The Boy Who Never Slept

(Excerpt from Chapter One:)

It all started when I landed in a hedge. The hedge by the road at the bottom of Dobbs Hill. But, I suppose, like all stories, it’s hard to say exactly where it really started. All true stories start well before their beginning. The Dobbs Hill beginning was, for me, the start of a mysterious journey back to the place this story really begins – to the darkness inside garage number five. Back to a terrible day about seven years ago, a day so painful for mum that she decided to delete it. She decided to wipe it out of history forever.  

But it came back. The truth about my dad came back. It only came back, though, when I was ready to understand what happened to him, why he wasn’t around anymore. This is the story of that journey. Slowly, without even knowing it, I was getting closer and closer to dad. In fact, it’s true, my dad and I almost became the same person. I came to know him from the inside out. It was a strange and mysterious journey, but it truly was a journey home. 

Dobbs Hill? Well, it was one day in early October. I was cycling down that hill like there was no tomorrow. You see, school makes me feel ill - I have to get away, get away fast. Yes, school was out, no homework, the wind was behind me!

But there nearly was no tomorrow. You see, the school bus was just ahead. It had suddenly stopped, stopped at the lights. So I slammed on the brakes. ……..

What brakes?

I slipped the saddle, dragged my shoes, desperately… Burning rubber….white knuckles… heart rattling like a punch-ball…! A car at my back was hooting me, angrily. Next thing I knew, I was buried in a road-side hedge, bike crushing my legs, wheels still spinning. I fumbled in the dirt for my glasses. My mind was misting over… I could feel my mind going fuzzy. But I knew one thing. Even at that moment I knew one thing for sure. Someone had cut my brake cables! And I knew who had done it.

Walking my wrecked bike home was hard that day. Each step of the way I felt a little more stupid. My bike and I, we were both write-offs. I knew who’d done it. Anger was starting to eat me up more and more with every stare from people walking their dogs. But, I thought, well, I’m a write-off anyway, so I just kind of accepted it. I just accepted it as the story of Luke Martin, Small-face Martin, Lukey-Puke with the boring hair and glasses.

When I got to the other side of the park I was all burnt out. I hadn’t got enough energy left to be angry with anyone except myself. Why didn’t I notice that my brakes were cut when I left school? I should have checked when I took my bike out of the bike-shed.

But it was then that the girl came back to my mind, the girl who had asked me if I was ok. She wasn’t roaring with laughter or gawping like the kids by the bus stop. She’d even turned back just to check on me as I struggled to my feet. ‘You sure you’re ok?’ By the time I’d limped to my back gate I began to wonder if I’d imagined her. You see, lying there with bits of hedge up my nose, my mind was going….. All I remembered was long black hair. I’d banged my head on a rock. The sleep was coming and I needed to fight it off…..I needed to fight it off. Desperately……

That day in October was when I first saw her, Mariam, the Light Maker’s daughter, who was to become my secret friend. And this story is really as much Mariam’s story as mine. Maybe it’s really all her story. Maybe it should even be called The Light Maker’s Daughter rather than The Boy Who Never Slept?  But now that she’s gone, I often wonder if she was sent as a kind of angel. That is, if angels have a sleepy leg and shoes that are split down the heel. She was the angel who took away the big black hole in my life. She was the angel who took me home. The angel who led me back to my dad!