Timestones

I don't need reminding I'm different from the other kids, but they do it anyway, eroding my self-confidence like waves pounding the headland. Sure I wear black jeans, trench coat and eyeliner. Docs, not Converse. Trivium on my playlist over Bieber or Swift. But so what?

Dad understands. Says I should live each day in the moment. Carve a niche in the world and to hell with what others think. Mum would have hated such spontaneity. The dark irony being the day she deviated from habit, Travis fucking Kemp ripped her away from us, drunk behind the wheel of his Maserati. And the bastard's still out there making millions, the designer suits, clutch of lawyers and city backhanders his instruments of corruption.

A vortex remains in our family. Dad just gets by at the lab; I get by at school. The pity ran out a long time ago. Now I'm back to being Puke Otterman. Or Luke Gotherman, or some other deeply imaginative play on my name.

Only three more months to go until I'm free. Until I can take my A-levels into the world and, hell, I don't know. What does English, Chemistry and History get you these days? Probably nothing, but I'd take a job at Comic Cave over climbing the greasy corporate ladder like Kemp. At least there, the people are real, united by their love of artwork.

With a low-demand shop job I could focus on drawing. Work on my own strip entitled 'Timestones', about a misunderstood kid growing up without a mum, who can escape to a simpler time. A time where disputes were settled on horseback, not from the other side of the globe at the press of a button. A time where he can use two hundred and fifty years of historical foreknowledge to his advantage. A time where he can see her again.

It's art imitating life, because it's based on my experiences. Maybe tonight I'll…

Luke felt his notebook yanked from under his arm and the world fizzed into sharp focus in an instant. "Hey!" He spun to see Billy Mason, piggy eyes set atop pudgy red cheeks, grinning with malice. "Give that back!"

"Awww, Gotherman wants his diary. Whaddya think, boys?"

The pair that flanked Billy on the edge of the playground – one white, one black – made the trio resemble bully Neapolitan ice cream. Trey's teeth were dazzling against his skin tone as he sneered, but it was Sean in the low-slung jeans to Billy's left that replied first. "You think he's gonna cry again?"