Break the Child: chapter Thirty-Two; Trouble

Chapter Thirty-Two Trouble

I took my presents upstairs; I wanted to keep them to myself for awhile before I had to show everybody. Aunty Helen poked her head out of the kitchen. She asked me a dumb question about the time even though there’s a perfectly good clock on the wall in the kitchen. She had come out to see that I wasn’t sneaking Danny up to my room. I’d wanted to spend my birthday alone with Danny, but it didn’t look as though we were going to be able to get away. When I came downstairs Danny had stood up.

           ‘Come on, let’s go out.’

            ‘I can’t, that lot in there will be upset if I leave. They obviously want me to be here, though I don’t see why.’

             ‘Babe, I want you to myself for a bit. We don’t have to go for long.’ It was the first time he’d called me babe and I got this little tingle inside of me.  Danny went to the patio doors and opened them very quietly.

 ‘Come on, let’s escape. We’ll probably be back before they even miss us.’

            ‘I don’t know, Danny. I don’t want to upset my folks. It’s the first year that my mum’s—you know—and I think it’s important to them to make a fuss.’ I was part excited; Danny was in the garden now holding his hand out for me to join him. I wanted to go and spend time alone with him, but when I’d tried to sneak away earlier, Dad looked so hurt.

 ‘Come on, Katie, you know you want to, just an hour for a bit of alone time. Please.’

He had that dopey expression on his face that makes him look about ten. I laughed and took his hand. Then we were sneaking down the path at the side of the house. We had to duck when we passed underneath the kitchen window, I heard Mum trying to sing along to an Adele song on the radio, but she didn’t know many of the words. I feel older; I don’t think I was born to be bad. There are bad kids and there are good ones and I think it’s in my genetic make-up to always do what’s expected of me. I was wearing a new genetic make-up, and my shade of eye-shadow was called Easily Led. That says it all.

            Danny had hold of my hand and we were running down the street and laughing. I felt free and happy. I’m always happy when I’m with him. But there was a niggle at the back of my mind. Would my family be angry when I got home? I didn’t want anything to spoil today. I felt a bit disapointed in Danny, it wasn’t a big thing, I mean; we weren’t doing anything really wrong, were we. It’s understandable that he wanted to be alone with me for at least some of the time. But it stuck in my mind that he’d pushed me to go against my parent’s wishes. Would he push me to do other things when he wanted his own way? And I don’t mean sex, well, I do, that’s exactly what I mean, and it terrifies me. But I don’t just mean sex stuff. What if Dad tells me to be home by ten and Danny wants me to stay out until eleven? Or what if he wants to hang out on Croftlands Estate, or even worse, the Ormsgill Estate, I’m not allowed up there.

            His brother has a car and he does dounuts and stuff in the Munie car park. All the residents complain about the noise and stuff and it’s dangerous. Danny says he’s going to ask Karl, that’s his brother, to take us out for a ride one day. Karl’s only just passed his test and even I’ve seen that he drives like an idiot. He screeches down Market Street showing off. I don’t think my dad would want me getting in his car. When Danny said that he was going to see about it, I just smiled and I didn’t say yes and I didn’t say no. I don’t know what to do about it.

            I’d been thinking about all these things and didn’t even notice that we were heading for the river. It’s nice down there. We walked along the riverbank for a bit, and we were chatting all the time. We don’t have those long embarrassing silences between us now. I’m not as shy with him and we can talk normally. When we came to one of the boat jetty’s Danny moved towards it.

            ‘Where are you going?’

            ‘Down here?’

            ‘Why?’

            ‘To look at the boats.’

            ‘What do you want to look at old rowing boats for? You can see them from here. They are boats, wooden things, with oars.’

            ‘Awright smarty Pants.’

            He was pulling me down the steps and a man walked towards us.

‘Number three, mate. Life jackets in the boat for you. Make sure you wear them at all times when you’re on the water or we’ll have to call you back in.’ The man sounded bored and turned away from us to talk to a lad resting against the ticket kiosk.