Zom-B (Zom-B 1)

Chapter Three

Some of the gang are already in the park, as I guessed they would be. We're too young to get into pubs and there's not much else to do around here. They're hanging out by the swings, trying to look cool. Dipsticks! I mean, how the hell are you supposed to look cool in a park?

"Strewth, it's the B-ster," Trev hoots. "And who's that with our cheery old chum? Strike me pink if it ain't our old mate Vinyl! Evening, guv'nor."

Trev loves a bit of old-time cockney slang. Sometimes it's funny but it gets stale quick.

"Anything happening?" I ask, taking one of the swings and lifting my feet up so that everyone can admire my sneakers.

"Sod all," Copper says.

"Looking for zombies," Kray yawns.

"We thought Vinyl was one of them," Ballydefeck says.

"Eat me," Vinyl retorts.

"I wouldn't even if I was a zombie," Ballydefeck sniffs.

"Anyone else coming?" I ask.

Trev shrugs. "Talk of a curfew has scared a lot of people. I'm not expecting many more. Surprised to see you, B. I thought you'd have been kept in."

"It'd take more than the threat of a few zombies to keep me in," I sneer.

"Aren't you afraid of the living dead?" Kray asks.

"I'm more afraid of your killer breath."

Laughter all round. I grin. It's great to have friends to slag off.

Copper produces a packet of cigs and passes them around. He's good that way. He'd share his last butt with you. He used to take a lot of flack for being a ginger before he butched up, but I always liked him. I slagged him off, sure - and I gave him his nickname - but in a nice way.

I've given a few of my friends nicknames over the years. I'm good at it. You'd be amazed how some people struggle. It doesn't take a stroke of genius to look at a redhead and call him Copper, but even that simple task is beyond a lot of the kids I know.

I'm prouder of Ballydefeck. His family's Irish. Most of us have a bit of Paddy in our blood, but his lot act like they still live in the bog, spuds for dinner every night of the week, Irish dancing competitions on the weekend, Daniel O'Donnell blasting out loud in every room of their house if you pop round. He was known as Paddy or Mick for years. Then one night I was watching a rerun of Father Ted. An old priest in it kept cursing, saying, "Feck!" I put that together with the name of an Irish village and came up with Ballydefeck. He's answered to that ever since.

Kray digs out an iPod with a plug-in speaker. It's brand-new, the latest model. I whistle appreciatively. "Fall off the back of a truck?" I ask.

"I don't know what you mean," Kray says indignantly, but his smirk ruins his show of innocence. We've all nicked a bit in our time but Kray would have been Fagin's star student.

We listen to some good tunes - Kray has great taste - and talk about TV, zombies, music, sex. Vinyl tells us about the girls in his new school. He says they're hot and easy. Trev, Copper and Ballydefeck listen with their mouths open as he describes what he's been getting up to with them. Me and Kray look at each other and roll our eyes - we know bullshit when we smell it. But we don't tell Vinyl to shut up. It's fun listening to him stringing the fools along.

After a while I spot a skinny black teenager entering the park. It's Tyler, a kid from our year. He stops when he sees us, hesitates, then backs up.

"Tyler!" I shout. "Get your arse over here!"

He grins nervously and taps his watch. Vanishes before I can call to him again.

"A pity," I sneer. "I fancied a lynching."

"That's a bit harsh, isn't it?" Vinyl says.

"Only joking," I reply.

"Tyler's all right," Vinyl mutters.

"No, he's not," I growl.

"What's wrong with him?" Vinyl challenges me, then smiles with icy sweetness before I can answer. "It's not the color of his skin, is it?"

I scowl at Vinyl but don't say anything. Because to an extent he's right. Dad's a racist and proud of it. He hates anyone who isn't from England, especially if they're dark-skinned. In his ideal world the ruling party would be the Ku Klux Klan and he'd go riding through the streets of London on a horse every day with a load of hood-wearing buddies, keeping law and order with a thick length of rope.

Dad's always warning me of the dangers of racial tolerance. He pushes Aryan books and pamphlets my way. The first picture book I remember reading by myself was Little Black Sambo.

I don't believe the same things that Dad does. I don't want to be like him, not that way. But at the same time I've got to live with him. I learned early on not to challenge his word. So I put up with the ranting and raving. I read the hate lit. I laugh at his crude jokes. I've even gone to a few meetings with him, rooms full of angry white men muttering bloody murder.

The trouble with putting on an act is that sometimes it's hard to tell where the actor stops and the real you begins. It's rubbed off on me to an extent, the years of pretending to hate. Vinyl's black as the ace of spades, but he's my only friend who is. And it's not just because I know Dad would hit the roof if he saw me hanging out with black kids or Muslims. Part of me genuinely fears the menace of those who are different. I've read so much and heard so much and been forced to say so much that sometimes I forget that I don't believe it.

To be honest, I'm amazed I'm still friends with Vinyl. We hung out together when we were tiny, before I started selecting my associates more cautiously. When Dad beat me a few times and told me to stop having anything to do with that horrible little black kid, that should have been the end of it. I tried to avoid Vinyl after that but I couldn't. We got on too well. He made me laugh, he never teased me, I could talk to him about anything.

I learned to sneak behind Dad's back, never mention Vinyl at home, not be seen with him close to where we live. He's my secret friend. If Dad knew, he'd knock the stuffing out of me. Even one black friend is one too many as far as he's concerned.

"Come on," Vinyl says again, bristling now. "What's wrong with Tyler?"

"I don't like his face," I snap. "What difference does it make?"

"I ran into your dad a few days ago," Vinyl says. "He recognized me, which was a surprise. I thought we all looked the same to him."

"Hey," Trev says uneasily. "Let's drop it."

"He told me he'd heard about my new school," Vinyl goes on, ignoring Trev and staring hard at me. "Said it was amazing what they could teach chimps these days. Asked me if I could peel my own bananas now."

I feel my face flush. I'm ashamed of my mean-spirited, foul-mouthed father. But I'm even more ashamed of myself, because I instinctively want to defend him. I know it's wrong. He shouldn't have said that to Vinyl - to anyone - but part of me wants to take his side, because no matter what, he's my dad and I love him.

"I can't control what he says," I mutter, dropping my gaze.

"But do you agree with it?" Vinyl growls.

"Of course not!" I spit. "Tyler's a whiny brat. He gets up my nose. It's got nothing to do with him being black."

Vinyl eyes me coldly for a long, probing moment. Then he relaxes. "That's all right then." He winks. "You should tell your dad that you want to move in with me."

"Wishful thinking!" I snort.

We laugh, bump fists and everything's okay again. In a weird, messed-up, uncomfortable kind of way. It's not easy sometimes, having a racist for a dad.

***