Being clever in the family bought a lot of responsibilities and pressure. I didn’t know how Sukh did it; he must have worked like superman, but now because of him my parents thought it was easy to get good grades. I didn’t really have a ‘life’ as people called it. I used to come straight home watch television and then my parents expected me to do my homework. I rarely went out with my friends and even if I did my parents kept close tags on me. They didn’t want be doing anything bad like taking drugs or drinking alcohol and they certainly mad sure that I wasn’t seeing a non-Asian. That was just how life was like in my family.
That night I got criticised by my dad for getting eighty-five percent I went to sleep thinking that it was all too much for me to handle. I had to break away from my parents. What was the point of being good and getting excellent grades if my parents always expected more? I wanted a life. I didn’t want to be good anymore. I didn’t want to get good grades anymore. I wanted to be carefree and go out with friends, I wanted to be like the P'kids.
The next morning I woke up still thinking about the P'kids. I was unusually quite at breakfast, as I felt different from my ‘boffin’ family. All I could think about is how it would feel to be one if the P'kids, to be popular.
“Why are you so quite today?” my mum said as she walked into the kitchen “what’s wrong?” And then without warning out came,
“What do you mean what’s wrong, I don’t have to tell you everything!” from my mouth as I left the table and ran upstairs. I didn’t know what just happened, I had never had a fight with mum before and especially I was surprised that it came out of the blue. Was it my teenage hormones or were the P'kids already having a ‘bad influence’ on me by just thinking about them. All I knew was that I couldn’t face mum again so I put my bag on my shoulder, quietly opened the front door, crept outside without anybody knowing, and left for school early.
In first period English I was sitting opposite half of the P'kids but all I was worried about was tying to impress the sort of leader of the gang, Kirat. I knew what I had to do, I had to try and annoy the teacher as much as I could and by any luck get sent outside the classroom. So it started. When the teacher told me to read out a couple of lines of poetry, I replied,
“Why should I?”
“Excuse me!” Miss Ward replied
“Why should. When will we ever use this crap outside of school.” I could feel the class starting to respond to my outburst.
“What!” she said
“It’s not like were going talk in French when going for a job interview.” That’s it I had done it. I could see the teacher getting angry but more importantly I could see Kirat and Sandeep laughing with me. I had done it now all I had to do was wait for the inevitable.
“Get out” Miss ward bellowed as I had already started to walk through the door and left a cheering class behind me. As soon as I had shut the door I realised that this was it, I could now have been able to join the P'kids.
When Kirat and Sandeep left the class at the end of the lesson I was awaiting their remark.
“Jas man that was jokes” Kirat had told me what I wanted to hear.
“Yeah man that was wicked” Sandeep then answered. At this moment I had to try my luck.
“What you got next”. I waited for an eligible answer, an inviting answer.
“I think I got English” Kirat responded “come we’re going to bunk the first half of it” the words echoed gently in my head. I had been accepted.
“I’ve got a wicked story” he continued “we just say that we were looking for my jacked mobile phone.”
From then on school was never boring. I sat with the P'kids and I talked to the P'kids finally I was a popular kid. Rajeev and Shaun hadn’t spoken to me for ages. I couldn’t help it if they didn’t want to be as popular as me so I just started to ignore them now. I was different to them now. I was no longer a boffin. My grades were considerably dropping as I got closer into the gang. The closer I got to them, the more of a good time I had.
When I got home a couple of weeks later, I found my mum and dad talking in the lounge.
“What should we do” I heard mum say “the teacher said he just changed suddenly, as if over night” at this point I was raging with fury as I realised they were talking about me so I stormed in.
“Why are talking about me?” I shouted, my face turning red.
“We’re concerned” mum calmly replied “the teacher said on the phone…”
“What do you know about my school life” I roared “just because my grades drop a little you think I’m up to something” I continued “well I can do what I want to at school, I don’t always have to listen to you and get good grades. It’s my life and I can do what I want!” with that I raced upstairs and locked myself in my bedroom. I just wanted to get out of the house and I knew exactly where. The only way I was to become a true P'kid was if I went out with them after school. I rummaged my bag for the piece of paper Ajay gave me, while we were dossing in R.E, with his number on. I picked up the phone and before I knew it I was on the phone with Ajay.
“Alright Ajay where you lot going today.”
“Dunno” he replied “probably just hang out in the park, why you thinking of coming”
“Might” I answered
“Alright then meet you there at half-five”
“Alright then see ya there” and I put down the phone. The conversation was quick but I had accomplished what I wanted to. I was finally going to be a proper P'kid but only when it was too late before I realised I didn’t want to.
Now came the crossing of the line. I had to lie to my parents to try and get them to let me go out. This is where my life took a sudden turn for the worse.
“Mum” I said “dad I’m sorry for shouting earlier but I’m feeling really depressed right now” I went on “I’m finding the work at school increasingly hard, that’s why my grades are falling. But don’t worry I’m trying to sort it out. I’ve asked Rajeev for some after school help and he’s agreed, so if it’s alright without can I go to his now please?” The heartfelt apology had worked and I was off to the park to meet Kirat and his crew. As I walked down I thought to myself about what I had just done. Surprisingly I didn’t feel guilty although now I wished that I had, as I didn’t know what awaited me.
It started off fine. We were all joking and messing about with each other. We were having fun annoying some of the locals who went by and getting on their nerves. Every kid our age or slightly older or younger seemed to know us and so we had a good time chatting to them. I thought it was awesome until around about quarter past eight and it was starting to get dark.
“Sandeep did you bring the milk” Kirat murmured under his voice.
“What milk. I thought we were calling it medicine” Sandeep replied confused. I had totally lost them now, as I had no idea what they were talking about. Just then Jay shouted,
“Well whatever you call it just get the bottle out. Gurjit you got the glasses.”
“Yeah they’re in my bag” and as Gurjit got the glasses out I realised what Sandeep meant by medicine. And out it came a bottle of Bacardi. I felt really uncomfortable at this point and wouldn’t have minded going home. But I didn’t, I should have, but didn’t.
“Go on” said Gurjit “just a little, trust me you’ll forget all your troubles” and he pushed a half-full glass into my hand. I knew it wouldn’t be easy but I didn’t think I’d have to do this. The only way to properly be a P'kid was to drink this white coloured liquid in front of me. Without thinking I opened my mouth and threw it down. All of a sudden everything turned into slow motion. I saw Jay laughing slowly with his mouth wide open and Ajay pouring Sandeep another glassful but I couldn’t hear a thing. All I could hear was the throbbing of the blood in the veins of my ears. Although everything was in slow motion I don’t remember much as the time moved really quickly, before I knew it, it was already ten to nine.
Then all of a sudden I felt a hand grab me and start running with me. It was Ajay, Ajay wasn’t as bad as I was, he was used to drinking but I was out after one. He shouted to me,
“Quickly Jas man, the coppers are after us for breaking Mr Jacob’s shop window.” As I turned around I saw huge flashing lights and before I could even get my legs to start working we hid in an alley where we thought it was safe. I really couldn’t at this point as I was really dehydrated. Then without warning I had a sudden loss of energy and it was when Ajay told me to run again that I passed out.
The next thing I knew is that I was sitting on a hospital bed with a police officer at my feet.
“You alright sunshine” said a deep voice “your parents will be here any minute and as soon as they come you can go home”
As I opened my eyes saw the tall figure looking at me.
“Your lucky Mr Jacob's isn’t pressing charges as there was not much damage done so we won’t record this.” As I was becoming more alert of what was going on I realised what he just said about my parents coming. They probably knew everything about what I had done by now. I couldn’t handle being face to face with them so when the police officer left the toe of my bed, half dazed with confusion I got up and ran down the corridor of the hospital. My blood was rushing through my veins and my heart was throbbing very hard, as I didn’t know what I was going to do where I was going to go. I saw the hospital exit and darted towards it.
Just then I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was on the streets, just like you see on those documentaries. I didn’t believe it could happen to me, but it was. I had barely any energy and so found the nearest doorway, rolled my self up in a jacket and tried to get to sleep. As I was lying there I realised how much of a mistake wanting to be popular was. I was cold wet and tired and thinking of what my life would be like if I carried on living out here. It bought at tear to my eye. I thought I couldn’t go home though, not after this, but how I wished I could.
As I woke up the next morning Sukh was standing right in front of me.
“The officer said he had found you here.” He said. I thought about running but had no energy left to do so.
“Why don’t we get you home?” he said to me.
“No!” I replied “I can’t go back”
“Look mum and dad are worried sick” and at that point he had physically got me up and had started to walk me home.
“I’m not like you” I tried to explain “I couldn’t handle it”
“But is your life that bad that it’s worth throwing it all away, trust me this isn’t the best solution. Don’t mix with the wrong crowds at the wrong times.” As he was trying to talk sense into me I was still concerned about what mum and dad would do, but all he said was,
“Don’t worry they’ll understand, all they want to do is see you and know your alright.” We had now reached the door and were about to walk inside.
“Come on” he said as I took a deep breath and stepped out of the cold outside and into the warmth.
I was lucky Sukh had that talk with me otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here now looking at my mum’s proud expression. My results aren’t as good as Sukh’s but I’m not perfect and my mum has learnt not to push me to hard. I have a lot of talent and it took the perseverance from my parents to get it out. I could have thrown it all away for nothing, over a stupid mistake. But now I don’t take my life for granted. Now I know exactly how precious life is.
