It's a spring afternoon and if I concentrate very hard I can hear the birds chirruping outside

It's a spring afternoon and if I concentrate very hard, I can hear the birds chirruping outside. The house is silent except for the faint sound of sobs just discernable intermittently. Inarticulate sounds of grief that pierce my soul. Sometimes they are my sobs, sometimes hers, mostly I can't tell the difference. Sobs that start from the deep part of my stomach where the muscles ache like an arthritic old man's and up through my gut and into my throat where they almost choke me shaking my shoulders till my teeth rattle. My breath is coming in fast gasps as if I'd been running the blocks home from school to get away from the bully boy gang that waits to get me cos I'm skinny and small and have no dad. The boys who hide behind fences to jump me cos my clothes are worn and call me trash.

I'm hurting somewhere, maybe everywhere. It's too dark to see the bruises and the cuts so I guess I shall have to wait till someone comes and lets me out before I can take an inventory or I could always shuffle over to where the light streaks through the small window in the far wall. I've been standing up leaning against the staircase for what seems like an eternity, afraid of the pain if I try to move to sit down. He caught the back of my legs with his belt buckle this time, near the top, across my bottom too. But it's the top of my legs that hurt the most where there isn't as much clothing to protect my skin. I can feel something damp round there, could be blood. I could be bleeding; it's hard to tell. I may have wet myself; if that's the case, I'll be in for another beating for sure unless I can hide it from him. I get so numb there it can be hard to tell. I rub my hand gently across the sore and swollen part of my thigh, bring my fingers to my nose, and sniff. It's a metallic smell I recognise and I fight the buckling of my knees, got to keep standing, can't fall over. There's a smell of damp and stale urine in here that is making me queasy.

Wish I knew what I did to get him mad at me this time, wish I could run faster, get away from him. But then I guess I'd have to come back for Mom anyway. If he doesn't beat me, he'll get her instead and she's too ill to take it. I try to follow his instructions but sometimes it's too hard, my fingers just won't do what he wants. One day I'll show him. I'll do what he wants and he won't beat me any more. I'll make him proud of me and then he'll buy me nice clothes and a bag for my books. I have a hockey stick Uncle Harry bought for me last birthday. Sometimes I think I'll hit him with it but I have never dared. I'm real good at hockey; I'm in a team.

My stomach is growling. Can't remember when I last ate anything more than a scrap of bread. Mom gave me breakfast yesterday morning before I went to school, I think she did, sometimes I have difficulty remembering things. She was well enough to come down and she'd gotten dressed too. She looked like she used to and I told her that. He wasn't around. She showed me a picture of my Dad, my real Dad. I think she'd been looking through her old stuff, the stuff she keeps in boxes in the attic. When he's away, she goes up there if she's feeling strong enough. The picture was an old one and he was wearing a uniform, before he went to the war. Mom told me the war killed him before I was born but he was a good man who worked hard and laughed a lot and he made Mom laugh too. She said I could keep it so I hid it away where Ned will never find it. I have secret places. She had some letters from him, from when he wrote her from the war. He had nice handwriting, not like my scrawl. I bet he got straight As at school for his handwriting, I never will and Ned never did.

She showed me something else once but I try not to think about it. I was thinking about it today though and maybe I mentioned something to him about it. Can't remember when it was exactly. I didn't mean to say what I said, it just slipped out. Anyway it was only a puppy or something, Mom said to tell him that it was just that- a dead puppy. It was tiny enough to fit in one of her hands and covered in blood and Mom just sat there holding it. The blood was all over her dress; her legs and her feet were brown and bare. I couldn't take my eyes off of it in her hands. She said she couldn't walk, and would I fetch a towel to wrap it in and then she wanted me to bury it in the yard. When I took it from her, it was cold and I thought as I wrapped it that it looked very pink in the places where there was no blood. It had no fur on it. I never held a dead animal before. Whilst I was digging the hole to put it in I could not stop crying. The tears just ran and ran and I could not stop. I buried it as deep and as quickly as I could and fled back to the kitchen where she was still sitting like she was in a trance. You mustn't tell anyone she said. And if they ask it was just a poor puppy. I nodded at her, eager to please and led her to the bathroom where I helped her clean up before he found her in a mess. If she was messed up like that when he got home there'd be trouble for sure. One of us would get it. I still wonder now if it was a boy or a girl. I'm thinking about it now, fact is I can't stop thinking about it. Whenever I see blood, I think about that poor dead thing still under the cold ground out there. I think that one day I will join it. Some days I really want to join it in the earth away from him and the harsh world. But then I think about mom and how she needs me here with her, protecting her. Why does she let him stay? He wasn't always here. I think there was a time when it was just the two of us and we had happy times together. I'll close my eyes and I'll try to remember what it was like before he came and made us suffer. And if I can't remember then I'll dream. Yeh, that's what I'll do, I'll dream and the pain will go away.