Read Respect (Mandasue Heller) for Free Online

started punching him repeatedly in the arm, Kermit threw down the control pad and jumped on him. They rolled around on the bed for several seconds before falling onto the floor in a tangled heap. Then, grunting and wheezing for breath, they grappled until they got themselves wedged between the end of the bed and the chest of drawers. Unable to move, they looked into each other’s eyes and burst out laughing.
    ‘Let’s have another drink?’ Kermit suggested when the laughter had subsided.
    ‘And a smoke,’ added Leon, pushing his friend towards the door. ‘Go grab some of your mam’s dimps.’
    Kermit did as he’d been told, and came back with a packet of Rizla papers and a handful of crumpled, black-tipped dog-ends from his mum’s bedroom. It was the only room in the flat that she ever smoked in, because she didn’t want to pollute the younger kids’ lungs, and the place might as well have been a giant ashtray given how many dimps were lying around. Kermit wished she hadn’t switched to roll-ups, because he preferred the taste of the proper cigs she used to smoke. But she reckoned she couldn’t afford them any more, and beggars couldn’t be choosers, so he tore a couple of papers out of the pack, then carefully rolled a couple of fresh smokes from the ashy remnants.
    ‘That’s mingin’,’ Leon complained, spitting out a piece of blackened tobacco after lighting up. ‘It’d taste well better with weed.’
    ‘Yeah, I know,’ Kermit agreed, squinting as he tugged on his own smoke. ‘But we ain’t got any.’
    ‘So let’s go get some.’
    ‘How? We ain’t got no money.’
    Leon shrugged and reached for the drink he’d poured when Kermit had gone dimp-hunting. ‘We could go down the canal and see if Damo and the lads are there?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ Kermit gave him an uncertain look. ‘I don’t think they like us.’
    ‘They might not like you, but they’re cool with me,’ Leon sneered. ‘That’s ’cos I’m not a wuss like you.’
    Kermit’s heart sank as he watched Leon quickly down his drink. It was all right for him: he didn’t go to the same school as Damo and the other lads, so he’d never seen them when they were bullying the smaller kids. Kermit was shit-scared of the lot of them, but Leon thought they were ace and was always going out of his way to bump into them. Amazingly, even though they were all way older than him, they didn’t seem to mind; but Kermit had a suspicion that was because Leon was black. If he’d been white, they would probably have battered him by now for being such a pest. And it didn’t even matter that most of them were white themselves; they acted black, so that made them black in their eyes.
    ‘Come on,’ Leon said impatiently when he’d finished his drink and noticed that Kermit hadn’t even touched his yet. ‘We ain’t got all day.’
    He jumped up now and, shoving the bottle with what was left of the whisky in it into his pocket, headed for the door. Aware that his friend was going to go with or without him, Kermit reluctantly finished his drink. Then, carrying the cups into the kitchen, he rinsed them out so that his mum wouldn’t smell the alcohol before following Leon out.
    Chantelle only discovered that Leon was out when she took him a sandwich at lunchtime. She was a bit annoyed that he’d gone out without telling her, but he always hung out with his mates at the weekend so it wasn’t exactly unusual. And their mum never made a fuss about it, so she supposed she had no reason to either. She had to admit it had been good to have a bit of peace, because the revising had been going pretty well so far and she was beginning to think that maybe the exams wouldn’t be too bad, after all.
    She spent the rest of the day in her room, only coming out to make dinner at six. Leon still wasn’t back by the time she’d finished cooking, so she covered his plate and put it in the oven. When he still hadn’t come home by eight she guessed that he