Nicholas Dane - Hardcover

Melvin Burgess is the author of many novels for young adult and middle-grade readers. Among them are Doing It (a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age), The Ghost Behind the Wall (Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year) and Smack (winner of Britain's Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize for Fiction, as well as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults). In 2001, he wrote the novelization of the film, Billy Elliot. Mr. Burgess lives in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, in England.

1
MURIEL’S LITTLE TREAT

Nick Dane lifted his head and stared blearily at the doorway. There was music blaring through, light flooding in. It sounded as if he was in the kitchen but he could have sworn he was still in bed.
His mother appeared. “Come on, wake up, I want you out, I’ve work to do,” she bellowed cheerfully. She headed back down the stairs toward the kitchen. “I’ll make you some porridge with cream and Goldfish syrup,” she called over her shoulder.
She’d called it that ever since he said it himself when he was three. One mistake: a lifetime of pain.
Nick looked at the clock.
“Bloody ’ell,” he yelled in outrage. “It’s only eight bloody fifteen. There’s hours!”
“I have work to do,” she yelled from downstairs. Nick rammed his head back under the covers, but he knew he’d never get to sleep now. He was too cross. Eight fifteen! He had another half an hour. What was she on?
“Turn the radio down!” he yelled. Why was it so loud? It was Adam Ant, music for morons. Then he realized it must be the radio in her bedroom to make so much racket up here. She was trying to irritatehim out of bed.
“Get up and turn it down yourself,” she yelled, so he got up, slammed the door so hard the room shook, and went back to bed. No one was going to separate Nick Dane from his zees. No way.
Pause. Footsteps on the stairs. The door opens. The soft approach. “I’ve got an essay to hand in, I’m late. Come on, Nick. Please?”
He stared at her. “I’m in bed,” he explained, as if to a child. A flicker of irritation crossed her face. They stared at each other, mother and son, for a long moment. Then he relented.
“Mum,” he groaned, giving in. It was blackmail, it really was. She’d been studying for years now, trying to improve herself. She could do with improving. There was a good job at the end of it. Nick was hoping she’d make enough money to keep him in the style to which he wanted to become accustomed.
Muriel trotted back downstairs. Nick lay listening to the music for a while, then pulled the covers down. It felt cold. He pulled them back up. It felt warm. Bed was so good, it was a shame you had to fall asleep and miss it.
A few minutes later Muriel appeared in the doorway again like an overgrown pixie, with her dyed red hair and her lime green gown, baring her yellow teeth at him and trying to be cheerful.
“Come on! You promised. I’m not going till you’re up.”
“I’ve got nothing on.”
“I won’t look. Not that there’s much to see, from what I remember...”
Nick looked alarmed and she instantly regretted her joke.
“Only joking, I know it’s a monster,” she said.
“Shut up! Close the door, then.”
It was a deal. She closed the door and Nick tipped himself out of bed, pulled on his pants, and crawled to the loo. It was too early. Every morning of his life was too early. Life began at about one in the afternoon, everyone knew that.
Muriel stirred the porridge and made a cup of Nesquik milkshake. Her big boy, but he still had his sweet tooth. Nick walked in, with his school trousers on and his shirt undone. Lean, short for his age, but broad shoulders and good muscles. Fourteen years old. It was amazing watching him grow. He was a man—well, on the outside, anyway. He grunted at her, sat down, and started pouring the milkshake down him in long, thirsty gulps. Muriel struggled briefly, trying not to remind him not to drink all the milk first, because that would leave no room for breakfast, but as usual she couldn’t help herself. Nick glanced sideways at the kettle and ignored her. The milk dribbled down his chin. He tipped the glass back to let the last few drops trickle down and put it down with a bang.
She swallowed her irritation. Nick was one of those kids—the slightest hint of being told off and he was off in the other direction. Infuriating! Just like her when she was his age.
She didn’t want a row this morning. Neither of them were at their best first thing.
She decided to horrify him out the door. She started dancing around the kitchen, waving the spoon in the air, to the music on the radio.
“Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go—oh-oh-oh.”
Nick stared at her as if she’d just turned into a pink blancmange, and she was suddenly overcome with giggles. She clutched the edge of the table, put her wrist to her forehead, and rocked with silent laughter.
“You’re bonkers,” Nick told her. “You don’t even like that song.”
“Karma karma...” she started again.
“Right, that’s it, I’m off,” said Nick, jumping up. See? It worked. Like magic. “I’m too clever for my own good,” she thought to herself as he ran back into his bedroom and collected his bag.
“Eat your porridge,” she told him.
Nick paused in the hall. “No twattin’ about, then?” he said.
“No twatting about,” she agreed.
He came back in, lured by the irresistible Goldfish syrup, and stood next to the breakfast bar, spooning it down him and talking with his mouth full.
“What’s up with you this morning?” he asked her.
She smiled ruefully. “Exam hysteria. Jailhouse rock. Stir crazy,” she said.
“The exams aren’t for ages.”
“Essay. I’m late. The last one wasn’t good enough, I have to step up my game.”
Nick grunted. Typical. Muriel had blown school, left early, and gone straight on the dole and to a life of idle pleasure. Then she had Nick, went clean, got bored, went back to school, and discovered it was easy. She amazed herself. She never even knew she had a brain. All those years at school, she’d been no more able to concentrate than grow a tail, and now, suddenly, thirty years old, she could devour whole books for hours on end without so much as a glance out the window.
“Another thing for Muriel to get addicted to,” said Jenny, her only friend from the old days. It was true. Anything under an A and she became unbearable.
Once he was settled back in, Nick took his time. He went into his bedroom again, and she found him back lying on his bed. By the time he was on his way a second time he was only about five minutes earlier than normal.
He slammed the door and stamped off, his bag over his shoulder. She watched him walk along the road. Who knows, she might have confused him so much by getting him up early that he might actually end up at school by accident. It didn’t take much to make Nick walk the other way. He was hanging out down at the flats or playing football on the common, or smoking cigarettes or spliffs down behind the mill as often as he was in lessons.
He was a bad lot, her boy. Too good-looking, too bright—one of those kids who found it all too easy. Friends, schoolwork, girls. Leadership qualities, they said at school. The trouble was, he wasn’t so much a role model as a ringleader. If there was trouble to be had, Nick wouldn’t just be in it, he’d be trying to get everyone else in it as well. He had more than his fair share of charm, just like his dad. He was going to need it if he didn’t get his finger out.
And he was loyal. That was his saving grace. Once Nick decided you were one of his, he never let go.
Muriel waited by the window until he disappeared around the corner before going back into the kitchen and getting the gear out from inside the washing machine. It was becoming harder and harder to find somewhere Nick wasn’t prepared to go, but the washing machine was one place she could be sure he’d leave alone.
The kettle was still hot from her tea and she had the works prepared in a moment. She wanted to feel warm and cozy, so she turned the gas fire on and kneeled on the rug in front of it. She wrapped the belt around and pulled with her teeth until the veins popped out—little highways to pleasure.
It was the first time in ages. She’d been as good as gold for months. Well, years, actually, except for occasions like this. You were allowed the odd treat, weren’t you? Amazing chance, Mo having a brother just around the corner on Lime Road. She couldn’t believe it when she saw him walking past the newsagent the day before. He was staying overnight. Nice of him to drop it off for her on his way back, too. Seven in the morning didn’t often see Mo out of bed, she bet.
Dangerous, though. Far too convenient. The last thing she wanted was a dealer just around the corner. Yesterday morning it had been two bus rides to get to his place. Now he even knew where she lived! Shit. But he was only rarely around this way to see his brother ... maybe it would be all right ...
Three or four times a year. Why not?
Muriel knew she really ought to wait for Jenny to come around, but she couldn’t wait. She pushed the needle into the vein and closed her eyes. Heaven ran into her arm. There was nothing on earth like it.
She sighed and leaned forward until her head was resting on the floor in front of her knees, her arm stretched out before her and the needle still in the vein. Bliss overwhelmed her, and she stopped breathing. She was in exactly the same position an hour and a half later when Jenny called around for a little bit of bliss herself and, hearing no answer to her knock, peered through the curtains and saw her lying flat out on the fireside rug. She rapped on the pane, then started shouting. She put her shoulder to the door and bruised it, and had to rush around to get a key off old Mrs. Ash from next door. When they got inside, the thing that struck her was how Muriel had c...