The Clearance by Joan Lingard (Hamish Hamilton Children's Books 1974)

 

‘I don't like hills,' I said, shocking the Frasers, as I knew I would. To them the hills were sacred; they plodded up and down them as purposefully and reverently as pilgrims trudging to Mecca. It's a form of religion. Like bingo, or football. My mother goes to bingo; Mrs Fraser takes to the hills. ‘I don't have to like them, do I?' I asked. I seemed to have struck them dumb. It was the first time that I hadn’t heard them chattering. I no longer felt awkward; I was enjoying myself.

‘She’s a city lass,’ said Granny apologetically.

Divided City by Theresa Breslin (Random House 2005)

 

Footsteps.

Running.

Graham didn’t hear them at first.

He was walking fast, eating from his bag of hot chips as he went. Taking a detour via Reglan Street. The kind of street his parents had warned him never to be in. The kind of street where your footsteps echoed loud, too loud – because there was no one else about.

From either side the dark openings of the tenement building mawed at him. It was the beginning of May and fairly light at this time in the evening. But even so . . . Graham glanced around. The sky was densely overcast and shadows were gathering. He shouldn’t have lingered so long after football training.

Graham dug deep into the bag to find the last chips, the little crispy ones soaked in vinegar that always nestled in the folds of paper at the bottom. He wiped his mouth and, scrunching up the chip paper, he threw it into the air. When it came down he sent it rocketing upwards, powered by his own quality header. The paper ball spun high above him. Graham made a half turn.

Wait for it . . . wait for it . . .

Now.

‘Yes!’ Graham shouted out loud as his chip bag bounced off a lamppost ten metres away. An ace back-heeler! With a shot like that he could zap a ball past any keeper right into the back of the net. He grinned and thrust his hands in the air to acknowledge the applause of the fans.

At that moment noise and shouting erupted behind him, and Graham knew right away that he was in trouble.

Footsteps.

Running.

Coming down Reglan Street. Hard. Desperate.

Pounding on the ground. Beyond them, further away, whooping yells and shouts.

‘Get the scum! Asylum scum!

Grange Hill Rules O.K? by Robert Leeson (Fontana Lions 1980)

0700 hours on a cold December morning and the Magnificent Seven of Grange Hill were still wrapped in their blanket rolls.

No! One was awake. Little Benny Green had his clothes on and was creeping downstairs. Mum left for work twenty minutes ago. Dad had been up half the night with his back, but now was asleep at last. Benny had found a way of earning some much needed pocket money. But he was keeping it to himself for the moment.

As he reached the main road, heading for the shops, he passed a parked car. The man at the wheel took careful note of him as he went by.

0800 hours. Penny Templeton Lewis chewed toast and marmalade as she went over her notes for the Year Assembly that morning. The School Council had decided on a big charity sponsored walk-in competition with Brookdale School. For the tenth time, Penny wandered what they’d all say when she put the idea to them. Peter Jenkins would object—naturally. If there was one thing he hated more than walking, it was organized walking. Trisha Yates would object, too. Just lately everything Penny said or did seemed to get right up Trisha’s nose. Penny shrugged and stuffed her notes into her bag.

Twenty minutes later, she was in the car, passing through the shopping centre on the way to school. Suddenly her mother braked and swung the car to the kerb.

‘Look, there’s that sweet little Justin Bennett. Let’s give him a lift.’

Goalkeepers Are Different by Brian Glanville (Crown Publishers 1972)

Now and again he played in the games himself, like Charlie Macintosh, and you couldn't have had two more different players. His control was lovely, Billy's, he could do anything with a soccer ball, juggle it from foot to foot until you got tired of watching him, flick it over his shoulder with his heel, pull it back with the sole of his boot then go on again, in the same movement; he was lovely to watch. "Two stone more," the Boss used to say, "two inches more, and Billy would have been the greatest." One day Billy looked at him, deadpan, and said, "No, I wouldn't. I'd have been a player like you."

Grange Hill Rules O.K? by Robert Leeson (Fontana Lions 1980)

Michael Doyle was at ease with the world, modestly proud of the success of his plans A, B and C. If only he could tell his dad. The old man would be proud of him. He sat in the dining-hall lingering over his rice pudding. His sidekicks had left already. He stayed on to think about his next move. Just how to close the trap he had placed around Jenkins. The thought gave him great pleasure.

Suddenly he realized he was not alone. Seated in a row across the table were the strangest assortment of people - Penny Lewis, Trisha Yates, Cathy Hargreaves - what next? - Tucker Jenkins, Benny Green, Alan Humphries. They watched him carefully as he raised his spoon.

'Enjoying your pudding, Michael?' asked Trisha.

He stared at her.

'Is it sweet enough?'

'Yes, thank you.'

'Are you sure?' She reached over to the table behind her and suddenly put a big bowl in front of him. Taking a spoon she quickly spread two big spoonfuls of brown crystals over his pudding.

'Hey, get off!' said Doyle.

'Eat it up, Michael. It's only brown sugar. I thought you had a sweet tooth.'

'How do I know it's brown sugar?'

'What else could it be?' asked Penny. 'Laxative powder mixed with brown sugar, perhaps?'

'No,' said Tucker. Couldn't be. I mean, who'd play a rotten trick like that?'

'That's right, Michael, dear,' said Trisha. 'Eat up your pud like a good little boy.'

'Tell you what,' said Cathy. 'Let's fetch Matron. She may be worried. This sudden loss of appetite.'

Doyle stood up, but Tucker leaned over and pushed him down.

Grange Hill For Sale by Robert Leeson (Fontana Lions 1981)

'Listen, Benson, you . . .'

'Oh, what are we going to do about it then?' Benson took Alan's jacket in his hand and fingered it. 'Maybe my mate can have you. I want Jenkins.' He turned back to Tucker. 'I bet you can still feel it in your ribs, where I gave it to you last time. You're going to wish I'd finished it off then.'

Tucker's stomach chilled. Then he braced himself. Whatever happened he was not going to let Benson work him over again. But what he'd do and how, his mind wouldn't tell him. It had seized up.

Suddenly there were more footsteps from below. Three more figures appeared on the landing. The torch swung round. Now it was Alan's turn to go cold in his innards. The first figure was Eddie Carver. He heard Susi draw a quick breath behind him. This was the night of the long knives all right. If Benson owed Tucker for blowing the whistle on him over smashing up the school, then Carver owed Susi and him for that fight in the woods at school camp. Carver still had the mark on his skull where Susi had felled him with a half brick.

The small landing was crowded. Carver's two friends stood a pace or two behind him on the stairs. They couldn't even make a break for it, thought Alan desperately.

Carver spoke. His voice was calm, easy.

'Which flat are you using, Jenkins?'

'The - top one.'

'That's all right then. I thought we'd been screwed for a minute. We're somewhere else.' He came closer. 'You stick to your place, we'll stick to ours. You haven't seen us, we haven't seen you. O.K.?'

His eyes rested for a moment on Susi, then on Alan. But he said nothing more, but turned to Benson and jerked his head towards the upper stairway.

Benson hesitated.

'Come on.'

Grange Hill Gone Wild by Robert Leeson (Fontana Lions 1980)

Early Friday evening at Grange Hill, near the end of term on a typical English summer day. All is quiet. The only sound is the rain drumming on the top of the covered ways and the pattering feet of half-starved mice retreating from the school cafeteria. Everyone has gone home, even Tucker Jenkins and Benny Green who have been in detention. The school seems to be empty.

No. A lone figure is loitering in the corridor near the Head's office. Michael Doyle is hanging about waiting for a lift home. His father, Councillor Doyle, chairman of governors no less, is in with the Head, discussing the School Fund.

Michael, bless his heart, is hoping for more than a lift home. He's hoping for a few snippets of information for that active brain of his to get to work on. Michael Doyle's brain is not widely appreciated in Grange Hill, which is a pity. Because Michael had plans for the school, or rather for some of the people in it - like boiling them in oil, or feeding them gently through the waste disposal unit.

He had a list, not on paper, Michael is far too intelligent for that, but in his mind. It included all the people who had annoyed him, or got in his way, or interfered with his perfectly reasonable plans to be Ruler of the Universe. To be quite honest, it was a revenge list, a hit list.

Top of the list came Jenkins and his sidekicks for crimes too numerous to mention. Then Penny Lewis, crusading journalist of the year who brought Doyle's promising career as a school politician to a grinding halt. Trisha Yates, who had nearly poisoned him during that moronic semolina business. And staff, too - Hopwood, a real do-gooder. And Peterson. No woman had a right to push Michael Doyle around.

As he paced quietly up and down, Michael had one of those brainwaves, those strokes of genius which marked him out from lesser folk.

In a flash he saw where he had gone wrong so far. He had tried to pick them off one by one, when he should have been working out the master plan to sink them all without trace. He had been messing about with tactics when he should have gone in for grand strategy.

I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President by Josh Lieb (Razorbill 2009)

Moorhead's latest cigarette reads CARRY A COPY OF GRAVITY'S RAINBOW. He stares at it with alarm.

I don't really blame him. Lest you forget, receiving mysterious messages on cigarettes is a pretty alarming proposition, any way you look at it.

Plus, this message tells him to carry a copy of Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon's legendarily unreadable novel. Eight hundred pages long. Dense, wordy, kooky. Exactly the sort of thing to impress a smarty-pants like Lucy Sokolov, but a daunting prospect for a tiny brain like Moorhead.*

But I guess the most alarming thing about this particular cigarette is where he found it inside an orange he just peeled. That was childish of me.

There he stands, in the middle of the hallway, slack-jawed. Ripped-open orange in one hand, pulp-covered cigarette in the other, getting jostled by the class-bound hordes. He turns warily in a circle, scanning the vicinity for someone - a magician, perhaps? A playful god? - who could have done this. But there's only me. And I'm scratching my butt with my pencil case.

Vice Principal Hruska storms past, mentally calculating the number of seconds until he can retire. He plucks the cigarette from Moorhead's fingers. "Not on school property, Neil."

Moorhead points urgently as Hruska walks away, "Wait! Read it . . . "

But Hruska has already crushed the cigarette in his hand and dropped the soggy shreds in a garbage can. "Read what?"

Moorhead stares at the old man, then at the garbage, then back at the old man.

"Read what, Neil?"

Moorhead turns and walks silently back to his classroom, letting the orange slip from his limp fingers. It's like he's forgotten he was holding it.

See, not everyone like's surprises. Some people love 'em; some people have heart attacks. It's a matter of taste.

Does Randy Sparks, the Most Pathetic Boy in School like surprises? Let's find out.**

Footnotes:

*Note that I didn't tell him to actually read the book.

**This is what's known as a segue.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little Brown 2007)

"It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you're poor because you're stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you're stupid and ugly because you're Indian. And because you're Indian you start believing you're destined to be poor. it's an ugly circle and there's nothing you can do about it.

"Poverty doesn't give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor".