This was a new buzz, better than anything I’d tried before. For the first time, I could fight back at others. I’d even fight with a parked car! I was totally kyboshed on these drugs, I didn’t care how many boys were standing outside the pub, I’d run over and fight the lot of them. Even though I came off second best, in my mind, I still walked away a winner. I showed them I wasn’t a little shit-bag that always got battered, not when I had the drugs in me.
Gazing out of the window, the gravel path roared as it was crushed into submission under the wheels of the car that was taking me towards a menacing looking medieval castle with two huge and terrifying turrets that seemingly reached out towards me. I imagined that I was the gravel and the wheels of the car were the social care system.
If you could get anything at all off Santa, what would it be?’ I asked for a fire engine and sweets. Bunty exclaimed in delight, ‘Santa will get you that, but you and Scott will need to leave out a bowl of milk and some carrots for Rudolph.’ ‘Who’s Rudolph?’ I asked. Bunty told me in confidence that Rudolph was Santa’s reindeer and that he helped pull all the children’s toys in the world over the snow. I couldn’t wait. In readiness for Rudolph, Scott, Martha, Bunty and I picked out four of the biggest carrots from a bag in the kitchen, which we then washed. We found a big bowl that we used to lick the cream out of, which we filled with milk. We put the bowl along with the carrots under the Christmas tree, with all the other children’s offerings. Then Bunty and Martha came in and washed us, put us to bed and read us a story, before kissing us good night. On their way out they said, ‘When you wake up, Santa will have been'.