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Me uncle Darren’s takin’ us to the horse races today. Supposed to be real fancy ‘cos we’ve got to dress up and all that. Bloody stoopid if you arsk me – why dya have to get formal to go watch horses run round in circles, hey? But he says it’s what yer gotta do if’n yer in the Member’s area. I mean, what kinda person get’s all dressed up in a suit and that if they’re gunna go and watch sport then? Bit sad innit? But me Uncle reckons he’s doin’ us a favour and Mum’s all excited. Can’t think why – me Dad used ter blow all ‘is money bettin’ on horses and then come home drunk and knock her about. We were better off after he pissed off so you’d think it’d be the last place she’d wanna go. Horses anyway – who cares? Huge, hairy, smelly things that stand on yer foot and shit everywhere. Me friend Jean-Louis at school says the French eat them and that he had some once when he was visitin’ family over there. He’s from Mauritius and that’s sorta French, right? – so he should know. Says it looks like steak but tastes a bit different. Sounds like a good idea ter me. That posh girl down the street had one once. Her Dad whinged about it but her Mum took her side of course. She din’t look after it though. She just wanted to act classy with all the ‘nice’ girls down at the Pony Club but she din’t seem to think that feedin’ it and shovelling up the shit was part of the deal. Soon she couldn’t be bothered to go down there anymore and it just stood there hangin’ over the fence waitin’ for her mum ter come down and give it and apple or somethin’. Billy and me used to chase it around a bit for fun so it got a bit of a run. The one day last summer a snake did them a favour and bit it good enough to see it off. Rocket kicked the bucket in the back paddock. We hopped over the fence for a look at it – it was huge, seemed bigger dead somehow. A truck came along, bit like one of those they use for cars and dragged it up on to the back. I asked the bloke where they buried them, was there a cemetery and he started laughing. Just looked around like it was a secret or somethin’ and whispered, “pet food, son!” So I s’pose it ended up in the can of meat I gave me dog last week, hey? Nah, a dog and a bike should be enough for any kid, dontchya think? The only thing worse than horses is the people who play around with them. If I wanna look at horses there’s lots of them in the paddocks over the creek. Sad, most of them, standin’ there with their head over the fence waitin’ for some bored little princess to visit – with an apple.
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