Chapter One

It started when I was ten.

I was ten when my parents decided to uproot our little family and transplant from Birmingham to Brickhedge, Lancashire. They’d decided that I was done with Catholic school. But instead of simply transferring me to a public school in Birmingham, what do they do? They decide to move miles and miles away, disguising the pointlessness of the situation by saying it was to help improve my health. It doesn’t make any sense.

But then again, they never have made sense, and I doubt that they ever will.

So I was forced to leave my makeshift womb: my close-knit, small Catholic boys’ primary school. I entered a public school, and in a couple of years, I went on to secondary school.

Really, secondary school? I actually mean hell. That was where I began to get taunted and bullied, to the point where I couldn’t take it. They called me names because of my hair and eyes. Ginger-Minger. Frogeyes. Irish Bastard Child. And after they found out about my hemophilia? I could not walk down hallways without hearing shouts and jeers of “We’ve got a bleeder! We’ve got a bleeder!”

I’m so glad I was able to leave those horrible years behind in those dreadful corridors. It’s a wonder I’m not crazy because of all that rubbish. Amazing, really.

Though in actuality, I did almost go mad.

This is my story.