'Right, Dad.'

'Crack of dawn!'

I cleaned my teeth without mercy.

Mum and Dad can be as ratty or sarcastic or angry as they want to me, but if I ever show a flicker of being pissed off then they act like I've murdered babies. I hate them for that. But I hate my guts for never standing up to Dad like Julia does. So I hate their guts for making me hate my guts. Kids can never complain about unfairness 'cause everyone knows kids always complain about that. 'Life isn't fair, Jason, and the sooner you learn that, the better.' So there. That's that sorted. It's fine for Mum and Dad to scrunch up any promise they make to me and flush it down the bog, and why?

Because life isn't fair, Jason.

My eyes fell on Dad's electric shaver box.

I got the shaver out, just because. Snug as an unswitched-on light sabre.

Plug it in, whispered Unborn Twin from the corners of the bathroom. Dare you.

It came to life and buzzed my entire skeleton.

Dad'd kill me for doing this. It's so obvious that I mustn't touch his shaver, he's never even told me not to. But Dad hadn't even bothered telling me to go to Chariots of Fire on my own. His shaver came closer to the bumfluff on my upper lip...closer...

It bit me!

I unplugged it.

Oh God. Now my bumfluff had a ridiculous patch missing.

Maggot whimpered, What have you done?

In the morning Dad'd see and it'd be all too obvious what I'd done. My one hope was to shave the whole fuzz off. Surely Dad'd notice that, too?

But I had nothing to lose. The shaver tickled. On a scale of 0 to 10, 3.

The shaver hurt a bit, too. On a scale of 0 to 10, 11 4.

I panickily examined the results. My face did look different, but it'd be hard to put your finger on how, exactly.

I ran my finger along where my fuzz'd been.

Not even cold milk was so smooth.

I accidentally flicked open the blade cover. Dad's gritty stubble and my almost invisible fur snowed together on to the white porcelain sink.

Lying on my chest, my front ribs sank into my back.

Thirsty now, I needed a glass of water.

I got a glass of water. Water in Lyme Regis tastes of paper. I couldn't get to sleep on my side. My bladder'd ballooned.

I took a long piss, wondering if girls'd like me more if I had more scars. (All I've got is a nick on my thumb where I was bitten by my cousin Nigel's guinea pig when I was nine. My cousin Hugo said the guinea pig had myxomatosis and I'd die, in foaming agony, thinking I was a rabbit. I believed him. I even wrote a will. The scar's nearly gone now but it bled like shook-up cherryade at the time.) Lying on my back, my back ribs pressed into my chest.

Too hot, I took my pyjama top off.

Too cool, I put my pyjama top on.

The cinema'd be emptying after Chariots of Fire now. The lady with the torch'd be going up and down the aisles putting popcorn cones and Fruit Gum boxes and empty Malteser bags into a bin bag. Sally from Blackburn and her new boyfriend'd be stepping outside, saying what a great film it'd been, though they'd've been snogging and stroking each other all the way through. Sally's boyfriend'd be saying, 'Let's go to a disco.' Sally'd answer, 'No. Let's go to the camper van. The others won't be back for a while.'

That song by UB40 called 'One In Ten' thumped up through the bones of Hotel Excalibur.

The moon'd dissolved my eyelids.

Time'd turned to treacle.

'Oh sod soddity sod it and sod Craig sodding Salt too, the sodding sod!'

Dad'd fallen over the carpet.

I didn't let him know he'd woken me for two reasons: (a) I wasn't ready to forgive him; (b) he was banging into things like a comedy drunk and pub fumes wafted off him and if he was going to bollock me for using his shaver, tomorrow morning'd be better. Dean Moran's right. Seeing your Dad pissed's dead disturbing.

Dad made his way to the bathroom like he was in zero gravity. I heard him undo his zip. He tried to piss quietly on to the porcelain.

Piss drummed on the bathroom floor.

A wavery second later it chundered into the bog.

The piss lasted forty-three seconds. (My record's fifty-two.) He pulled out loads of bog paper to mop up the spillage.

Then Dad switched on the shower and got in.

Maybe a minute passed before I heard a ripping noise, a dozen plastic pings, a thump and a growly Sod it!

I opened my eyes a slit and nearly yelled in fright.

The bathroom door'd opened by itself. Dad stood with his head in a turban of shampoo wielding a broken shower-rail. Stark raving nuddy, he was, but right where my sack-and-acorn is, Dad's got this wobbling chunky length of oxtail. Just hanging there!

His pubes're as thick as a buffalo's beard! (I've only got nine.) The grossest sight I ever saw.

Dad's snorey skonks and flobberglobbers're impossible to sleep through. No wonder my parents don't sleep in the same bedroom. The shock of seeing Dad's thing's dying down now. A bit. But will I just wake up one morning and find that rope between my legs? It horrifies me to think that about fourteen years ago the spermatozoon that turned into me shot out of that.

Will I be some kid's dad one day? Are any future people lurking deep inside mine? I've never even ejaculated, apart from in a dream of Dawn Madden. Which girl's carrying the other half of my kid, deep in those intricate loops? What's she doing right now? What's her name?

Too much to think about.

I s'pose Dad'll have a hangover tomorrow morning.

Today morning.

Chances of us flying my kite on the beach at the crack of dawn?

Big fat zero.'The wind blows north,' Dad had to shout, 'from Normandy, over the Channel, smacks into these cliffs and ally-oop, a thermal updraught! Perfect for kites!'

'Perfect!' I shouted too.

'Breathe this air in deep, Jason! Good for your hayfever! Sea air's chock full of ozone!'

Dad hogged the kite spool so I took another warm jam doughnut.

'Tonic for the troops, eh?'

I smiled back. It's epic being up at the crack of dawn. A red setter raced ghost-dogs through the bellyflopping waves on the shore. Shale pooed from the cliffs off towards Charmouth. Mucky clouds lidded the sunrise but today was bags windier and better for kite-flying.

Dad shouted something.

'What?'

'The kite! Its background blends into the clouds! Looks like it's just the dragon flying up there! What a beaut you picked! I've worked out how to do a double loop!' Dad had that smile you never see in photos. 'She rules the skies!' He edged a bit closer so he didn't have to shout so much. 'When I was your age, my dad'd take me out on Morecambe Bay of an afternoon Grange-over-Sands and we'd fly kites there. Made 'em ourselves in those days...Bamboo, wallpaper, string and milk-bottle tops for the tail...'

'Will you show me' (Hangman blocked 'some time') 'one day?'

'Course I will. Hey! Know how to send a kite-telegram?'

'No.'

'Righto, hold her for a moment...' Dad passed me the spool and got a Biro from his anorak. Then he got the square of gold paper from his cigarettes. He didn't have anything to rest on so I knelt by him like a squire being knighted so he could rest on my back. 'What message shall we send up?'

'"Mum and Julia, Wish You Were Here".'

'You're the boss.' Dad pressed hard so I felt the Biro trace each letter through my clothes and on to my back. 'Up you get.' Then Dad twizzled the gold paper round the kite string like a sandwich-bag fastener. 'Wobble the line. That's it. Up and down.'

The telegram started sliding up the kite-string, against gravity. Pretty soon it was out of sight. But you knew the message'd get there.

'Lytoceras fimbriatum.'

I blinked at Dad, not knowing what on earth he'd said. We stepped apart to let the wheezy fossil-shop owner lug a signboard outside.

'Lytoceras fimbriatum.' Dad nodded at the spiral fossil in my hand. 'Its Latin name. Ammonite family. You can tell by these close tight ribs it's got, with these extra-fat ones every so often...'

'You're right!' I checked the tiny writing on the shelf. 'Ly-to-ce-ras-'

'Fimbriatum. Fancy me being right.'

'Since when did you know about fossils and Latin names?'

'My dad was a bit of a rock-hound. He used to let me catalogue his specimens. But only if I learnt them properly. I've forgotten most of them now, of course, but my dad's Lytoceras was enormous. It's stuck in my memory.'

'What's a rock-hound?'

'Amateur geologist. Most holidays, he'd find an excuse to go off fossil-hunting with a little hammer he kept. I think I've still got it somewhere. Some of the fossils he got in Cyprus and India are in Lancaster Museum, last time I looked.'

'I never knew.' The fossil fitted into my cupped hands. 'Is it rare?'

'Not especially. That one's a nice one, though.'

'How old is it?'

'Hundred and fifty million years? A whippersnapper among ammonites, really. What say we buy it for you?'

'Really?'

'Don't you like it?'

'I love it.'

'Your first fossil, then. An educational souvenir.'

Do spirals end? Or just get so tiny your eyes can't follow any more?

Seagulls strutted in the dustbins outside Cap'n Scallywag's. I was walking along still staring into my ammonite when an elbow swung out of nowhere and knocked my head backwards on its hinge.

'Jason!' snapped Dad. 'Look where you're going!'

My nose gonged with pain. I wanted to sneeze but couldn't.

The jogger rubbed his arm. 'No permanent damage, Mike. The Red Cross chopper can stay on its helipad.'

'Craig! Good God!'

'Out for my morning fix, Mike. This human bumper car's your handiwork, I take it?'

'Right first time, Craig. That's Jason, my youngest.'

The only Craig Dad knows is Craig Salt. This tanned man matched what I'd heard. 'If I'd been a truck, young fella-me-lad,' he told me, 'you'd be a pancake.'

'Trucks aren't allowed down here.' My crushed nose made my voice honk. 'It's just for pedestrians.'

'Jason,' the Dad out here and the Dad in the fossil shop just weren't the same person, 'apologize to Mr Salt! If you'd tripped him you could've caused a serious injury.'

Kick the wazzock's shins, said Unborn Twin.

'I'm really sorry, Mr Salt.' Wazzock.

'I'll forgive you, Jason, thousands wouldn't. What's this? Bit of a fossil-collector, are we? May I?' Craig Salt just took my ammonite. 'Nice little trilobite, that. Bit of worm damage on this side. But not too bad.'

'It's not a trilobite. It's a Ly-to-' (Hangman blocked 'Lytoceras' in mid-word.) 'It's a type of ammonite, isn't it, Dad?'

Dad wasn't meeting my eyes. 'If Mr Salt's sure, Jason-'

'Mr Salt,' Craig Salt plopped my ammonite back, 'is sure.'

Dad just had this weedy smile.