The Meddlers of Moonshine

The Meddlers of Moonshine

By

A.E. Decker

Series     *     94,000 words / 344 pages     *     Fantasy

Blurb:

Something is rotten in the town of Widget, and Rags-n-Bones knows it's all his fault. Ever since he snitched that avocado from Miss Ascot's pack, things have been going wrong. Armed with a handful of memories he never realized he had, Rags-n-Bones searches for a way to put right whatever he did to Widget in the past. If only he knew what it was! Unfortunately, the only person who seems to have answers is a half-mad youth that only Rags can see.

Widget is also suffering from a ghost infestation that has the townsfolk almost as spooked of outsiders as they are of actual spooks. While Rags-n-Bones seeks answers in the past, Ascot offers the town leaders her service as an exorcist, only to be handed an ultimatum: banish the ghosts or be banished herself!

Who's meddling with Widget? To catch the culprit, Ascot and Rags-n-Bones must match wits with a shifty sorcerer, a prissy ex-governess, and a troublingly attractive captain before the town consigns itself to the graveyard of history.

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KITGJ0C

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1124386281?ean=2940153409115

Kobo:  https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/the-meddlers-of-moonshine

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1144793160

World Weaver Press: http://www.worldweaverpress.com/store/p119/Meddlers_of_Moonshine_%28Moonfall_Mayhem_%232%29.html

Author Interview Questions:

1. I write because…

It would get too noisy in my head if I didn’t. Seriously, I think I have some characters in there who’d leap out of my brain, tie me to a chair, and not let me up until I’d written their stories. That said, it’s also tremendously rewarding to hear that someone can wait to read your next story.

2. If I were your favorite cookie, what would I be?

My friend, Jennifer, is a great cookie baker, and she makes these extremely dark, not too sweet chocolate cookies. There’s espresso powder in the batter, and their consistency is similar to shortbread. Oh, and they’re half-dipped in chocolate, because, why not? Yum.

3. Plotter or pantster?

In-betweener. I don’t plot out every scene, but I have a sort of graph of particular plot points that I know I’m going to include in the story. Plus, I always know the ending. The challenge—and fun—for me is figuring out how to take my characters from point A to point B.

4. What is your favorite type of character to write about and why?

I love all my characters, and tend to see them more as individuals than types. I like characters who act, who are willing to be outrageous, and go against what’s expected of them. The character I’m working with now is a devoted liar—he tends to think one thing and say another, and the dichotomy between the two makes him fun to write. I don’t like mopers or angsters, unless they’re exaggerated to a humorous extent.

5. Hamburgers or sushi?

I’m a vegetarian, so either a mushroom burger or vegetarian sushi, like Inari rolls or something featuring a hearty slice of avocado.

6. Name three things on your desk.

An hourglass with bright magenta sand, a pencil sharpener shaped like a black chess knight piece, and more Daleks than any sane person should own.

7. What books have influenced your writing style?

I try very hard to keep to my own style, but the works of Terry Pratchett are very much an influence. I often feel writers of humor don’t get the credit they deserve, and his books had such heart and wit to them. I like to think my work has a little of his spirit in them. When will Death bring him back, by the way?

8. Tell us a little about your book.

The Meddlers of Moonshine is the second book in the Moonfall Mayhem YA fantasy series. The first book, The Falling of the Moon, poked fun at fairy tale tropes. Meddlers spoofs Gothic tropes, particularly The Turn of the Screw and Frankenstein. There’s plenty of adventure, mystery, and a core of seriousness under the humor. Ghosts, graveyards, a dilapidated chateau with a sinister folly, a touch of steampunk, and plenty of avocados.

9. What advice do you have for new and aspiring authors?

If you’ve just decided to become a writer, the first thing you need to do is develop good habits. Write for at least an hour every day for a year. Writing is a pleasure, but it’s also work, and you need to know that you can do the work. The next most important thing is being able to actually finish a story. Fanfiction can actually be really helpful. Knowing that you’re writing for an audience can actually inspire you to keep going. If you discover you can’t think of a story, put it out in front of people, and finish it, this is probably not the occupation for you.

10. What is next on your writerly horizon?

I’m working on Into the Moonless Night, which is the third book in the Moonfall Mayhem series. Meddlers end on a slight cliff-hanger—sorry!—so I have to tell my readers what happens next. Moonless spoof the tropes in Tolkien, with a touch of The Hunger Games. After Moonless, I’ll work on the third book in my urban fantasy series featuring a tomato-obsessed hitman of the supernatural.

Top 5 favorite (pick one) desserts, movies, things to eat, ice cream flavors, books.

Top 5 movies:

The Seven Samurai. A three hour and twenty minute black-and-white classic of honor and idealism. Beautiful.

Spirited Away. My favorite Miyazaki film. I have a tattoo of Haku in dragon form on my right arm.

The Princess Bride. Inconceivable. Need I say more?

Withnail & I. A cult British black comedy with the best quotes in existence. “Don’t you threaten me with a dead fish!”

In Bruges. Another black comedy. What if Hell were an eternity in Bruges? That’s the kind of question to make you think.

Excerpt:

There was a hand in the forest, and it held an avocado.

“Miss Ascot bought it for me,” said Rags-n-Bones, clutching it to his chest as he ran. The dead leaves crunched softly underfoot, thick and bouncy as a crispy cloud. “That means it’s not stealing.”

On his shoulder, Nipper squeaked. Being a rat, Nipper was hazy on the concept of “stealing.” Generally, he felt if you could get something in your mouth, it was yours.

Rags-n-Bones wished he were a rat. It would make dealing with guilt much easier. I should never have rummaged through Miss Ascot’s pack, he thought, ducking around a birch. His thumb caressed the avocado’s soft, pebbly skin. If I’d waited, she, or the Captain, or Sir Dmitri, or the Mighty Terror from the Deepest Shadows would’ve awakened and given it to me. He leaped over a log, mouth watering in anticipation of the avocado’s rich, buttery flavor. I should go back right now and—

Squeak? Nipper stuck his nose in Rags-n-Bones’ ear impatiently.

Rags-n-Bones gave up. He’d take whatever punishment arrived later. Right now, the torment of not eating the avocado was too great to bear. “There’s a grove up ahead,” he replied. “Around that cone-shaped boulder. We’ll eat it there.” Avocados required privacy for proper consumption.

How could you possibly know there’s a grove ahead? asked a small part of his brain not drunk on avocado-lust. You’ve never been here before.

He shrugged. Ahead just seemed like a convenient place for a grove. A small circle of beech trees, with an old oak smack in the center, its gnarled, moss-covered roots gripping the hummock it sat atop like an old man clutching a tea cake.

A foot skidded out from under him as he rounded the boulder, kicking up a trail of wet leaves and the smell of tannin. That’s a lot of detail for a mere hunch. Why, you can visualize the oak, can’t you? That thick, knobby trunk. Those bare, crooked branches. And carved into the bark—

Six feet into the grove, Rags-n-Bones stumbled to a halt and stared vacantly at a patch of earth. Something was very wrong. Was he being watched?

He whimpered. He was being watched. A disapproving stare pressed almost tangibly on the top of his bowed head. Branches swayed creakily overhead. He watched the wind skitter a fallen acorn across the carpet of leaves.

Squeak? Nipper scrabbled at his cheek.

I have to do it. Slowly, Rags-n-Bones lifted his gaze to meet the watcher’s.

The avocado hit the leaves with a soft crunch as his fingers abruptly slackened. Punishment had arrived sooner than expected.

Author Bio:

A. E. Decker hails from Pennsylvania. A former doll-maker and ESL tutor, she earned a master’s degree in history, where she developed a love of turning old stories upside-down to see what fell out of them. This led in turn to the writing of her YA novel, The Falling of the Moon. A graduate of Odyssey 2011, her short fiction has appeared in such venues as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fireside Magazine, and in World Weaver Press’s own Specter Spectacular. Like all writers, she is owned by three cats. Come visit her, her cats, and her fur Daleks at wordsmeetworld.com.

Social Media Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MoonfallMayhem

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6461875.A_E_Decker

My Father Didn't Kill Himself by Russell Nohelty

My Father Didn't Kill Himself

By

Russell Nohelty

YA Mystery. This book deals with death, loss, and grief. There are difficult concepts to deal with and uncomfortable.

Author Bio:
Russell Nohelty is a writer, publisher, and consultant. He is the publisher of Wannabe Press and its main author. Russell likes to write genre fiction with deep character studies. He’s sadistic with his characters, putting them in the worst situations and watching them claw their way back up, just to kick them back into the abyss. Russell started his career writing comics, and now writes novels and children’s books as well. 

Social Media Links:
@russellnohelty (twitter/Instagram)

 www.facebook.com/russellnohelty,

Blurb:
How would you cope is somebody you love committed suicide?

Delilah's father is the greatest man she has ever known. When he commits suicide her world is shattered. She can't eat. She can't sleep. Her bubbly personality becomes ascorbic. All she wants is to be left alone.

When his insurance policy refuses to pay out, Delilah sets out to prove what she's known all along: that his suicide was in fact a murder.

A story of getting over grief and learning those you idolize aren't perfect, told in blog posts through Delilah and her best friend.

On the surface My Father Didn’t Kill Himself is a mystery book, but right below the surface is a story of how people get over grief. And not just how Delilah gets over her grief of losing the person she idolizes most in the world. Also about how a wife gets over the grief of her husband, a husband that was supposed to provide for her, but instead left her alone and destitute.

Mixed with that is the loss felt by Alex, Delilah's best friend, in losing her best friend to the anguish of grief, watching her slip away and pull back from the world, feeling helpless.

Buy Link: 

http://www.amazon.com/My-Father-Didnt-Kill-Himself-ebook/dp/B01CKUZR0A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458775611&sr=8-1&keywords=my+father+didn%27t+kill+himself+russell+nohelty

Excerpt:

DROWNING

Posted by Delilah Clark × December 15 at 9:31 pm.

Here is what The Suicide Handbook says about drowning.

Drowning in cold water is supposed to be like going to sleep. For me, it was a nightmare.

Shivering, freezing, I sat for a minute until my body

Adjusted to the cold. Then I sunk down under the water. The cold washed over me, but my lungs were on fire. Before I could pass out my natural instincts kicked in. I couldn't fight them. I kicked and screamed

until half the water was gone. I gasped for air. It was frightful.

I performed my experiment much like J. I laid down in the tub until my body adjusted to the temperature. Once I was acclimated, I sunk below the water. I breathed out until there were no bubbles. And I waited. It didn’t take long for the fire in my lungs to start. Soon, it was unbearable. My body thrashed around for a moment before I shot out of the water and gasped for precious air.

I wholeheartedly endorse every word J said.

On top of that I realized something.

If I died in this tub, my bowels would empty, and I would be sitting in feces-filled water until somebody found me. That is not a dignified way to die—my bowel excretion muddying the water and coating me in a fine mist of poop. They’d be scrubbing for days to get me ready for the casket.

No thank you.

CEMETERY

Posted by Delilah Clark × December 16 at 7:22 pm.

Before every session with Dr. Bennett, Susie drives me to the cemetery and tries to coerce me into visiting my father’s grave.

I’d never been to his grave before; not since the funeral. It didn’t seem important to me.

It’s not like he's in there anyway. Maybe his body, but not him. If he’s anywhere, he's by my side as I try to fulfill his last wishes, not hanging out in a cemetery.

But Susie always insists on driving to the cemetery anyway. The cemetery is a weird place full of weird people. There’s this tall undertaker who seems a little too into the dead people’s families. He’s like overeager for them to buy something. His smile creeps me out. 

There’s a grave digger who has to be high on something because he moves slower than molasses. Sometimes I catch the funeral director yelling at him, as if that’s going to motivate somebody that digs graves for a living to pick up the pace. Shocker, it never worked. 

They’re not weird in a bad way though. Some of them I could like if I didn’t hate everybody on principle. There’s this guy who is always reading comic books. He introduced himself to me one day as “Roscoe. Roscoe Fay.” Like he’s James Bond or something. He just sits under this tall oak tree overlooking the cemetery and silently reads comics. I would watch him read sometimes, letting my eye catch a cool image every once and a while.

I would usually just sit there, looking out at the cemetery, until Susie gave up and drove us away. But today was different. Today, I felt a twinge in my stomach, a pang, not quite a stress baby, but maybe a stress zygote, or an unfertilized egg.

I needed to see his grave. I needed to talk to him.

Susie was ready to fight, but before she could open her big mouth I pushed out of the door and walked over to his grave.

It was weird.

For all my research on death, I had no idea how to act in a cemetery. I saw a few people crying over graves and placing flowers on them as they rehashed their day.

That isn’t me. I’m cried out.

His gravestone was simple and to the point.

Tim Clark. Devoted husband and father.

I read it over and over again. Have you ever noticed that any word you say over and over again sounds super weird? Just try saying neck two hundred times and tell me that’s not a silly word by the end?

By the eight millionth silent loop, my dad’s name sounded like an alien language. Maybe Zorgblopple, which I just made up.

“Hey dad,” I finally said. “How are you doing? Probably not so bad, right? I mean worms might be eating your insides, but at least you can’t feel how cold it is, right?”

I paused, waiting for a response from him. I felt like an idiot.

“It’s been snowing here a lot. Remember when Mom went out of town for the weekend and it rained? You always said that God was crying because he missed her. I thought that was silly, but I always think about that when it rains or snows now.”

I liked it. I liked it so much I skipped therapy and sat there most of the day. I really can’t tell you how much better than therapy it is.

Author Interview Questions:

1.       I write because…

I’m a neurotic mess and writing is the only time I feel sane. I basically bottle up all my neuroses until they are too much to bear and put them on the page. It’s a compulsion for me, but I love it.

2.       If I were your favorite cookie, what would I be?

Macadamia nut, for sure.

3.       Plotter or pantster?

I’m a pantster that REALLY wants to be a plotter. What usually happens is I spend a year on an outline for a book and it goes out the window page 5. I’m working on it though, because I think in order to do longer form books and series you have to be a plotter.

4. What is your favorite type of character to write about and why?

I like psychologically flawed characters, specifically females though I write about 50% male and 50% female main characters. I like females because all men end up sounding like me eventually. With females I can put myself in somebody else’s shoes and it becomes easier for me to get a compelling character.

I like the psychologically flawed because my main two themes are perception and religion. I want the reader to wonder whether what the character is seeing is truth or they are lying to themselves. I think about that a lot. Whether we are living in the Matrix or this is real life, and how my real life differs from your reality. I think those psychological flaws make the characters unique and relatable.

I always want to make sure they are riddled with flaws, but somehow act in spite of them. Too many characters are perfect these days. I want people to understand just the struggle to do something mundane is amazing.

5. Hamburgers or sushi?

Oh man. Well I shouldn’t eat gluten or seafood, so you’ve caught me in a bind. I’m going to say hamburgers though. They are my go to food when I’ve had a bad day.

6. Name three things on your desk.

Well I have about 100 desk toys from Wall-E to Hello Kitty to Legos. I’m going to say that’s one. Then I have the microphone that I use to record my podcast The Business of Art. Finally, I have three monitors which sounds like a lot but really I could use about three more.

7. What books have influenced your writing style?

Clockwork Orange, Siddhartha, Y: The Last Man, Cat’s Cradle, and Fight Club. That is a far ranging list I know, but all of them deal with man’s struggle, either with religion of himself. They deal with perception, juxtaposing truth with lies, and still wind up being very entertaining books despite all the heavy stuff. That’s my goal. I want to write books that mean something but are also entertaining.

8. Tell us a little about your book.

My Father Didn’t Kill Himself is about a girl whose father commits suicide and she sets out to prove it’s a murder. Or at least that’s the plot.

Most people hear that and think it’s going to be a whodunit. While there is some of that, really it’s about a girl and her family who deal with the grief of losing somebody they love.

It’s told all in blog posts between the main character and her best friend, so you really get a sense of the struggle the girls are going through. It’s a deep dive into death, with a murder mystery thrown in for good measure.

9. What advice do you have for new and aspiring authors?

You suck now. If that’s hard to hear I promise it’s going to get worse before it gets better. You are not a good writer, in the professional sense. If you can’t get published it’s not the editor’s problem, it’s your problem.

The good news is that anybody can get better with practice. Anybody. And everybody was once in your shoes. Everybody.

All that separates you from the masters is practice. Now, how much practice you need is different for everybody. Whether you endure the struggle is another matter. I needed more practice than most to get where I am today, but I got there.

You can get there too, but you have to work at it.

10. What is next on your writerly horizon?

I have another book coming out in June called Spaceship Broken: Needs Repairs. It’s about a kid who finds a homeless alien and helps rebuild her spaceship. Or at least that’s the plot.

Really it’s about my very complicated relationship with my grandfather as a boy. It’s about abuse, psychosis, and how we get over trauma. It’s a fiction book though, so none of this actually happened to me. This was the hardest book I ever wrote.

Top 5 favorite (pick one) desserts, movies, things to eat, ice cream flavors, books.

1.       Steak

2.       Hamburgers

3.       Rice Pudding

4.       Vanilla Ice Cream

5.       Tacos

Or at least that’s what it is at this moment. Maybe next week it will change.

The Italian Word for Kisses

1. I write because…

It just happens? I've been making up stories since I could talk -- especially about how I was totally nothing to do with whatever was lost or broken -- and writing them down since I figured out what pens were for. (Hint: not drawing on your siblings, apparently.)

My brain makes up stories all  the time. Writing them down became the natural way of working them out and getting further into the story. And then writing books was the natural extension of that.

2. If I were your favorite cookie, what would I be?

I'm not really much of a biscuit person...

3. Plotter or pantster?

Plotter...at least it starts that way. Then the manuscript wanders off from the plan around chapter four, comes back for a visit in chapter ten, then sods off and stays away until the final four chapters, when it returns and is totally faithful to the original plan. But I can't get started without all the chapters outlined in theory, so I'm still more plotter than pantser.

4. What is your favorite type of character to write about and why?

Northerners, especially blue-collar Yorkshire folk. They're very rough and colourful people, and I like writing them largely because I'm one of them and we get left out of romantic fiction a lot, kids and adults alike. LGBT fiction especially is very geared towards a very middle-class  southern structure, where characters mustn't be too mean to each other, and certain words are banned except to be spoken by the most obviously evil of villains...and that's a bit of an alien concept to the people I grew up with. I like to turn the tables a bit, and say, "Look, love happens in the sink estates and wet British summers too. It's not all Cornish  beaches and country villages." So I write about kids falling in love at boxing gyms (The Suicidal Peanut), people tackling everyday racism with a sense of humour (Thicker Than Bone) and kids solving homophobic bullying by quite literally fighting back (The Italian Word for Kisses). Plus you get to write phonetically with their accents, which is amazing for bringing a character to life.

5. Hamburgers or sushi?

Burgers. I hate sushi.

6. Name three things on your desk.

Right now? Paperwork, paperwork, and my flat keys. I just moved house, so I'm lucky there even is  a desk right now. It's been an expensive couple of months.

7. What books have influenced your writing style?

I'm not much of a reader anymore, but in my teens I read a lot of books with quintessentially British humour -- especially those by Ben Elton, Douglas Adams and the Grant Naylor duo. Doug Naylor and Rob Grant's science fiction in particular, and of course the great Douglas Adams, were huge influences, because they stood out so much as writers bringing something uniquely British to their genres. And it wasn't all this slightly twee, home counties or London approach that dominates the LGBT fiction market -- it was idle-but-well-meaning Scousers, it was  Arthur Dent and his towel.

As I got older, I found less and less books in that kind of irreverent vein, and I stopped bothering with reading fiction at all in the end. But when I came to writing my own books, I found I had the most fun writing those same thoroughly British characters, both main and side, so I'd definitely say those guys left an impression.

8. Tell us a little about your book.

The Italian Word for Kisses is at its core about homophobia. The main characters, Tav and Luca, have been together for a while and it's old news round their way. And then along comes a new kid at school and Luca's swimming club, Jack, who is vehemently disgusted by gay people and wants Luca especially out of the picture.

What made it such fun to write was that none of the characters are shy or retiring in the slightest. My last proper look at homophobia in YA was Vivaldi in the Dark, and the character subjected to it was very timid as a result. Tav and Luca are quite the opposite -- Tav is so prone to fighting at school that he's a step to the left of being expelled, and Luca is the third of five boys in a large half-Yorkshire, half-Italian family. Neither of them take kindly to Jack showing up, and they're both very volatile in the way they respond to it.

And honestly, getting to write kids literally fighting back, and having the confidence to tell this bully that he's a bigot for what he thinks and force him to back off, that was a lot of fun and a pretty unusual way of going at the topic.

9. What advice do you have for new and aspiring authors?

Don't be afraid of writing hard things, or stepping outside of the genre's conventions. There's writers and publishers would be horrified by this book, because it features teenagers fighting, swearing, having off-colour in-jokes, having sex -- but that's what some teenagers are really like. This situation, this little world in their corner of Yorkshire, is one that real kids are living with every day. Don't be afraid to show that, even if it makes others uncomfortable sometimes.

10. What is next on your writerly horizon?

I'm hoping to finish up a couple of transgender YA books during 2016: Girls Will Be Boys and Fatso Farrier. Both feature female-to-male transgender boys, though in very different ways. Girls Will Be Boys is really about the transgender experience, and follows a fifteen-year-old trans boy handling his first relationship with absolutely no idea what the rules are for transgender people. Fatso Farrier is actually about a cisgender bisexual lad , Max 'Fatso' Farrier, who's given up on his dreams thanks to his weight, but gets the motivation to turn his life around when he's forced into training in muay thai with a very confident, very self-assured transgender lad, Cian. I'm hoping to get them done and dusted and out there sooner rather than later, as there's a serious lack of transgender YA available, and they show two extremely different FtM people.

Top 5 favorite movies:

I really like movies where the characters seem like real people, and their lines come off more natural than scripted, so flashes of really natural comedy totally sell a movie (or a book!) for me.

1.       Hot Fuzz. Easily the best British comedy I've ever seen and will always, without fail, be my favourite movie of all time.

2.       Guardians of the Galaxy. I love the off-beat humour, and how it feels more natural and less artificial  than most action movies. I mean come on, the "I'm distracting you" dance scene was hilarious.

3.       How To Train Your Dragon. All the characters felt real. They pulled faces, they did awkward hand motions, they side-eyed each other and were sarcastic. I fell hard for the movie when Hiccup just gave up on getting Toothless to be obedient and said, "Thanks for nothing, you useless reptile." Just, yes!

4.       Wild Wild West. The entire exchange of lines between Will Smith and Kenneth Branagh whenever their characters came face-to-face had me crying with laughter. I'm a firm believer that nothing is sacred when it comes to humour, and this movie is up there with the best of them. (Plus steampunk spiders, always a win.)

5.       Kind of a cheat, but The Hobbit and LOTR trilogies. Peter Jackson's use of regional accents for both humour and severity was just perfect. Accents are massively underrated for how to portray a character, and I loved both trilogies for a) using them at all and b) using them so beautifully well.

Blurb:

It’s no secret Tav and Luca are going out. After the accident, it’s also no secret that new kid Jack Collins has a raging case of homophobia, and is not best pleased about having given the kiss of life to a gay guy. Either Luca quits swimming, or Jack is going to make him.

Tav favours the tried-and-true method of knocking Jack’s teeth down his neck, only he can’t really afford another school suspension. Luca favours just ignoring him, only ignoring a penknife being held to your throat at New Year’s Eve is downright stupid.

Thing is, Luca suspects Jack is a victim of something himself. And time is running out for Luca to get through to Jack, before Jack gets rid of him.

Pick up a copy at JMS Books or All Romance Cafe today.

Excerpt:

"Alright, Collins."

The bang of the changing room door and the amiable greeting from one of the other boys caught Luca's attention, but the sudden, sharp silence made his blood run cold. All at once, Luca was both afraid, and angry with himself for being afraid. So he squared his shoulders and turned on his heel, folding his arms over his chest and meeting Jack's scowl with a glower of his own.

"What."

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Jack snarled.

"Fuckin' swimming. What about you?"

"I told you not to come."

It was like the rest of the team didn't exist. Luca didn't dare break eye contact, and Jack -- although he tossed his bag onto a bench and unzipped his jacket, was zeroed in on Luca in a way that made the hairs on Luca's arms stand on end.

"Dunno what kinky shit you're into, Collins, but I don't follow your orders." Being both an older and a younger brother had made Luca able to bluff with ease, and despite the impotent anger, the tart tang of shame around the edges of his brain that this moron had somehow gotten one over him and seized some power in this stupid fucking game, his voice sounded -- even to him -- arrogant and bored.

"Go."

"You what?"

"I said go," Jack repeated. The other boys hovered uncertainly, but Aaron and David had both closed ranks to Luca's shoulders, and Luca took a fortified breath. Aaron looked steely. David looked a little more confused, but determinedly hostile all the same.

"Like hell I'm going," Luca said. "You got a problem with a pouf on the team, you need to fuck off and get your head out your arse. I'm here to swim. I'm not going nowhere."

"What the fuck is going on?" David asked.

"Jack, mate, leave it," one of the other boys said. "It's just Jensen, Jensen's sound --"

"He's a fucking faggot, and I won't have his kind here -- I warned you, I fucking told you, and you're still fucking here!"

"What's your problem, mate, he's taken up wi' that Chris in Jan Krawczyk's tutor group ..."

"Yeah, Jack, lay off already, who d'you reckon you are anyway, you're new--"

"I know there's a fucking faggot on this fucking team and I --"

"Don't fucking call him a faggot, twat," one of the other boys -- a lad called Ryan that Luca had never so much as spoken to outside of the club, and was in the year below them anyway -- sneered, and he shot out a hand to shove at Jack's shoulder.

"I told you to stay away!" Jack bellowed, and his hand vanished into his unzipped jacket. "I told you, I fucking told you --"

The changing room erupted; the flick-knife flashed under the sickly halogen lights, and Luca's back slammed into the wall of locker doors as Aaron and David shoved him back as one. Both doors -- one to the foyer and one to the pool -- banged loudly, and the bolshy kid, Ryan, lashed out with a fist, smashing into Jack's jaw from the side. A couple of men came rampaging over from the showers in their wet trunks, all the noise bouncing off the walls until it was dizzying. Coach arrived with a shrill shriek of the whistle, and the knife had gone somewhere but Luca couldn't tell where in the ruckus, and then Aaron's hand was on his shoulder and he was being steered off into one corner of the changing room, and --

A flush of hot, furious shame boiled up Luca's stomach and into his guts, and he twisted away from Aaron's hands and grabbed for his kit bag. He didn't need Aaron to fucking protect him. He didn't need anyone to protect him, he wasn't some pathetic little kid who needed their hand holding. He shouldn't need defending, he was a Jensen! He should be able to defend himself.

He grabbed his bag and bolted. As he fled up the stairs, a burly security guard and Coach were wrestling the knife out of Jack's hands in the corridor, both shouting at him, and Jack shouting back, face red and voice hoarse and shrill with fury.

"You fucking steer clear of me, Jensen!" he bellowed after Luca, who didn't dare look back. "F'you know what's good for you, you'll stay out of here, you fucking queer!"

Luca reached the top of the stairs, and ran.

Author bio:

Matthew J. Metzger is  an asexual, transgender author dragged up in the wet and windy British Isles. He writes both adult and young adult LGBT fiction, with a particular fondness for writing about people and places that don't usually make it into romantic fiction: the council  estates, the mentally ill, the people solving problems with their fists, and finding love on the local Arriva bus route.

When not writing, Matthew is  usually asleep or crunching numbers at his day job. He can be found on Facebook and Twitter, or contacted directly at mattmetzger@hotmail.co.uk.