Kids Can Fly: The Best Present

"You don't need food!" the men said, "You're fat enough!"

I told them it wasn't fair but they laughed. I was pushed out of the room and shoved into the back seat of the car again. The guy with sunglasses lit a cigarette. It had a familiar smell.

"You smoke the same sort of cigarettes as my Dad's brother smokes," I said. John his name was. He had cancer. The doctors had given him about three weeks to live.

He stubbed the cigarette out straight away.

We went through town again, and stopped beside a Park. The driver (that's the guy with the stubble on his chin) got out and walked to the middle of the Park. There was a statue there. A Peter Pan statue. The man sat on the steps in the shadow of the statue and waited. Nothing happened for a while, then I saw a limo cruising towards us. It slowed down and stopped. A man got out. It looked like my father. He had a black suitcase. He walked to the statue and stopped. The other man signalled to the two men in the car with me to get ready. I got out and started to walk.

Suddenly, there was shot. The man with the stubbly chin had a gun in his hand, and he was pointing it at my Dad. I saw my Dad step backwards, grabbing his chest. He dropped the suitcase. The other man grabbed the suitcase and ran towards the car.

"Let's get out of here!" he shouted.

"No!" I was saying, "Not my Dad!"

The suitcase hit me and the two men held me down. A gag was shoved into my mouth so all I could do was make useless noises.

The three men didn't notice. The car squealed away from the side of the road, with white smoke coming from under the back tires, and we shot down the road. At the first comer the driver slowed right down and went carefully. He never said a word. I didn't know whether to scream or cry. I suddenly realized that, for all I'd said about him, I really did love my Dad. Sure, he wasn't much of one, but he was all I had, and now I wanted him. More than anything in the world I wanted him.

We drove through town and out to the country. Then we stopped. Another car came up to us and stopped. Guess who got out of it?

My Dad!