Ill Conceived Plans

Friends Forever

Dane Hilditch, aged 13 and one-quarter, stared sullenly and silently out the window of his dad's BMW. The car was old and still in immaculate condition but Dane was angry and tempted to place the gum he was chewing under his seat just so it wasn't so perfect. It wasn't that his dad couldn't afford a new car, it's just that Malcolm Hilditch didn't like to waste money. Dane didn't know whether it was that his dad was a stereotypical "tight-arsed" Scotsman as the boys at school had teased him (shoes two sizes too big at the start of the year so he'd grow into them) or that he had a divorce to settle and four kids to feed and house.

Divorce.

An ugly word.

Painful and soul destroying. Dane was losing his family and there was nothing he could to do stop it.

He'd welcomed the call from his school chum, Neville, not just because it was a chance to see the Huntington's huge country estate and to run with his mates, no in his mind with him away, his two younger sisters Lydia and Lizzie sent off to Aunty Helen's and his older sister Jane abroad with friends their parents would be alone, alone to remember that they loved each other. Tom and the girls would come home to find dad had moved back into the house and his family would be okay. He'd leave for Eton not with two half homes but with one solid unit.

No, as much as he hadn't wanted to leave his mum, as much as he had tried to be the man of the house, this would be perfect. Neville, their friend George and Neville's (in his words at least) "painful' cousin Charlie, plenty of trees to climb, horses to ride and places to fish and explore. All together for two weeks during the summer holidays. Two weeks and then home for two weeks before heading off to their new school, to boarding school, to a new adventure, Eton. He had been terrified and excited in equal measures about moving up, that was until the D.I.V.O.R.C.E talk and the move from the family house to a much more modest place with his mother and the girls, a place by the coast, granny's old house, a house of great summer memories but not home, not his home. His home had a for sale sign on it now.

He stared out the window. Dad was talking but Dane was only half listening, the usual lecture – be good, offer to help, good manners, blah, blah, blah. They were almost there and then his dad could go to his mother and things could fix themselves.

Of course, he didn't really believe it. Not really. But he had to have hope and this time away gave him that.

"Nearly there son!" his dad said jovially, pulling Dane back out of his head, back to the car. In front of them were huge black metal gates, a little box was fitted into a brick wall to the side. His father hit the intercom switch and talked to a security guard, it was all a bit surreal, more so when suddenly the gates were swinging open in front of him. What lay on the other side of the black gates was something from a movie or a television show. It was a more like a park than a front yard. The biggest most stately white Georgian-style home stood at the end of a sweeping tree-lined drive.

Dane's eyes bugged out and his dad laughed.

"Bit bigger than home hey Dane Thomas," his dad offered, still trying to be friendly, still trying to pretend nothing was happening. He loved dad a lot but Dane would be glad to get away from his father, his parents and they're endless 'don't worry it will be alright" it felt anything but alright. The safe world he knew was gone and it didn't feel like it would be "alright" ever again. No-one wanted to say that though, no-one wanted to treat him like the man he was becoming, they wanted to treat him like a child but his childhood was disappearing fast.

Dane glared at his father.

"Which one?" he asked sullenly.

"It will be all right son," his dad offered again.