Read I Am The Wind for Free Online

get back to what I was originally saying, eh?
    “Alfie, if you don’t get your arse in here…”
    I walked from my room, wanting to drag my feet as I went down the stairs but not daring to. It wasn’t wise to ignore John. His temper matched Dad’s. Nasty bastard sometimes, was my brother.
    I stood in the living room doorway, staring at John, who was having trouble closing a suitcase. A distant memory came then, of Mum fitting all our clothes inside it and us buggering off to the seaside for the weekend—the only holiday we’d ever had. They spent the two days in pubs, leaving me and John to get on with it, but that was okay. We’d gone to the beach, I’d seen the sea, paddled in it, and ate more Mr Whippy ice cream than a kid should eat in one day.
    But John packing a suitcase; I’d never seen that before. Were we going somewhere? Were the Social Services coming for me like he’d said they would if I didn’t do what he told me? No, they were his clothes spilling out, not mine. Nerves squirmed in my belly, and I wanted to be sick. Even though John was an arsehole, I knew him. Better the devil you know and all that.
    “Help me with this fucking case. Sit on it.”
    I did as he instructed, balancing on it and hoping I wouldn’t topple off. The case was on the sofa—a sofa in just as much disrepair as my bed.
    “Are they coming for me, John?”
    He stopped fighting with the zip and looked at me, frowning like I’d said the most stupid thing he’d ever heard. “Who? And don’t say Mum and Dad. They’re long gone. Thought you’d have accepted that by now.”
    “No, not them. I know they’re not coming back.”
    “Who then?” He returned his attention to the case, gritting his teeth as he yanked the zip around a corner, narrowly missing catching my skin in its teeth.
    I lifted my legs so he could go under them and watched as he finally had the case closed. “The Social.”
    “Not as far as I know. Get off.”
    I jumped down and stood with my hands behind my back, the posture John said a real man always adopted. It showed the world he had nothing to hide, he’d said. That he was fearless. I often wondered why I ought to stand like that when I was nothing but a big bundle of fear inside. Seemed stupid, didn’t it. Hypocritical.
    John hefted the case off the sofa and dragged it out into the hallway. I couldn’t see him around that corner but knew he was putting it by the front door. We were going somewhere, and I panicked at the thought I didn’t have a case of my own. What could I put my stuff in? I didn’t have much, a few ratty, stinking clothes, a couple of books I’d nicked from school, but they were still my things.
    My brother came back into the room, all six-foot of him standing in the doorway like he owned the place. And he did, even though we rented a council house. This was his place now, our place, and even though, looking back, it was a complete shithole, it was home.
    “I’m off then,” he’d said. “See you around.”
    And he walked out. Just like that he walked out. The door slamming was one hell of a final sound, know what I mean? The last chapter of that particular tale had been written. You’re on your own now, Alfie. The End.
    I stood there, confused, wondering why he’d left when he’d told me it was just me and him once Mum and Dad had gone. Me and him against the world. He’d lied. Gone. Left me standing there at twelve years old not knowing what the fuck to do or who to turn to. I knew all about Social Services. They’d visited us enough times over the years, telling me how lucky I was that John was old enough to look after me, that they didn’t have to take me away and place me in foster care.
    One less unwanted brat in the system.
    So what now? What did I tell them when they visited next?
    At the time, it was all I could think of as I stared down at my dirty feet on a floor just as dirty. My toes didn’t sink into the pile—that had worn flat years ago—just sunk