Playground

'I wonder what she would've said if I'd told her all the parts the report left out, like how I'd woken up that morning and pulled that sock out of my draw and filled it, one after the other, with the D batteries I'd bought the last time I visited my dad in the city. But there was no way. There was just no way I'd ever tell anyone what really went down that day...'

Thirteen-year-old Butterball doesn't have that much going for him. He's teased about his weight. He hates the suburb his mum moved them to so she could go to nursing school and start her life over. He wishes he still lived with his dad in New York City - where there's always something happening, even if his dad doesn't have much time for him.

Still that's not why he beat up Maurice in the playground.

Now his school is forcing him to talk to some out-of-touch lady therapist, as though she could ever fix him - as though she could ever figure out the truth. No, Butterball's lips are sealed about what happened that day. But some tales can't help being told. And this is one of them.

(P)2011 Quercus Editions Ltd