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the parents’ home was the first place they looked for runaways. I decided now was a good time to call in a favour from my best mate, Wayne. Wayne owed me. I’d helped him a few times recently when his dad had arrived home drunk, threatening to beat him up. Now Wayne could help me out.
    My hands shook from cold as I took my mobile from my pocket and opened it. The screen lit up. Thank God, I thought – at least it was charged – but I knew there was only enough credit left for a couple of texts. Like most kids my age I can usually text very quickly – with one hand and not looking at the keys. But now – with my fingers so cold – it took both hands and all my concentration to tap in the message to Wayne: In big trouble. Need u 2 hide me. B there in 5. I pressed the send button. Wayne would know what I meant. The message was the same as the one he’d sent me when he had to escape his father and come and stay at my house for the night (without my mum knowing).
    With my mobile in my lap, I sat huddled in the corner behind the wheelie bins, my jacket pulled up around my ears, and waited. I knew Wayne would have his phone on. Everyone I know sleeps with their mobiles. Wayne and me often text each other in the middle of the night. I just hoped he’d hear the text arrive.
    A couple of minutes passed and I was about to send the text again when my phone bleeped. I opened it and the screen lit up. It was a text from Wayne: Sure man. C u in 5. Wayne calls everyone ‘man’. ‘Thanks, man,’ I said under my breath. I returned the phone to my jacket pocket, blew warm air into my hands and stood up.
    Wayne’s house is on the other side of the estate. By the time I got there he’d have crept downstairs and be waiting by the back door, just as I had done for him. Now the police were no longer chasing me I didn’t use the alleys, but walked in the road, watching and listening for their return. The alleys are not the place to be late at night, as drug pushers, perverts and psychos hang out in the shadows. Last year a woman was murdered in one of the alleys late at night. People heard her screaming but were too scared to go and investigate. You don’t have Neighbourhood Watch on our estate.
    Wayne was waiting for me and he opened the back door as I approached.
    ‘Thanks, mate,’ I said as I stepped in. He was dressed for bed in his pants and T-shirt.
    ‘You’re welcome, man,’ he whispered, and put his finger to his lips, signalling his dad was asleep upstairs.
    His dad’s a great fat brute and I certainly didn’t want to meet him now. Wayne quietly closed and locked the back door; then I followed him silently up the stairs. The only light came from the street lamp outside but I knew Wayne’s house well; we’d been mates for years and I hung out there when we bunked off school. We crept into his bedroom and he quietly closed the door. A small bedside lamp in the shape of a spaceship which he’d had as a kid was beside his bed. Wayne’s room is heaps better than mine: his mum did it up a couple of years ago, just before she cleared off.
    ‘What happened, then, man?’ Wayne asked as we perched on the edge of his bed.
    ‘Social took me and Tommy into care, but they sent us to different foster carers, so I legged it.’ I decided not to tell him about the police being involved in case it spooked him. Wayne had been in trouble with the police before and I knew he didn’t want any more bother with them.
    ‘That’s bad, man, real bad to split you up,’ he said, sympathising. ‘Hey, man, you hungry?’ which is what I always asked him when he came to my house.
    ‘Sort of,’ I said.
    He reached under the bed and pulled out an Asda carrier bag, full of crisps, biscuits, cans of fizzy drinks and other junk food. I had a similar bag under my own bed. It was an emergency supply for when there was no other food in the house. I topped it up when Mum had some money, or if she didn’t I’m afraid to say I nicked the stuff