Too Much Trouble by Tom Avery Page B

players got up and came over. ‘Don’t you worry, just go and sit yourselves down.’ She pointed us through to another room. We went and sat down.
    We stayed in that room all night. We didn’t know where my uncle had gone. Prince cried a lot. I didn’t.I’ve never really been one for crying.
    In the morning my uncle took us to the house with the plants. We never saw where he lived again.

Chapter 18
    I used to love playing football with Prince. I mean just me and him. Before we met Jamal and everyone else, me and Prince were best friends. I guess he was my only real friend. He was the only person who knew all about me.
    Just me and Prince with a football, in a park or in our garden, before it got too overgrown. We didn’t even need goal-posts or anything. We just ran around chasing the ball, trying to tackle each other.
    Prince was much better than me, he could do all sorts of skills. He would watch different players and try to copy them, or watch the older kids at school. He was much more skilful butI was stronger, so it was quite an even match.
    I remember sunny days, days when most people would call it hot, playing in the park. A big open space in front of us. We could run and laugh and shout as much as we wanted. We didn’t need to be quiet or to be invisible. No one was watching us there. After a while I didn’t even notice anyone else. Just the ball and my brother.
    â€˜Watch this!’ Prince would pant. Then he’d attempt some new trick that he’d learnt. Trying to thread the ball through my legs or through his own. Sometimes he’d get past me, laughing or shouting, ‘Come and get me, slow-coach!’ Sometimes I’d force him off the ball and I’d be the one laughing.
    It reminded me of home. Of running and laughing and playing with my father. Me and Prince and Dadda. Mum would often watch us running around outside. She would clap her hands together and call encouragement. ‘Go on, Emmy!’ or ‘Keep chasing, my little Prince!’
    Me and Prince were best friends then. But we weren’t best friends any more, after we joined the gang. We went our separate ways, Prince with Jamal and Ibby and Kieran, and me with Terri.
    Prince was ‘one of the boys’. When we wereworking, he usually worked with Jamal or Ibby, or sometimes Kieran. I thought I might write, ‘they were thick as thieves’, but they
were
thieves, so I couldn’t really.
    That’s not to say that me and Prince stopped being close. Well, not straight away. He was still my brother. So sometimes I would do my stealing with Prince, or with Prince and his friends. Other days I would work with Terri or Kammy or Sastre.
    I liked working with Prince or Terri the best. It was usually really fun with Prince. We laughed and played and it felt, well, it felt like we were brothers. Although along with the fun it was scary. As the days went by and Prince became more and more adapted to the gang life, he became more and more angry. Angry like my uncle. Sometimes when we were working, he’d screw his face up and he’d even look like my uncle. Then I knew someone could get hurt.
    A few weeks after we started stealing, I worked with Prince for the last time. He had stolen loads, as usual. He didn’t stop, but almost ran from one steal to the next.
    â€˜Come on, Em,’ he hissed when I slowed him down. I had only stopped to tie my shoe-lace.
    We had lunch with Jamal and his friends. Princealways did, and when I was working with Prince I had to as well. We had burgers and chips, which made me think of our first day in London. I remembered a terrified, silent Prince, but he was long gone.
    As we were eating, an old man came over to us. He looked different from anyone I’d ever seen. He wore a spotty piece of material round his neck which billowed out of his shirt. He also had a wooden walking stick and a hat made of straw, perched on his head.
    â€˜So why