by R J Dent

Ricky and Luke were bored.

          They’d been wandering the streets listlessly since school had finished. There was nothing for them to do – no amenities provided for youngsters of their age. The ethos underpinning the policies of the Northamshire Council was that anyone under the age of sixteen should – after school during week days – be at home doing their homework and getting an early night, ready for the next school day. Therefore, weekday amenities were not necessary. That was fine for some of Luke and Ricky’s peers – although not many of them. Most of them were not happy about compulsory education and so rebelled against it – cutting classes, not doing homework, and faking illness when at school. Most of them, like Ricky and Luke, wandered the afternoon, evening and night streets, hanging around corner shops –

the light from within offering a neon illusion of warmth they’d all huddle around on cold days.

          And so, Luke and Ricky wandered.

          They wandered to the park, where they stood near the swings and slides, but didn’t actually go on them, the facilities being for ‘kids’ – therefore boring. They smoked a cigarette, sharing it fairly, it being their last one, and then they played on their mobiles for a while, text messaging each other with profanities until the batteries needed recharging.

          Bored, they wandered towards the town centre, hoping to scrounge money for cigarettes from the older brothers or sisters of class friends. They hung around the centre for a while, standing near the doorway of the Arndale Shopping Centre, the two-storey building which housed several shops – all closed now – and which stayed open late due to it being a thoroughfare to the bus station. They saw no one they knew, so slowly, almost without any real volition, they made their way through the centre, up the escalators and into the bus station. They passed through it, searching the ashtrays for decent-sized cigarette butts and finding three. They then left the relative warmth of the bus station for the chill of the town’s night streets.

          Ricky looked at his watch.