Read the opening of The Final Year

Ya need to be able to pin this down so ya can see it in ya mind as it plays out – picture where it’s happenin. Imagine it’s summer. A hot one. Leave the suburban semis to their leaf-dreams and head for the city, straight into the streets that surround the centre. See how things are different? It’s tighter ’ere.

Can ya feel it? See the take-aways and neon-washed litter? The disfigured pigeons huddled under railway bridges and flyovers? Taxis buses pizza-boxes vape shops? This is not a place of labradors and lattes and electric Audis this is a place of staffies and cider and exhaust-pipe smoke, a place of one foot in front of the other brother cos what else ya gonna do?

See that tall, skinny kid with the ball in his hand sayin, see ya later to his mate? That’s me: Nathan Wilder Nate. 10 years old and a week away from the end of Year 5. One more thing The woman over there pushin the buggy, hair scraped up in a top-knot, headin to the shop for milk and cider, a little kid dressed as Spiderman trailin behind her, that’s Mum.

The kid is Dylan my nearly-four-year-old-nuisance-of-a-littlest brother. Always up to no good, straight out any open door. The bigger kid further back, kickin stones along the road, ignorin Mum’s shouts to GET A MOVE ON, that’s Jaxon or Jax as everyone calls him: my other brother 8 years old he’s alright. Nearly forgot The school ya can see right next to the park in the middle of the estate, the one with the fancy new claddin the council are puttin on top of all the crumblin bricks and callin it ‘regeneration’, the one with the main road right next to it rattlin the claddin back off and the corner shop opposite the main gates where Mum’s headin to, that’s Poppy Field Primary.

My school. These are my streets these are my people this is my story.