A city park. A cloudburst.

A boy in tattered trainers runs round and round a chestnut tree. He shakes his dripping head from side to side, and roars at the pelting sky. He’s been running since the torrent began, ten minutes ago.

A crop-haired girl watches from the shelter of the bandstand. The hood of her coat barely conceals the marks of old cigarette burns on her face.

The rain stops. The crazy boy is between her and the way home; she has no choice but to pass close by him. Pulling the hood of her camouflage coat close, she leaves the bandstand and walks quickly towards the park gates.

The boy has stopped running, and leans with one hand against the tree, the other hand pressed to his ribs. The clouds break, and a stream of sunshine lights the crocuses in the grass. He notices the girl hurrying past, and breaks out in an embarrassed grin.

"Whoa! I thought I was alone," he says, still breathless. "You must think I’m nuts. I love running in the rain.."

He seems normal. The girl returns his grin.

"It’s a free country," she says. "They can’t lock you up for it."

"They can lock you up for breathing if they want," he says.

"You’re shivering. Where’s your coat?"

"I lost it."

"You’ll catch your death. How far d’you live?"

He shrugs. "Wherever. Under this tree usually."

"I’m in a squat," she says. " You can come back to get dry if you want."

"Honest? You’re a star."

The boy reaches into a hole in the tree and takes out a plastic carrier bag, which he tucks under his arm.

"I’m Winnie," she says as they walk.

"I’m Carl. Hey, thanks for this."

"What’s in there?" she asks him.

"My stuff."

------------------

"You’ve been in care, haven’t you?"

Winnie is perched on the arm of an old green Dralon-covered chair. The boy kneels on the rug, rubbing his hair with a thin towel. His head snaps up.

"How can you tell?" He glares at her, defensive.

Winnie throws him a jumper.

"Take your shirt off, I’ll hang it out the back window. It’ll dry if the sun stays out. "

The boy stares hard at her.

"Takes one to know one, Carl. I’ve been out three years. What about you? Did you abscond? You’re not sixteen."

"I AM sixteen; it was my birthday three weeks ago. So that was that. Out in the big wide world. I couldn’t wait to get out. But it’s hard, surviving. When you’ve got no-one."

"They shouldn’t send you out with nowhere to go."

"Well, I went to my mum and dad. They’d agreed to help me, till I got on my feet. But Mum wasn’t there when I arrived. Just my dad. I don’t know where she was, he wouldn’t talk about her. There was no furniture either. He’d sold everything to buy drink. When I woke up the first morning after I arrived, he’d already sold my coat and boots. And my headset and tapes. He was drunk the whole three days I was there. Sold everything I’d got. Except the Band."

Then he grins, and picks up the plastic shopping bag from the floor.

"D’you want to see the Stumbleband?"

He takes out a cardboard box, its lid held on with string. He peels the newspaper wrapping from a small object and passes it to Winnie. It’s a fired clay figure, a little singing man with a guitar. His shirt is red, his trousers and brimmy hat green. His mouth is open in song. Winnie laughs delightedly. The little musician is so real and vibrant, she can almost hear him play.

"It’s brilliant. Where’d you get it?"

"I made it," he says. "I went to pottery classes. I made loads of them. Some mates nicked the others. I’ve still got seven though."

Carefully, he strips the scraps of newspaper from a strolling drummer, a flautist, a girl in a twirling yellow dress, her arms held high as she rattles a tambourine.

"You’re really clever. I wish I was artistic," she says.

" There’s nothing to it, honest. Keep one. I was going to hang on to the rest. Cos it’s seven. A magic number. But you helped me, so you can pick one to keep."

"Oh no Carl, you should keep the seven. You don’t have to give me anything; I just lent you a towel. It’s nothing."

"It WOULD be something if you let me stay a few days. I’ve been sleeping outside for a fortnight. Apart from that night in the police cells."

"I can’t do that, Carl. I’m sorry. It’s not my squat. We’ve agreed not to take any more. We may’ve been spotted; we have to be careful. My friends won’t like it that I’ve brought you here at all. It’s a big risk."

"It’s O.K." His smile is placatory. "You can still have one of these."

"No, Carl, I want you to keep them. Keep the seven. You shouldn’t split them up, they’re a band."

The boy is quiet for a moment. Then he jumps up, pleased.

"There’s something better I can give you."

He takes the last item from his bag, shrugs off its paper wrapping.

"Fairyland."

He holds the tin of glue to his cheek as though it were silk or fur. Winnie jumps to her feet.

"Carl, no. Not glue. It’s bad news. I’m clean now. We’re all clean in here. You don’t want to do this stuff, it’s for losers."

"It’s great. Come on, you’ve done it before."

"You’ve got to go."

"You don’t mean it."

He’s still smiling."You’ve done a bit of everything, haven’t you, Winnie? Who gave you those, anyway?" He indicates the cigarette burns on her face.

"Nobody did. Me. I did it myself. In care. You know what it’s like, you’ll do anything to blot the misery out. But I’ve stopped doing self-destruct. I’m getting a life. No drugs. No burns. I stopped, Carl. You could stop."

"Course I could. I don’t want to though." He is moulding the bag round the nozzle.

"You can’t do that in here. They’ll go crackers if they find you doing glue in here." She lunges forward, snatches the tin, tries to hold it up out of his reach. That’s when he sees the fresh burns on her arm.

"Oh, right. Clean now, are you?" he shouts. "Stopped doing self-destruct? I don’t think so. You’ve got to have a way of shutting it all out. Burning yourself is yours. And this is mine."

As he struggles to take the can from her, his elbow makes sharp contact with her face. She gasps and falls. Carl retrieves the can, quickly wraps it and the Stumbleband back in their newspaper and throws them into the bag. He pulls off the borrowed jumper, slips back into his damp shirt.

"I’m sorry. I’m sorry," he says. " I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry." He is crying. "I’m going now. You won’t see me again."

He pulls back the broken sheet of laminate that covers the hole in the door, crouches down to step through. Then he changes his mind, runs back to Winnie. He ferrets in the bag, finds the girl with the tambourine.

"Please. Please will you keep her? I’m sorry. I don’t hit girls ."

He puts the little figure on the carpet close to Winnie’s face. She is crying silently. He wants to run, but more than that he needs to make it right. He tries to help her up, but she flinches away from him. Carl crumples to the floor, distraught.

"I‘ve done it again," he sobs. "Anything good that happens, I spoil it. I always have to spoil it."

Winnie struggles to her knees. Her nose is bleeding. She puts her arms around his shoulders, and they hold each other, two lost children, on the threadbare carpet.

--------------

"I WILL stop burning myself," Winnie says at last. They are both spent with crying. "I hardly ever do it now. It’s just when I remember that I’m nobody. No family. No skills. No use to anybody. That’s when I do it, when I remember I’m nothing."

"I know." Carl wipes his eyes with his damp shirt.

"But YOU’RE not nobody. You’ve got talent. And you’re wasting it, sniffing glue. How can you waste yourself like that, when you can make beautiful things? I’d give anything to be able to do something that great, something that makes me somebody."

"That’s rubbish. You are somebody. You’re a good person, you’re kind, you’ve got friends. You’re sorting yourself out. You’re not a loser, like me."

Winnie takes the bag and gently unwraps each strolling player. She lines them up on the window ledge in the watery sunshine; the sky blue flute player, the white and gold drummer, the girl in red and black playing marraccas, the singing guitar player, the girl in green blowing a penny whistle, the boy in gold with silver bells on his wrists and ankles. And the girl with the tambourine, twirling her skirt at the end of the line.

"You don’t even know how talented you are, "she says. "Look , Carl. Just look at what you’ve made. You’re no loser. You’re an artist."

As she turns the little dancer in her hand, Carl sees it suddenly through Winnie’s eyes, in all its grace and vivid life. He has the sensation that his world is cracking open like an egg. He has never been told that he has anything to offer, has believed only in the reject Carl, the no-hoper Carl. He has lived so long without a future, the sudden crowding in of possibility terrifies him. He jumps to his feet.

"I’m off," he says.

"You can’t run away."

"I don’t want to run away," he says. "I just want to run. And not in circles round a tree, either. I want to run wherever I like, as long as I like. I’ll be back for the band."

"I’ll take care of them," Winnie calls after him as he runs off down the street.

"I know you will," Carl calls back to her. "I’ll be back soon. Chuck that can away."

END