Please don't make me go
How one boy’s courage
overcame a brutal childhood
JOHN FENTON
This book is based on the author’s experiences. In order to protect privacy, some names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.
Harper NonFiction
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperElement 2008
© John Fenton 2008
John Fenton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007263769
Ebook Edition SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780007283835
Version: 2017-04-28
For Shelley and Maggie
Your support and faith were inspirational to me
Contents
Mum and I were sitting at the kitchen table, eating bread and jam and talking about what we would do if we won the football pools. The top prize, £75,000, was a fortune to us. We often discussed this and I never got bored of speculating about all the great things we could do together, such as buy a big new house, go on holiday to the seaside, and get a television set of our own. I loved those moments of closeness with my mother when I got home from school in the afternoon. It was just the two of us in our private little world.
I flung my arms out to indicate how big my new bedroom would be and my sleeve accidentally caught the edge of my plate. It toppled off the table then seemed to fall in slow motion to the floor, where it smashed into tiny pieces. My remaining slice of bread fell jam-side down on the wreckage.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ I said,