Black Rabbit Summer by Kevin Brooks Page A

me.
    Nicole nudged me and passed me the tequila bottle. I carried on staring at Pauly for a moment, telling him silently to lay off Raymond, then I raised the tequila bottle to my lips and took a drink. I’d never drunk tequila before, and at first it tasted pretty good – kind of smoky and sweet and warm. But then, as it seeped down into my throat, I felt the heat of the alcohol burning up inside me, and I started coughing and spluttering.
    ‘Christ!’ I gasped.
‘Juicy, eh?’ Pauly grinned.
‘Juicy?’
‘Yeah,’ he laughed, lighting a cigarette. ‘ Joooooseeee! ’
The den party had started.
    As the bottles got passed around, and Pauly started rolling a joint, Nicole began telling us all about Paris – the new house, her dad’s new job, the theatre, the schools, how excited she was…
    ‘What about you?’ I asked Eric as Nic paused for a moment to take the joint off him. ‘Are you looking forward to going?’
    He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure if I am going yet. I might stay here for a while.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘No reason,’ he said, glancing at Nic. ‘I just haven’t made up my mind if I want to go or not.’
    ‘What are you going to do if you stay here?’ I asked him.
    ‘I haven’t really thought about it. I might go to college, I might go to college in Paris –’
    ‘Coll age ,’ Pauly said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘It’s French for college – coll age. ’
    Eric shook his head. ‘I might do some work in Dad’s theatre.’
    ‘What kind of work?’
    He shrugged. ‘Lighting, stage design… I don’t know. I’ll just see how it goes, I suppose.’
    ‘What about you, Nic?’ I said. ‘What are you going to do?’
    ‘You could sell onions,’ Pauly suggested.
    Nic looked at him. ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea.’
    He grinned.
    Nic passed me the joint. I was already feeling pretty woozy from the drink, so I didn’t smoke much of it – just a couple of quick puffs – then I passed it across to Pauly.
    ‘What about Raymond?’ he said.
    ‘He doesn’t smoke.’
    ‘Why not?’ Pauly offered the joint to Raymond. ‘Come on, Rabbit, enjoy yourself.’
    Raymond looked at me.
    ‘Do you want it?’ I asked him.
    He shook his head.
    ‘He doesn’t want it,’ I told Pauly.
    I could see Pauly thinking about having a laugh with Raymond, trying to persuade him to smoke the joint, and I could see him glancing at me, wondering what I’d do if he did start trying to persuade him… and in the end he just shrugged – who cares? – and gave up.
    Eric smiled at Raymond. ‘How you doing over there, Ray?’
    ‘All right, thanks.’
    ‘Enjoying your rum?’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘You want some Coke?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    Eric passed him a can of Coke. ‘You looking forward to sixth-form college?’
    ‘Who, me?’ Raymond said.
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘I suppose…’ He popped the Coke, took a long drink, then burped, and took another long drink.
    ‘Better?’ said Eric.
    Raymond nodded. ‘It’s hot.’
    Eric smiled again, then looked at me. ‘Are you definitely going then, Pete?’
    ‘To sixth-form college?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘I think so… I mean, as long as I get the results I need.’
    ‘What are you going to take?’ Nicole asked me.
    ‘English, Media Studies, and Law.’
    ‘Law?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Why?’
    I shrugged. ‘I don’t know… I couldn’t think of anything else.’
    ‘I’m doing Art,’ Raymond said.
    Nic looked at him. ‘You’re crap at Art.’
    He smiled. ‘I know.’
    It was true – Raymond was crap at Art. He couldn’t draw to save his life. He was an absolute genius at everything else – Physics, Maths, English, Chemistry – but for some weird reason he only wanted to study A-level Art.
    Nic nudged me again and offered me the bottle of wine. ‘You want some of this?’
    I looked at her, and just for a moment her face seemed to dissolve into a series of patterns and shapes… triangles, rectangles, bright red lines… and her skin seemed to berippling with energy. I closed my eyes