Pagewalker (3 page)

My first September of high school had arrived.

I had a newly pressed school uniform and
rucksack, a list of new books and stationery. Pens, pencils,
jotters, P.E kit and lunch box.

My first day was going to be the start of a
new life. To say I was excited would be a massive understatement!
The summer before had been, well, eventful to say the least. My mum
was still nervous about me going anywhere on my own. She was
worried I would end up in a pit somewhere…again. She insisted on
driving me to my new school and leaving me at the front gate.
Looking back, that definitely wasn’t the best idea. We pulled up to
the massive front gate. Newly painted purple and navy to match with
the school colours. It must have only been dry a number of days,
but it had already been decorated with multiple names, tags, and
extremely rude and highly inappropriate graffiti! I could see the
parents of other first years doing the same, kissing goodbye and
stealing hugs to embarrass their children. Maybe this was every
parents chance to act out a little playfull revenge on thier kids,
because there were a lot of red faced school kids storming off
wiping lipstick from foreheads and fixing the father sized hand
print in their freshly gelled, start of term haircut. The tiny road
was jammed with parked cars, bikes, school buses and taxis. All
scrambling past each other to find the mythical and much sought
after `drop of point` As soon as we pulled up with two wheels up on
the pavement I was out of the car like a flash. I slammed the
passenger door behind me with a “Bye mum, thanks” and grabbed my
two bags, one over each shoulder and clutched my lunch box.

As I ran across the road toward my new ‘home’
for the next five years, I felt my stomach churning. The bowl of
cereal and toast I ate in about thirty seconds flat was trying to
come up and see what all the excitement was about. Swallowing
violently with an acidic shiver, I walked towards those school
arches. Like Dante approaching the gates of hell.

As I reached the other side I looked back to
wave with my one available hand. I caught a glimpse of my mum as
she turned the car round the corner on her way to work. My heart
sank. It felt real then. I was alone. I would be lying if I were to
say I wasn’t nervous. First day of school is mental! A few deep
breaths and I was ready. This was my chance to become whoever I
wanted to be. If I went into school and acted popular I would be
popular! Right? Well Saturday morning American, children’s TV made
it sound so simple! I gathered myself and turned toward the front
door, spirits high, confidence souring, a smile on my face and a
spring in my step, then Thud!

As I turned towards the main building I had
slammed face first into the chest of the largest `boy’ I had ever
seen. I stepped back to try and assess what happened. I could make
out the navy and purple tie, on a white shirt, under a black
blazer. As my eyes continued upward I could notice a gold chain
necklace hanging outside of an open shirt collar, a cigarette in a
mouth of stained yellow teeth, thin, patchy, black and ginger
stubble on a pimple infested face. Two dark brown eyes burned into
mine. A crooked smile appeared on his face and as he stepped back
he pointed his finger at me moving it towards my forehead until he
began to bore it into my skull.

“
You wee prick, near knocked the feg outa
me mouth! I wouda kicked the crap outa you if you had! Stupid
firsty! Gona keep my eye on you, you wee prat! Now get outa my face
before I burn this into your speckey wee rat nose!”
He
thundered at me and pushed me to the side.

My heart sank.

The bubble popped there and then. The high
hopes I had for this new life were shattered. I was a nobody
here.

I longed for my mum to come back around the
corner. Just seeing her face would have made me feel better. I had
never felt so alone. Not even in the darkness of the hole I fell
into weeks before. Not even when I was hurt and worried that I
would never escape. I knew there and then that I would not make it
through this place. My visions of popularity, sport teams,
girlfriends and good grades were brushed off the table in one clean
sweep of my forearm and replaced with survival instinct.

The first year there was not as bad as I
thought. All apart from Samuel. That brick house of a boy I bumped
into on the first day. He had a talent for shoulder charging me
every time he saw me. No matter what route I would take to the next
class, he was there. I would spot him at the far end of the
corridor. No escape. He would spot me a few seconds later and smile
as he made his way towards me, thrusting his shoulder into my face
and knocking me off my feet. The bruises I got were impressive, big
welting purple and yellow ones. I told my mum they were from rugby
practice. Little did she know that we rarely practised tackles,
mostly fitness training. Running laps etc. I don’t know why I
thought hiding it was the best course of action. It makes no sense
keeping it all inside but the rational mind of a young teenager is
something no one can understand, even to this day. I spoke very
little of the terrible year of bullying I suffered at the hands of
the fifth years. Samuel and his three minions, whom I nicknamed the
four horsemen. I told them it was because they were scary and
always intent on ending my world. The truth is they all just had
really bad teeth and smelt like shit.

Finally the summer came and the fifth years
had left school. It felt so much better and I could finally relax
in the few weeks I had left at school. When we were let out for
summer holidays I was looking forward to seeing all my friends
every night again for big games and adventures in the lead mines,
but I quickly learnt that most people had made new friends in
school. I was isolated and scared my first year and had not met
anyone new, no one I would consider a friend any way. That summer
was lonely. I filled my time playing computer games with my
brother, reading comics and fantasy novels and watching old horror
and zombie movies in my room with the blackout blinds pulled shut.
The next year of school was not much better. I was starting to
develop my own interests that did not match up with those of the
great majority in school. I had discovered drums and grunge music.
Bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains and
heavier stuff like Metallica, Slayer, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch
Nails filled my headphones. That year Peter Jackson’s vision of
middle earth was brought into my life. The Fellowship of the Ring
was released in cinemas and I fell in love with it all over again.
It brought me back to my childhood. Reading the Hobbit again I
longed so much to live in 'The Shire.' To live a pressure free life
of growing things, smoking pipe weed and fishing in the pond. I
would escape there every day I came home. I put the DVD or VHS into
the machine and lived in ‘middle earth’ until I had to go to
bed.

The next few years got worse. It was a
constant cycle of bullying, self-loathing, fear, anxiety and dread.
I would make it through each day of school by the skin of my teeth
and escape into books, movies and music when I came home. I had
developed a few friends that played music and would meet every
weekend for a jam or band practice. They were good guys but still I
felt that I was living in the wrong world. I was meant to live in
the time of the Great Irish legends, surrounded by magic and
sorcery. Not stuck in school learning Pythagoras’ theorem and the
biology of flowers. In the summer of my 4
^th
year I had a
traumatic experience of bullying at its height. One morning a boy
named Ryan, a snotty nosed, spoilt brat that felt he had seniority
over most of us because of his dad’s “community worker” status. If
you are from Northern Ireland you already know what a so called
“estate community worker and resident committee head” is, to all of
you that don’t, it is a thug, gangster “ex”-paramilitary, drug
running scum bag that longs for the 70’s and “the troubles” because
they felt important then.

Ryan thought he was a big man in school
bossing people around, me most of all, he hated me! REALLY hated
me. Maybe it was the baggy jeans, the skateboard in my school bag,
the Metallica t-shirt, the chain on my wallet. The spiky hair? I
don’t know but he hated everything that I stood for.

This particular week he had it in for me with
style. Pushing, shoving, hitting, and threatening. He arrived that
morning before class when we were lining up and proceeded to punch
and stab me in the stomach with a mathematical compass.

I remember slumping to the floor with tears
in my eyes, it was only a skin deep point but I saw blood and it
really hurt.

As he and his friends laughed on the way out
the door, he said it was my brother next, who had just started the
school a few years below me. I saw red!

I got to my feet, Opening the latch on the
front of my school bag, I lifted my skateboard and ran at him from
behind, and I swung that board with all my strength, so hard it
snapped as it connected with his back. He fell to the ground and
before he even made it to the cold, polished marble floor I was on
top of him. I had his tie pulled tight and was slamming my fists
into his chest and face. I could feel my knuckles hurt. The bones
were swelling in my hand but I continued to punch.

His friends just watched, either out of shock
that “big Mahood”, the hippy, Goth, looser was actually fighting
back or maybe they wanted to see a bit of justice for a change.
Either way they let me lay rip into him. It felt like hours I was
hitting him, all the repressed feelings came to a head it was
therapy for my body and my soul. After what was probably only
seconds, but felt like hours, I was pulled of him. My teacher had
seen what I was doing and knew I had gone too far. He didn’t see
the years of bullying before that lead to this zit head being
popped. He only saw a larger boy on top of another slamming his
fists into his face. I fought my teacher off for a while but when
he got me to my feet I was a mess of blood, tears and sweat. I was
exhausted and in a frenzy. I had no control over what I was doing.
When my breathing slowed down I was numb. I could see my teacher
screaming at me, another teacher helping Ryan to his feet; blood
stained the floor and the door, all over Ryan’s and my shirt. It
sounded like I was underwater. Everything was blurry.

Something stands out to me now, as clear as
glass however.

I remember that while I ran at him with my
skateboard in hand, I got a flash, a minute flash of someone
running along beside me. I could not think at the time but I felt
like I knew him. A man in Celtic armour, a blade as long as he was,
raised above his head, a long blonde beard blowing in the wind as
he ran. Boots caked in mud and kid knees scraped under his kilt. I
saw myself in the man, or at least, who I wanted to be. Looking
back now, that was the moment I created Dertrid. A warrior and hero
of stories and tales not yet written. As we both charged into
battle I got a small reminder as I looked into his eyes before we
collided. I saw the deepest green. Green like the eyes of the
little man I met years before in the forest. Eyes that reminded me
of magic. Reminded me of what he said about my blood. Something
happened that very second before my blow fell on the back of my
enemy. A seed was planted in that moment and the first shoot was
blossoming.

The fallout of that encounter was worse than
I could have expected. After it happened I had grabbed my bag, the
broken board and stormed out of school and walked home. My parents
were called; I was summoned to the head master. I was in serious
trouble for leaving school not to mention beating the stuffing out
of another pupil. I got detentions and suspensions. The bigger fear
however what of what his father would do if he saw me. I spent that
final summer in hiding. I did not leave the house unless I had to
for quite a while. I was going crazy and hated being cooped up
inside four walls. I needed the trees, the grass and the sea. I
needed to feel the crisp evening breeze and the mist and morning
dew on my fingers and I walked through fern leaves four feet
high.

This is the pivotal point of the story however I do
feel.

This was the moment I lifted a pen and put it
to paper. I was lonely, I was scared and more than anything I
longed to be somewhere else. This is when I needed to escape to
somewhere far off. Somewhere inspired by the Éire of old. This is
when I once again met a friend that had charged into battle with
me. I visited this place every day for weeks. It was so large with
beautiful steams and brooks, castles towering high into the clouds,
mountains with snow peaks. Storms blowing ships at sea. Grass
greener than the richest emerald. Sky as blue as jewels. Lands full
of life, love, excitement, riches and adventure. People warm
hearted and kind. A place where you could understand the thoughts
of animals. Where the bird song was like a symphony. Beautiful and
haunting. A place where magic was a sixth sense. This place was so
real I could smell the markets, taste the fruit from the trees,
hear the voices and distinguish accents. I travelled from town to
town naming them and establishing leaders.

I chose where the sea stopped and land began.
Where mountains grew and cliffs fell. Where streams, rivers and
brooks flowed and where ponds and lakes rested. I created village
taverns and the stories told within. This was my hide away. I would
write and type until the early mornings. Most of the time hours
passed in seconds. I was so engrossed in writing and creating and
playing God that to me the `real world’ didn’t exist. I was in a
world of my own. A perfect land. I created heroes and villains. I
visited so often they became my friends. I came face to face with
king Dertrid. The warrior who fought with me in this world. I
fought beside him in his.