Jamie Can Fly! (Chapter 1)

PROLOGUE

‘Give me the juice!’ demanded the great big thug of a boy.

            ‘I won’t do it!’ retorted Jamie bravely.

            ‘Then I’ll squeeze it in your face!’ the nasty boy replied as he lunged forward to grab Jamie’s hand, which held the carton of apple juice.  The drink burst through the straw and went all over Jamie, whilst the brute moved out of the way quick enough to avoid getting a single drop on himself.

            ‘Ha ha!  Look who got himself wet!’ cackled the boy.

            ‘Yeah!  He needs a baby bottle!’ said one of the other two boys.

            Jamie was not going to cry, but he was angry and upset.

CHAPTER 1

Jamie lived with his uncle George who was a nice enough man, but was always very busy at work in his study.  He spent all day doing things that Jamie could not even begin to understand.  But Jamie did not mind, he was happy getting on with things that he enjoyed, such as drawing, making models out of lollypop sticks and playing adventure games in the garden.  But one thing Jamie did not enjoy was walking to school.

            Everyday Jamie walked to and from school and everyday, without fail, Jamie encountered three very horrible and nasty boys.  One was a small scrawny chap called Eric.  He had mousy brown hair, freckles and long dirty fingernails.  Then there was Vern who was the tallest of the three.  He had a big jaw, an army haircut and wore a pair of round glasses.  But the worst of the three was Tank – a large ginger haired thug who picked his nose and made life miserable for nice young boys like Jamie.

            It made Jamie furious to be picked on and laughed at everyday.  The stinky boys would push him over; rip his t-shirts; steal his lunch then throw it at him; burst his drinks; pull off his shoes; put worms down his trousers and many, many more atrocious things. 

As you can imagine, this made life extremely unpleasant for the poor young boy.  Some days he tried to disguise himself by wearing a big hat and sunglasses.  But this had the reverse effect and caused the boys to notice him all the more.  On another day he took a powerful water pistol ready to fire the three of them as he ran past.  But Vern used his long arms to whisk the weapon from his hands.  It was Jamie who ended up soaking wet that afternoon.
            Whatever he tried, Jamie could not avoid the malicious behaviour of the loathsome trio.
            About a week after the water pistol incident Jamie was on his way to school and wondering what horrible episode he would have to face today.  As he came to the end of the road and turned the corner, he looked ahead of him and could see his school but none of the nasty boys.  ‘They must be late today!’  Jamie said to himself cheerfully.  He started to skip forward relieved at the thought of a morning free from torment.

After he had completed just a couple of skips he heard a familiar voice shout from behind him, ‘Oi!  Where do you think you’re skipping off to you sissy girl?’
            Jamie turned round to see Tank, Vern and Eric running towards him at great speed.  Jamie was, in fact, a fast runner too.  He thought he might be able to outrun them to the school.  But Vern had extremely long legs, which meant that one step for him was the same as two for Jamie. 

Before he knew it Jamie’s shirt collar was in the grasp of Vern’s hand.  Eric then appeared in front of Jamie with a wicked grin on his freckly face.  ‘Thought you could run did ya?  Well this’ll teach ya to try and outsmart us!’ said Eric as he produced a large tub of itching powder.  ‘This is going down your shirt and your socks and your pants!’
            Vern let out a nasty giggle as Tank grabbed the itching powder and elbowed Eric out of the way.  ‘Move you little runt!’
           Eric looked somewhat annoyed as the leader of the pack took control. 

            Jamie bravely stared at Tank as he was spoken to, ‘You need to learn that you’ll never get away from us.  You’re a gift to us Jamie.  We are always happy to see you because it means we can try our experiments on you!’

The other two boys chuckled as Tank continued with his speech, ‘Now, there’s no need to struggle.  We just need to tie you to that lamp post over there so that you won’t try any funny business as we cover you with this special powder.’

Jamie’s heart was thumping and his mind was racing thinking about how horrible this was going to be for him.  He would be covered in itching powder without the ability to use his arms to scratch himself.  He could not face the thought of it.  Then, something welled up inside of him as his face turned red and he let out a huge, ‘ROOAAAARRRRR!!!’

He screamed so loudly Vern let go of his collar and jumped back in shock.  Jamie took the split-second chance to make a run for it.  He pushed past Tank and Eric and raced down a narrow alleyway to his right.  He heard the voices of the three boys bouncing off the walls as they shouted at him, ‘Come back here you little worm!  You are dead when we catch you!’ 
            But they did not catch him.  Jamie ran faster than he ever had done before in his life.  As he reached the end of the alleyway he clambered up a wall and leaped down into a hedge on the other side.  He continued at great speed through a garden before jumping over a fence, which led into the local fields.  He kept going, jumping and leaping over fences and stiles.  Eventually he came to a maize field.  He ran right into the middle of it before he stopped and crouched down low. 
            It took him a few moments to catch his breath before he carefully poked his head up to see if they had followed him.  There was no sight of the boys.  Jamie realised that although they were nasty they were also very lazy too.  Instead of giving a long chase they would rather wait for their next opportunity to catch him.

[Chapter 2]