Escaping the Illusion , livre ebook

Andrews UK - Brian Rubenstein

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127 pages

English

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A knife streaked with blood. A teenage gang held in jail. A dangerous man owed a load of money. A life-changing offer too good to refuse.Welcome to the world of fifteen-year-old Evan Banksky, a world that seems to be spinning dangerously out of control. A world that seems impossible to escape. Until he gets some unexpected help from a mysterious group on a mission to reveal the truth behind a great illusion.Embarking on a journey that takes him to places he never imagined, Evan learns that he must look deep within himself to find the answer to a series of profound dilemmas. From the gritty council estates of London to the rolling plains of the African wilderness, join Evan as he confronts his family and his friends, his past and his future, arriving at crucial decisions that will change his life forever.Gripping, funny and full of unforeseen twists and turns, Escaping the Illusion is a thrilling, heart-wrenching novel about discovering the true super-power that exists within us all, even in the most challenging of circumstances.

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Children's

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Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	06 septembre 2018
Nombre de lectures	86
EAN13	9781787053380
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0350€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

ESCAPING THE ILLUSION
Brian RubensteinwithTerry Rubenstein

2018 digital version converted and published by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2018 Brian and Terry Rubenstein
The right of Brian and Terry Rubenstein to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of MX Publishing.
Published in the UK by MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive,
London, N11 3GX
www.mxpublishing.co.uk
Cover design by Joanna Gilbert and Brian Belanger

To
My Sons
A most remarkable group of young men

ILLUSION (noun): a deceptive appearance or impression. a false idea or belief.

1
As is almost always the case, it started with a misunderstanding.
“Hey, time’s up. It’s our turn now.”
The voice belonged to a young male - neither a boy, nor fully a man - in torn blue jeans and a dark hoodie. It was hard to see his whole face, but a long jagged scar, clearly visible under the bright lights of the outdoor basketball court, ran from just below his left eye to halfway down his cheek.
“Get lost. We’re in the middle of a game. Go find somewhere else.”
Another almost identically dressed young male stepped forward holding a basketball in his hand, his sweat dripping into the snarling fangs of a black cobra tattooed onto his bare chest. Three of his friends stopped running instantly. One, with a shaven head and a tattoo of a different snake peeking out from under his tight-fitting T-shirt, turned to his mate with the ball.
“Mo, who is this ugly dude, telling us to get off our court?” he asked.
“Dunno,” answered the one called Mo, the silver stud pressed into his left ear glistening under the bright lights of the court. “But he sure is ugly Jams, I’ll give you that.”
The one with the jagged scar scowled, his scar becoming more pronounced as he did.
“Ugly maybe, but at least not stupid. We always play here at this time of night. Always. So like I said before, get off our court and get outta here.”
“You want it, you come take it,” said the one called Mo. There was an unmistakable snarling edge to his voice now.
Three more young men stepped out of the shadows and stood next to the one with the jagged scar.
“You serious? We’ll beat the hell out of you all.”
“I don’t think so.”
The two groups stood facing each other, only a few feet of dark green concrete and a whole lot of repressed anger between them.
It was quiet - too quiet - on that court. Other than the distant hum of the late-night traffic and the sound of chairs being stacked in the café on the other side of the chain-link fence, there was very little to hear. For a long moment, nothing happened.
Until something did. And then, in a sudden flash of blinding movement, there were limbs everywhere. A furious flurry of punches and kicks. Individual bodies seemed to meld into one seething, swirling mass of violent flesh. Curses and shouts filled the air. Nothing and no-one could be told apart. Just carnage and chaos and misunderstanding.
And then a flash of steel. And a scream. And a boy with a jagged scar lying on the ground. And blood. Lots of it.
Other boys went running, getting away as fast as they could. One ran to the thick bushes behind the court. One in the direction of the street. One into the nearby café.
One boy, smaller than the others, came running from the opposite direction. He had been rushing down the alley leading to the court - late, but ready to join the game now - before pulling up sharply as the sounds of violence reached his ears. Hidden in the shadows on the far side of the chain-link fence, nobody saw him frozen to the spot.
A piercing, shrill sound came slicing through the night. And then, the boy in the shadows turned and ran like the others. He had a specific destination in mind, only a hundred metres away. Reaching the underpass that connected the park to the tube station, he retreated into the safety of the darkness, taking in gulps of air. After a moment’s rest, curiosity took over. Inching forward, he poked his head just beyond the wall of the tunnel.
More chaos. More running. More shouting. Then, flashing lights and white vans and grown men in uniform. Lots of them, taking the other boys - his boys - away.
Another siren then. He shrunk back into the shadows of the underpass, no longer able to see what was happening. But it was far better than the alternative. Getting caught was not an option.
Finally, after a long time, when everyone had been taken away and it was quiet again, the boy knew he must leave. He edged along the dimly lit tunnel, making his way out its far side. This route took him under the road and directly onto the opposite side of the highway. From there, he made his way the long way round back to his home, moving swiftly through the quiet streets.
But still, even in the quiet, there was misunderstanding. Lots of it.

2
Not for the first time, it was hard to concentrate on what the man in front of me was saying. I recognised some of the words - I’m not stupid you know, even if we both acted like I was: suspension, exclusion, another school... I got it. I had been in this seat before. We’d had this conversation before, or at least something very similar to it.
This time was different, of course. I couldn’t get the image and sounds of last night’s carnage out of my head. The chaos, the screams, the flashing lights, the look on the boys’ faces as they were being marched into the back of a copper’s van in handcuffs...
“Evan, look at me,” demanded the fat, balding man on the other side of an unnecessarily large desk. “Are you hearing a word I’m saying?”
There was a brief moment of awkward silence while I considered my response. Well, maybe awkward for him, but not really for me. It was just a matter of whether I was willing to say what was really on my mind or not. That this was all their fault. The bloody school with its useless teachers, their ridiculous rules and brainless yellow and red card punishment system. I mean, who did they think they were: Premiership referees? And who was responsible for all this stupidity? The pathetic Head sitting on the other side of this bloody desk.
His bulging eyes, big shaggy-dog ears and puffy cheeks were giving me the creeps. (I know that’s not very hardcore of me, but it’s true - this guy looked like something of a cross between a French bulldog and a porcupine with a serious asthma condition.) So I let my eyes drift around his office, until they settled on a corner of the dusty room, above and to the left of Porcu-dog’s head. There was a dirty cobweb up there, and I could just make out a small creature trying to extract itself from its sticky strands. His or her - or maybe it was a trans-creature - situation looked pretty bleak. Its miniature legs were moving frantically, but this little guy - or girl - was going nowhere fast. It was trapped, big-time, and it was surely only a matter of minutes before big hairy, scary spider came back from wherever he’d been hanging out and found his dinner all ready and waiting for him. I winced inwardly at the thought.
Ah, what the hell. At this stage, I didn’t have anything to lose. Or so I thought. Time to troll.
“Umm, well Mr. Porcu - I mean Mr. Porterfield, here’s the thing. There’s quite a big difference between hearing and listening. So yes, I was hearing you. I heard everything you said. No more skipping class. No more throwing stones over the fence onto the road during break. No more smoking on school property. And no more going off to play basketball in the park in the middle of the day.”
I paused for a minute, aware that I had just uttered more words in one paragraph to the Headteacher of North West Secondary School - better known as NWSS - than I had in my previous four and a half years of internment here. I was expecting to be told off some more, but it seemed as if Porcu-dog was all puffed out - maybe the asthma was starting to act up? - because he just leaned back in his creaky black armchair, crossed his hands in an exaggerated manner over his fat stomach... and waited.
With perfect hindsight, I would have seen that I was being given just enough rope to hang myself. But hindsight doesn’t exist in the now. And anyway, in my defence, I’d been majorly distracted by the trapped creature and the image of him/her/it being served up in a huge bowl of crunchy spider soup. So I ploughed ahead, my eyes still focused on the ensnared insect, oblivious to the fact that I was blindly proceeding to my own funeral even quicker than the poor creature in the web.
“And I even heard you say that I may have gone too far this time. I get it Mr.... Mr. Porterfield. But I think it’s important, as I mentioned earlier, to note the difference between hearing and listening. In this instance, hearing means: I am having an audible experience of you. But listening means that I am actually absorbing and considering what you have