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You're only young once.

I don't know why this day seemed anymore special than yesterday or Tuesday last week, but something in the air was different. Five am and the whole house was silent, except for the comfortable drone of dad's snoring with an occasional pause as he shifted in blissful unawares of what was going on in the world outside number six Pukeko Road.

Creeping down the stairs, praying that tricky stair two from the bottom wouldn't creak and give me away, I pulled on my favourite lambs wool jumper mum had bought me last winter, frowning down at floor dwelling, creased jeans.

Running the gauntlet past my sister's room to the back door was always a heart stopping moment as her door groaned and sighed in the draft from her open window. One of these days I was going to get caught sneaking out like this, but for now I was home free, or so I thought until just as I opened the back door a cool hand gripped the collar of my sweater, dragging me back into the wash house.

Spinning on my heel, almost choking before the grip on my collar was released I looked shame facedly into mum's eyes. The look in those deep, soulful orbs was enough to bring me back to earth; I wouldn't be ducking out to a mischief filled day with Dave and Hemi, my mates from school, this Tuesday. School holidays and I was going to be stuck helping around the house by the looks of it.

"And just where were you off to so early James?" Mum enquired in that tone that meant she knew I'd try to make up some excuse, but that she wasn't stupid enough to believe it. I hated it when she called me that. "Um" I stuttered. The colour in my cheeks rising as I drew a complete blank. "Just over to Christian's to borrow some books for my essay due first week back." I offered weakly.

A wicked gleam in mum's eye told me I'd said the wrong thing and I would pay for it dearly. "Well, alright then dear." She said in a slightly mocking tone. "See you in twenty minutes. You can use the kitchen table; your sister's going to the movies with Blake today." Blake was my sister's boyfriend, an absolute moron, but to my parents he was everything they thought I should be when I got to his age. Captain of the first fifteen, head boy and all around loveable old Blake. He made me want to slam my hand in a drawer to forget his existence the way my family simpered around him.

With a soft groan I slipped out the back door, grunting an almost intelligible "Ok, mum." Now I really was going to have to borrow those bloody boring books

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