Jonny: My Autobiography Read Online Free Page A

not right. I stop the game. I need to go and say sorry to my dad. Sorry about not mentioning you in the interview. And maybe I could ring that radio station.
    Mum, I ask, weeks, months later, did you send that letter? Do you think they’ll say anything on the radio?

    It is not long before I find my next reason to flip out.
    I come home from school and see a blackbird on the ground, struggling, half-dead. It must have flown into the window. Wouldn’t it be great to pick it up and take it inside, help it out? So I do. Mum helps me put it into a shoe box, padded out with tissue, its own little living room. Then I go upstairs for a bath, and afterwards mess around in my room, forgetting about the bird, until Mum calls me for supper. When I go downstairs, the bird is dead.
    It’s dead because I wasn’t there to help it. I was too busy having fun to care. This is my fault. I have killed the bird. I am overwhelmed by what I have done. The tears, the screaming, are back. This bird was my responsibility and I have let it down. How can I make amends? Mum, what can I do? I have killed the bird.
    Don’t worry, she says. You did your best. It would have died anyway. There’s nothing more you could have done. But I have to atone. I cannot live with this. I start writing letters again. Most of them are to God. Sorry. I am so sorry I didn’t look after the bird better.
    I cannot stand this intense, choking feeling. Mum, I let the bird down. I am screaming. What if I have to live with it for the rest of my life? I can’t do it, I can’t do it. I have to get rid of this feeling somehow. Mum and Dad and Sparks all say the same thing. This isn’t achieving anything. Everything will be all right. You need to forget about it and move on.
    But I am not just obsessive about kicking rugby balls. I can grapple with this problem pretty single-mindedly, too. I cannot put aside the image of the bird and my responsibility for its death. I have to try to work it out, find a solution to a situation that doesn’t have one.

    Sparks and I have a strange fascination with my left calf. It has got a massive bruise on it and the feeling in it has kind of gone.
    It happened down at Farnham Sports Centre on the bouncy castle. I bounced off and landed on the floor and then this big guy, who must have been six years older than I am, landed on top of me. He was supposed to be in charge, monitoring the kids and general behaviour on the castle, but instead he was bouncing around, and the moment I bounced off, he came off too, both knees flat on my calf with all his bodyweight.
    It hurt big time and took ages to get up and walk. But I managed it, and somehow I managed to get through an Under-11s tennis tournament the next day. I wore a big tubey grip bandage on my leg, which made me feel very proud.
    Now my calf is swollen, and the sensation in it is a little weird. So, in our bedroom before bedtime, Sparks and I are sitting on my bed playing a game to test it out. It’s a simple game – we just hit the calf with our knuckles to see how hard we can do it before it hurts too much. Sparks has a go and then it’s my turn. It’s hilarious how hard you can hit your leg when the feeling in it has gone.
    But in the night, I wake up with serious pain. I get up and hobble through to Mum and Dad’s room. They look at it. We’ll get on to it first thing in the morning, they say. About an hour later, I’m back. It’s really, really hurting, I say.
    So off we go to Aldershot Military Hospital. The doctors explain that I have burst a blood vessel, there has been internal bleeding into the calf, and an infection in the blood has caused an abcess. It is poisonous, pussy and generally horrid. And they need to cut it open. I’ll have to stay overnight, and for the next two nights as well.
    I look at Mum. I’m not staying overnight on my own. I can’t stay on my own. Mum understands the problem. OK. We have a deal. Mum stays, too.
    Eventually, we get home and I am