Paperboy Read Online Free Page A

dead monkey delivered in a box.’
    Entering Purbrick’s shop with the Superman comic held before me like a talisman, I waited for the newsagent to finish dispensing his weird-smelling cough sweets. When he noticed me, I launched into an elaborate, pointless lie about returning home to discover that I had already bought the comic from another shop some days before, the implication being that my philanthropy virtually kept the shops in the area afloat with my purchases, and I could be forgiven for this one rare mistake.
    Purbrick saw right through me. It was as though he had sent away for the X-ray spex. He stood with his arms folded over his bulging pinstriped waistcoat, staring down at my gangly form. What he didn’t understand was that I needed the comics more than heroin, and would probably break into shops for them if necessary. I had developed an elaborate system of swapping at school which could translate a coveted copy of
The Legion of
Super Heroes
6 into its equivalent value in tubes of fruit Spangles. 7
    ‘All right,’ said Mr Purbrick finally, ‘I’ll take it back just this once. But I’ll never take another comic back from you ever again.’
    And with a sigh, he went to the till to return my mother’s shilling.
    1 Superman had one flaw: he could see across the universe but not through a sheet of lead. Presumably he never solved crimes in churches, not being able to see through their roofs.
    2 The 1950s were a period of such stasis that no one wanted change, even in their comic books; there was an outcry among fans when Lois had her hair permed.
    3 Also came in fruit flavours differentiated by the dazzling colour of their fillings. Sorely missed.
    4 Fighter jets versus giant prehistoric bird! Or rather, jets versus goggle-eyed string puppet (strings highly visible).
    5 You could even get accessories to pimp your models of the Wolfman and the Phantom of the Opera, like spare bats and cobwebs. Cool.
    6 The comic-book equivalent of a tree-house club. The super-teens met in a rocket and spent most of their time banning each other and voting for new members. Saturn Girl was really bossy. Plus, their powers were rubbish. Bouncing Boy? Q.E.D.
    7 Fruit-flavoured boiled sweets which, like Fruit Gums, stopped being enjoyable after the revised code of acceptable additives came into force.

4

    Background Material
    ‘WE’RE LEAVING TO visit your grandmother in exactly ten minutes,’ warned Kath. ‘You know she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’
    ‘I can’t come,’ I said simply, feeling it was time to put my besocked and sandalled foot down.
    ‘Why not? Are you feeling unwell?’ It was the only excuse that would be acceptable to Mrs Fowler, and possibly not even then.
    ‘No, I’m at absolutely the most crucial moment in the whole book.’ I held up a 1930s library copy of something to do with female pirates and purloined emeralds which I had found to be pretty racy, even though it was falling apart and grubby from a thousand other readers.
    ‘Nice try. The book will wait. Good use of “crucial”. Mackintosh on, please.’ My mother clapped her hands together and left the room, trying to look stern but failing this time.
    In the Fowler family no one was much interested in family. Alice, my maternal grandmother, had white fluffy hair, high cheekbones and a quiet half-smile, and wore Wedgwood cameos on black lace, but no one explained why she had no husband, and I was not old or brave enough to ask. She reminded me of the granny in Tweety Pie cartoons.
    She lived in Brighton in a time machine, a mid-Victorian corner house with green wooden shutters, two front doors and a hissing copper-plated boiler. Everything about her was genteel, softly spoken and late Victorian. She disapproved of shouting and running on a Sunday, and never bought a television because she thought it would irradiate the brain and destroy the art of conversation. She also had a paid companion who stayed in the kitchen, a pinch-faced