Rails

I scrambled through a bramble bush, cursing loudly as the thorns scratched my face. I paused as the sound of nervous chatter reached my ears. I ducked under a broken tree and pushed though some blackberry bushes. I was just about to push through the last blackberry bush when an angry bee rudely interrupted. I blinked and wondered if bees enjoyed climbing through blackberry bushes just as much as I did. I guess that they can’t really climb, though. They got to fly.
I’d always wanted to be able to fly. Ever since I was 4. When I was 6 years old, I had launched myself out of my bedroom window from the second floor. I was positive that my Spiderman blanket parachute would save me if I failed to fly. Unfortunately, gravity took over and I fell and broke my leg. I never forgave Spidey for that.

I swatted away the bee and almost ninja-like – if I do say so myself – rolled through the last prickly blackberry bush. I collided with someone’s back and tripped over a heavy object. My head hit the ground and a burst of laughter erupted behind me. Recollecting my damaged reputation, I stood up and frowned. Jack smirked and looked awfully feline. I wondered if he was related to my neighbour’s cat, Maisie. I mentally drew whiskers and a black nose on his face.
“Took your time,” he stated in a bored voice. I reached my hand up to my face and wiped away the small trickles of blood and dirt that stuck to my skin. Shrugging indifferently, I dragged my feet across the dirt and crouched down next to the rusty train tracks. Bo crouched down on the opposite side of the tracks and stared sceptically at me. His hippy headband and long brown hair reminded me of a kid in the paper who died from overdosing on E. I’m pretty sure that Bo wouldn’t take drugs, though. He’s one of those guys who are full of words, but empty of actions.
“Come on already, how long is it gonna take you to build this goddamn wall?” Porsche threw a rock at my head. To be quite honest, it really hurt. I usually try to be quite macho about things, but the bee had annoyed me enough for one day.
I jumped to my feet and a muffled growl escaped my mouth. I leaped at Porsche and punched his perfect complexioned face into [almost] oblivion. Porsche squealed like a pig about to get turned into chops and attempted to scratch my eyes out with his pink nails.
“Get off me, you ogre! You’re ruining my face and my perfect-ness, bitch!”
Jack hauled me off Porsche and pinned my arms behind my back, yelling in my ear to calm down. Ignoring Jack’s words, I aimed a kick at the squirming piglet’s head and, unfortunately, missed. “You stupid fag, what was your mother thinking, naming you after a bleeding car? I hate you!”
Jack half threw me to the ground and pointed to a pile of rubbish nearby, obscuring my view of Porsche. I narrowed my eyes and looked around Jack at Porsche who was still on the ground, making melodramatic facial expressions. He caught my eye and shook his fist at me before up-righting himself and stalking to the nearest shadow to fix his hair and face.
“Stay away from me, princess.” I muttered, rolling my eyes at the scratch marks Porsche had made on my arms. I hope I broke his nails and got blood on his hair. Raoul, who I hadn’t noticed before, went over to console him with colourful gumballs and hairspray we had hidden away for moments like these.

Porsche and I had never really gotten along all that well. He regularly remarked on my “depressing choice of clothing and hair colour” while primping in his pocket mirror. He was very excited all the time and made me tired.
Once, in year 7, Porsche and I were on our way to art class. While I was half listening to him talk about canaries in South Africa, I had tripped over a cracked piece of pavement and dropped my paints. It was Porsche’s unlucky day, as the paints splattered all over his new, white designer shoes. Personally, I thought it made them look better and very artistic, but before I could even open my mouth – let alone get up off of the ground – he had bent down and slapped my face before marching to the principal’s office. I was suspended from school for a week and had to clean off all of the paint from his white shoes. I didn’t bother; he wasn’t going to wear them anyway, and he already had bought a new pair the day after the accident.
In some ways, I’m proud to be the second-hand adopted father of future eurotrash. No matter how weird that sounds, I’d appreciate it if you’d shut your face about this situation and if you didn’t repeat my memories to anyone.

Jack pointed again to the rubbish pile, “That’s about all the stuff you’ll need I think. So … when you’re ready, I guess,” Bo, who had watched the brawl from a safe distance in the shadows, walked over to the pile and began to sift through the trash.
Jack moved into the shade of a tree and checked his watch, “It’s about … 10:30 now, so the train should be passing through in about an hour and fifteen minutes.” Making a face, I got to my feet and crossed the rails to where Bo was holding up a piece of scrap metal.
“What about this?” Bo asked, holding the metal up higher and waving it in front of his face. I grunted and he peered over the top of the metal before throwing it onto the train tracks. I bent down and picked up a broken brick. I threw a quick glance over my shoulder at Porsche and imagined his head if I threw the brick at it. Weighing the possibilities of him getting brain damage and dying, I agreed with myself that he already had brain damage from looking at too much queer porn. I added the brick to the pile of stuff on the tracks.
I left Bo to search for more building material, while I began to build the wall across the train tracks. I glanced at Jack who was now lying down in the shadows. To be honest, he looked half dead. I threw a stick in his direction and he lifted one arm, sticking his middle finger up at me. I chuckled quietly to myself and placed a plank of damp wood on the bottom of the track. I stacked some broken bricks on top of the wood and attempted to stick them together with mud [I’m not going to tell you how I made mud without water]. I then tried to reinforce the wall by leaning the scrap metal against the bricks and tying an old rope around it all. I stood back and admired my … creation.
Porsche bounced over, the argument forgotten easily with his hair done back up. He looked so cheerful, I thought my skull would spontaneously combust. I envisioned whiskers and a tail exploding out of Porsche, his tail wagging one hundred and fifty times a minute. I have a dog. But it’s so inbred, I think it’s part emu. Its name is Pichu, after the baby Pokémon which evolves into Pikachu. Yes, yes. Pokémon is for losers, but I was a loser back when I was 8. Lucky for me, my Pokémon trainer has won badges and trained me so I have evolved into a non-loser. Bwahaha.
I eyed Porsche suspiciously. He cocked his head to one side and attempted to look like some artistic douche.
“It looks …” A million praising descriptive words flashed though my thoughts. “Like something a baby vomited out,” he confirmed, nodding his head before disappearing into a blackberry bush.
I glared at Porsche and stalked over to Raoul, muttering to myself. “Your hair looks like something a baby vomited out,” Bo continued my unfinished baby vomit wall.
Raoul’s chestnut hair had obviously been attacked by our dear little princess with the hairspray. It stuck up in all directions; some sort of sick creation Porsche had planned to destroy people’s vision and creativity sense.
Raoul shrugged and tucked the corner of his mouth up, “It does look fairly crappy, Jeremy. You know, maybe you should take it down. I don’t think that it’s gonna make the train stop.” He paused and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, “Why would you want the train to stop anyway? I mean, it’s a pretty stupid idea in the first place.”
I blinked. Why were we building a wall on the train tracks? I thought Jack wanted to do it, not me. And to hell with why Porsche was even here … “I dunno. Just … we’re teenagers, right? We’re meant to do this stuff.” I nodded and walked over to the pathetic wall which Bo had given up on. Bo and Jack were in the shade, sitting. I’m sure that they had caught a fly and were trying to pull its wings off. They were concentrating very hard, something they don’t like to do often.
Porsche emerged from the blackberry bush, his face twisted in disgust, “Awh, look what happened to my jacket! OH EM GEE, I broke a nail!” A string of curses followed as he pulled out a nail file and began casually filing his nails. He sniffed and looked around, twisting his lips into intimidating shapes. I spied something attached to the bottom of his shoe, but wasn’t about to mention anything just in case he panicked.
Raoul raised his eyebrows at me and cleared his throat. I wondered if anything significant was going to happen, but decided that nothing was going to and sat down next to a blackberry bush. I plucked a blackberry from the bush and examined it closely. It would definitely squish if I threw it at Porsche’s head. And most likely cause some damage … maybe it’d stain a little bit of his bleach blonde, pink tipped hair. Utter. Horror; Oh my god.