Young Writers Society

When you’re young, you dream. You think that the world will be this amazing place that you’re free to explore and enjoy and you think that you’ll live off the thing you love doing most. That’s what I thought. And, in a way, I’d been right. I had done a little exploring – I could name at least fifty places in England and Ireland that I had been to. I was enjoying my life – I had done my fair share of partying at university. I made a living doing what I loved most – I took photos. However, nothing had turned out exactly as I’d planned. I had gone back to Ireland after high school so that I could study at the same university my dad had graduated from, but university would never be the right place for me so I dropped out before the end of my first year. Then I moved back to England to live in London. I told everybody that it was to chase my dream of being a photographer but I could have taken photos in Ireland if I’d wanted; the real reason was that my dad had thrown me out and I didn’t want to be around him anymore.

Now, I lived in a pokey one bed apartment that I sometimes struggled to pay the rent on because it was in the middle of the thriving capital. I paid my rent and bills by working as a waiter in a grotty café in the evenings and setting up the equipment for other photographers during the day. Occasionally, I got to take a few photos but taking pictures of page three girls isn’t nearly as satisfying as I’d thought it’d be when I saw the advertisement in my Sunday paper. I used to be able to cope with it because, when I went home, everything was made better by Julie. She had been my girlfriend. Going home to her made that small apartment seem less claustrophobic and more comfortable. She left me for a man with more money. He was a simple office worker but with the respect he had in society he would one day be running the company he worked for. I didn’t have the same prospects waiting for me in my future.

Every night I return to my apartment, microwave a dinner for myself, check my messages, eat and go to sleep. The next day, I get up, shower, get dressed, eat and go to work. I won’t complain because I know that there are a lot of people who have it a lot worse off than I do. I just wish that life was a little more interesting.

Then I got the call.

I came home from my shift at the café, picking up my post as I closed the door, and hit the play button on my answer machine. Walking into the kitchen, I leafed through my post, as a message from my mother played out over the speakers, pleading with me to come back home for Christmas. It reminded me that the joyful holiday would be right in front of my eyes in less than a week and the idea of spending it alone almost made me talk myself into going. Amongst my usual post I found a strange envelope. It was long, thin and cream and my name and address were handwritten on the front. It wasn’t stamped. I began to tear at the envelope. Then the answerphone shrieked and another message started to play.

“Hey man, it’s me, Sam.”

I didn’t need him to tell me who it was. I recognised the voice immediately – how could I forget? I ducked back out of my tiny kitchen and stared at my phone.

“You know why I’m calling, right?”

“No,” I answered.

“I got a letter and I’m pretty sure that you guys have probably all got the same letter. A letter from James?”

The mention of that name made me freeze on the spot. James Golding was the first friend I made in England. My family had moved over from Ireland when I was eleven so I went to high school in the outskirts of London. James had befriended me on the first day. He was good looking, outgoing and generally easy to talk to and those qualities combined with his family’s wealth made him very popular in our school. He was a great guy most of the time and I had considered him a very close friend over those five years, even after the massive fallout we had in year nine, but, sometimes, he would demonstrate sides of his character that I couldn’t like as easily.

“Anyway, call me back when you get this,” Sam’s voice instructed, leaving his number before saying his goodbyes. The answerphone shrieked again and then there was silence. I stood there staring at my phone for a few moments, still slightly shell shocked. I shouldn’t be really. Jimmy was many things and a serious arsehole at times, but he was always loyal, honest and he never broke a promise. I should’ve known that he’d bring us all together again.

By the end of the five years of high school, there were six of us and we had made a lot of memories together. Samuel Whitehead was a simple guy who would often speak without thinking and that led to a lot of jokes that only the six of us understood. He had been a chubby kid, not fat but not muscular – he just had that naturally rounded shape that parents always refer to as puppy fat. With that warm smile permanently plastered to his face, he was impossible to hate and he always had a circle of people around him, but we five were the only ones he ever referred to as friends.

I stared back down at the envelope in my hand. How had I not noticed before that my name was written in James’s pigeon scrawl handwriting? I pulled the letter out of the envelope and quickly unfolded it scanning every word.

To Danny,

I am writing one of these letters to each of you to make sure you keep our promise. We were together all through high school, but I know that after that we had to go our separate ways. However, I don’t know about you, but those were the happiest days of my life, even the incredibly boring maths lessons. So, it’s time that we all got together again. So here it is. 5:30 p.m. at that little café we ended up at on my 14th birthday on the 21st December. You’d better all turn up.

Miss you loads

James Golding

The letter was short and to the point – Jimmy never was one for beating about the bush. I sighed, feeling the paper crumple in my hands and as it did I slipped back into the past, to the day that I met Jimmy for the first time.

I walked in through the front door of the school, weaving through the crowds and following whoever was at the front to wherever it was we were supposed to be going. I stood out in the crowd. I had always been tall for my age and by the time I turned eleven I was at least a foot taller than the rest of the guys in my year. I hated being that tall. I didn’t really want to stand out too much and, unfortunately, being tall attracts people’s attention. Combine that with my accent and unwanted attention has a tendency to follow me around like a plague.

To compensate, I ducked my head, staring at the feet of the people in front of me to guide me, and I didn’t purposely do anything to make myself the centre of attention. It was something I was usually good at but, that morning, I was a little distracted. I’d had a nasty argument with my dad about him dropping me off on my first day; my relationship with my father had become rather choppy since I had asked him for a professional camera for Christmas. According to him, I was getting too wrapped up in a childish hobby. After that, we began arguing about stupid little things, unimportant things. Because of that, I wasn’t paying enough attention to the feet in front of me, so I didn’t notice when they disappeared, or when a new, stationary pair took their place. I walked right into someone as they backed up a little.

Startled, I was pulled out of my daydream and embarrassment made me flush bright red and slur my words slightly as I rushed to apologise. I finally raised my head to meet the eyes of my victim and was met by a wide grin.

“S’allright mate,” the boy I’d walked into said. “Equally my fault.” He widened his grin at me, staring up at me. He wasn’t exactly short himself, but I was still a good seven or eight inches taller than him. He had golden, almost mousey brown hair and piercing blue eyes. His shoulders were broad for his age and you could tell by looking at him that he was quite sporty. This was Jimmy.

I turned to walk away and, normally, that would probably have been the end of the conversation, but Jimmy wasn’t normal.

“Hey,” he called, starting everything, though he didn’t know that. If he hadn’t called out to me in that moment, we probably wouldn’t have spoken in lessons and we wouldn’t have become friends, but he did. “That accent…You’re Irish right?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled into the ground, attempting to quell my accent.

“Lucky,” he hummed. “Girls love the Irish accent.”

A couple of the guys he was stood with chuckled.

“How long you been in England?” he continued. It was almost as if he thought that if he stopped asking me stuff I’d walk away, which I would.

“A few weeks.”

“Really? That must suck. Now you’re going to high school not knowing anyone.”

I shrugged.

“Well,” he continued, deciding something on his own in that moment without even consulting me, “now you know me.”

At that exact moment, James decided that we were going to be friends. If I had to pick the ten most significant moments in my life, that would be number one. After that he would lock on to me in any room. In our first lesson together, English, he sat down next to me without even asking and introduced himself. He said his surname first, mimicking James Bond and then ruined it by telling me cheerfully to call him Jimmy.

“What’s your name?” he asked, practically glowing with confidence.

“Daniel,” I said. “Daniel MacDowell.”

“Danny then.”

I busied myself with taking out my belongings.

“Hey Danny.”

“Yeah.”

“Can I borrow a pen?”

I turned to the strange boy sat next to me and chuckled. Somehow, I was suddenly at ease.

“Man, you’ve known me like five minutes and you’re already looking to scrounge off me,” I teased.

“Yeah, man, that’s what all friendships are really based on,” he said, laughing.

“The availability of pens?”

“Yeah.”

Now we were both laughing heavily and attracting some attention. It was the first day, so such joyous laughter wasn’t something that was expected in the classroom. I saw the faces of my classmates as they stared at us, stopping with a pen hovering just above my bag. One of the faces was a beautiful girl sat in a group of makeup caked girls in the middle of the room. She had dark brown hair and even darker eyes and her skin was the colour of freshly baked biscuits. She was gorgeous. When our eyes met, she gave me a shy smile before dropping her gaze to the desk. That was Lizzie, Elizabeth Saunders.

Then, the face of another classmate caught my attention, another girl, but much more ordinary looking. She had mousy brown hair that fell just past her shoulders, rounded, pale features, and bright green, feline eyes that were hidden behind red framed glasses. She was scowling. At first I thought she was scowling at me but then I realised that her gaze was directed to the strange boy sat next to me and, when I turned to look at him, I realised why. Tongue sticking out and bottom eyelids pulled down to reveal the pink flesh of the underside, Jimmy was making funny faces at her. The girl sighed and turned back to the front of the class. Jimmy relieved his face.

“Who was that?” I asked, handing him the pen.

“Who?” he said, taking it from me.

“The girl with the mousy hair and the red glasses.”

“Oh, that’s Cassandra Platte.”

“You know her well?”

“Well enough to know she’s annoying. She’s a bookworm, your classic nerd. Unfortunately she’s also my next door neighbour.”

“Poor you,” I said mockingly.