Ben Read Online Free Page B

harder and harder. The reason was about six foot tall and had beautiful blue eyes.
    Just being part of our crowd meant Simon and I came into contact and, over the months, I realised his bravado was just a front. When you actually listened to him, he spoke a lot more sense than a lot of the guys I’d known for years. And so, when he asked me out one day, I said yes.
    We didn’t last long together but no one’s relationships at that time had any staying power. We all drifted around: no hard feelings, no hearts broken. That’s how everyone was. That’s how I had always been. Yet, going to bed over the next few weeks I found myself thinking more frequently about the boy so skinny his eyes seemed to bulge: I didn’t mind the others calling him ‘frog eyes’, and I didn’t care about his bad teeth. I even ignored the fact that he was so obsessed about wearing the latest fashion labels. There was something about this Simon that I couldn’t get enough of. And so one day I told him.
    I’d been Eddie Needham’s little girl, Stephen Needham’s babysitter and now I was Simon Ward’s girlfriend. It was official.
    Being in love – or at least infatuated – at fifteen, even if you don’t realise it yourself, is a powerful thing.
    I suppose it sort of crept up on me. Darren Seabrook had been the most popular guy when I went out with him, as was Mark Williams when we dated. And by the time Simon and I got together, a year or more after he’d arrived, he was the cool one to be around. But he was nice, too. He didn’t brush me aside when he was with his mates. He included me, made me feel part of everything. And he seemed more mature as well. He looked a jack-the-lad but he’d been brought up with strong family values and morals. Just like me.
    Simon had joined the Earl of Scarbrough just in time for exams, then left. By the time my final term came around I spoke to my teachers, then had the same conversation at home. I’d been missing from school more than I’d attended. I had no chance of passing any CSEs or O-levels. There really was no point in me even turning up.
    As much as they tried to argue, I think everyone agreed I was right. Very quietly, I dropped out of school without a qualification to my name. I only got away with it because I’d said I had offers of work. That wasn’t strictly true at the time, but I’d had a weekend job for a while. One conversation with the bosses later, and within a fortnight of taking off my school uniform for good, I was in full-time employment.
    ‘Working on the land’, they called it. Basically, I was part of a team that worked for the Etchers Brothers – Pete, Mick and Roy – who had contracts with farmers all over the east of the country. If a farm in Boston needed carrots picking, half a dozen of us would be driven out and that’s what we would do. Or if a place in Spalding had cabbages needing cutting or daffodils planting, we’d ride out there. It was back-breaking stuff and you were onlypaid for what you did. But on an average week I could take home £200 – £250 if I pulled out all the stops. It was serious money for a sixteen-year-old. Serious money for anyone, as it turned out, because I hadn’t been doing it long before Mum gave up her post at Wilkinson’s to join me!
    I loved having free time and money to spend on myself. The giant East Gate Market on a Saturday was a must-visit place for me. I soon had a hundred shoes and clothes galore. We went out at weekends to pubs and clubs. Even after paying my parents twenty quid board money, I still had plenty left for going out with Simon.
    We hadn’t been going out for long when Simon first said, ‘When I’m eighteen, I’m getting out of here.’
    ‘Oh. Where will you go?’
    ‘Sheffield. My brothers and sister are there. They’ve all got good jobs. I can go and work with them.’
    He kept saying things like that, even once we were an item. I never thought too much about it: boys were always boasting they