normally came in the woods ‘cos it weren’t easy to get to ‘cos it was sort of cut off by the river at the back. He got in the pipe with me and he started askin’ me to lay down wiv ‘im and said I should take me coat off and if I did he’d take me ‘ome wiv ‘im and give me some food. He grabbed ‘old of me and put ‘is ‘ands inside me coat and rubbed me skin but I shouted for the dogs and they came back and bit ‘im loads of times and after a while he stopped yellin’ and laid down on the ground and he were covered in blood and then he stopped makin’ any noise any more and then they started biting ‘is clothes off ‘im and then they ate ‘im. It took ‘em ages and they kept lookin’at me like askin’ me did I want to eat some of ‘im but I didn’t want to. I’d never eaten no meat that hadn’t been cooked before and I didn’t want to get blood all round me face like they did. In the end there was nuffin’ left of that bloke and sometimes I used to wonder wevver that really ‘appened or not but then ever such a long time later I was down near the river and I saw one of ‘is shoes. One night I was sleepin’ in the pipe and all the dogs were out scrappin’. I don’t know where they went but a lot of ‘em was bleedin’ when they came back. Anyway, while they was away some rats came in the pipe. It was snowin’ outside and I reckon they wanted to be in the warm in the dogs’ beds and eat some of the bones that was in the pipe. I couldn’t fight all the rats so I went and got the petrol tin that I’d found in the service station near the bins. I hid it away in the woods when I found it. Then when I opened it, I poured a bit on my hands and it made my skin go icy cold then it burned so I put the lid back on it. So I went and got the petrol and I took the top off and I chucked it on the rats and they all started squealin’ and ran away. Then there was a long, long time and then annuver man came. There was lots of blue lights flashin’ and that screechin’ sound those police cars make. I ran round to the bins to see what was goin’ on and a motorbike came really fast into the service station and it sort of fell over and was slidin’ and he was slidin’ wiv it then the motorbike crashed into all the petrol pumps. He sort of stood up then he started runnin’ towards the woods. Then there was a ‘splosion and lots of fire. I ran away and went back to the pipe to hide but when I got inside it he was sittin’ in there takin’ off his helmet and his big gloves. He put his finger to his lips and said, ‘shush,’ like me muvver used to when I was cryin’ and called me over to sit next to ‘im. I was frightened and I was going to run away and get the dogs but then he started lookin’ really tired and sort of fell over and went to sleep. I crawled over to ‘im and he was just layin’ there and then I saw that his trousers was all ripped and his leg was all bleedin.’ I went and got some water from the plastic bottles what I find in the bins and some rags and some paper, then I wiped lots of the blood off and wrapped his leg up like I’d seen my mum do on the man who came round once what had been drinkin’ and fightin’. Then I went back to the bins and there was a big fire and there was fire engines and they was sprayin’ water on to it and there was lots of policemen and they were all writing and talking to each other but they never came into the woods. They must have thought that the man had died in the fire.
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