killers but we’ll only look for the one who killed the dead boy, he’s the only one we knew. If we caught him it would be like getting Forever back. It would be like everything still works the way it’s supposed to. I’ll wait until Dean comes with me so he can be my backup. Detectives only work in pairs, it’s just safer like that.
    If a dog attacks you, the best way to stop it is to put your finger up its bumhole. There’s a secret switch up the dog’s bumhole that when you touch it their mouth opens automatically and they let go of whatever they were biting. Connor Green told us. After he told us, everybody called Connor Green a pervert because he goes around putting his finger up dogs’ bumholes.
    Kyle Barnes: ‘Pervert!’
    Brayden Campbell: ‘Dogf—er!’
    Nathan Boyd can get three jawbreakers in his mouth at the same time. Everybody knows if you swallow one you’ll die but he doesn’t even care. Nathan Boyd isn’t scared of anything. We always try to think of a bigger dare for him to do. It always has to be bigger than before.
    Kyle Barnes: ‘You have to run through the whole school shouting hairy bollocks.’
    Me: ‘You have to throw somebody’s pen out the window.’
    Connor Green: ‘You have to lick that crack spoon.’
    There was a spoon on the grass near the main gate. It was all bent and burned. It was the most disgusting spoon in the world.
    Connor Green: ‘You have to put it all the way in your mouth and suck it.’
    Nathan Boyd: ‘I’m not sucking that, it’s got crack on it.’
    Kyle Barnes: ‘Pussy.’
    Nathan Boyd: ‘F— off. Can I wipe it first?’
    Connor Green: ‘No, you have to suck it like that.’
    Nathan Boyd: ‘Why don’t you suck it? You’re used to sucking dicks.’
    Kyle Barnes: ‘Don’t try and pussy out. You can’t ask us to dare you and not do the dare.’
    Me: ‘You asked us.’
    Nathan Boyd: ‘F— it then.’
    Nathan licked the spoon. He gave it one good lick then he threw it away. I thought he was going to puke but he didn’t.
    Kyle Barnes: ‘That wasn’t even a suck, that was only a lick!’
    Nathan Boyd: ‘You suck it then.’
    Nobody else would suck the spoon. Nobody else would even touch it again. Nathan Boyd is the bravest in Year 7, it’s even official. But even Nathan Boyd wouldn’t dare to set the fire alarm off. When the alarm goes off for real, the firemen have to come to put out the fire. Even if there’s not really a fire they still have to check. If it’s a false alarm and they find out who did it they go to jail. It’s a crime to set off the alarm if there’s no real fire because while the firemen are checking there could be a real