The box lay some way off, unnoticed. Donna heard a voice, from somewhere.
(Hardly anything is true about me.)
She bent down to the box, touched it in secret. (I want everybody to know that.) The carvings slid apart, making darkness. (Read the true confessions.) She put her hand through the aperture. (Reveal all, reveal all.) Clutched at something wet and slippery, like catching a fish with bare hands.
(Let someone write it for me.)
Donna didn't know where the writer lived, didn't know where the letters were made. (It wouldn't be truthful.) She was already late for the afternoon shift, but suddenly nothing mattered any more, nothing at all. (You have to be special.) This was hers now, this warm, squirming thing inside her palm.
(You have to be very special.)
She didn't dare open her hands until she was five streets away.
(It wouldn't be truthful otherwise.)
It was the letter J. Without knowing why, the young bookseller knew it stood for Junior.
(Reveal all, reveal all.)
Donna started to run.
JUNIOR PIMP
My name is William Wheeler, and I wish my mum and dad hadn't given me those two Ws, but there's nothing much I can do about it except call myself Liam. Which I tried for a few years, but the other kids just kept on calling me Willy Wheels, and that's just one example of the things I've had to put up with. And people wring their hands in shame, and dare to ask why it was that I became a Junior Pimp.
Well, keep reading, because I'm going to tell you exactly how it happened, and I'm going to tell it in my own way. The paper offered to let someone write it for me, but I refused, saying it wouldn't be truthful otherwise.
I'm eleven years old, nearly twelve. I became the famous Junior Pimp when I was only ten, which I think must be a record, certainly for this country. I've given up being the famous Junior Pimp now, and I'll give the reason for that as well, but to learn why you'll have to keep buying this newspaper, won't you?
Nothing could be further from the truth. I've always done pretty good at school, especially at art, which is my favourite. I like to draw, and my hobbies include watching television, listening to music, and reading. I've never been very good at things like football or tennis or cricket, and my dad was always telling me off about this, saying when was I going to be a proper man like the other kids? But apart from that, I've had a very happy childhood, compared to some, the kids from the Shakespeare Estate that backs on to our street for instance. My mum was very angry when the council built the estate, apparently, so my dad kept telling me, and she wanted to move straight away. They were saving up for a better house, in a better part of town.
My mum says it's a joke that the council called it the Shakespeare Estate, and that all the streets are named after characters from his plays. She's a bit of a snob really, and I hope she doesn't mind me saying that, because I know I've caused her problems lately, ever since it came out that I was a Junior Pimp. But I've promised to be truthful,
so she'll just have to put up with it, anyway she's not complaining about the money I'm getting for writing these world-exclusive confessions.
I always liked to play with the kids from the estate, because they were more fun than the ones in our street, far less boring. There was one kid in particular that everybody wanted to hang out with, his real name is Paul Holland, but everybody called him Dutch. He lived on MacDuff Park, which is really grotty and not a park at all, but who's to blame for that, the council I reckon. Dutch was the same age as me, but older if you know what I mean, and the leader of a gang that called themselves the Parkas, because they lived on the Park, and also because they wore these long parka coats, even in the summer. You had to have one to be in the gang. I asked my mum to buy me one, but she wouldn't, they weren't posh enough. But I really, really wanted to join Dutch's gang, and would do anything to hang out with them, even if they were always making fun of me and calling me Willy Wheels.
I'll tell you how I got to be a member of the Parka Gang, without even needing one of them snazzy coats. Dutch and his mates were hanging out at the busted playground one day, when I came to find them. I think they liked to have me around just to make fun of, but I was beyond caring by then. Anyway, they had these magazines that Dutch had got from somewhere. Girlie mags they were. I'd never seen one before, not close up enough to study. I was amazed! Open legs and everything. They weren't hardcore or anything, but I'd never seen a woman before, naked I mean, even if they were only photographs. I wasn't excited by them, not in my body I mean, and it's important to remember that fact for later on. No, it was just the idea of them that got me going. I was excited in my head. I wasn't thinking about sex, like Dutch and his mates were. They were going crazy over them, and telling dirty jokes about the women, and explaining how big their thingies were getting, and moaning about the fact that the pictures weren't explicit enough. Me, I was just fascinated by the shapes, the hidden details, the secrets. I tried to pretend that my thingy was getting big as well, but I didn't know what they were talking about. I guess I've always been young for my age.