Where I Live is A Curveball

　　It was a wonky town, Hastings, built on cobblestone and disfigured brick. Sometimes it feels so sleepy but you know it's sitting on these secrets like roots under paving slabs. The weeds will soon start shooting through the cracks in the pavements like little worms of sprouting truth.

　　George Street is the main shopping street in the Old Town. People say it's charming but that's just a blanket word for crappy and small and falling apart. Mum says I don't appreciate it properly. The road is cobbled together with misfitting odd ends of stone; the shops are dinky and twee with old-fashioned fronts, beams and wavy glass windows. Other than the antique shops, teahouses and pubs, which seems to make up the majority of Hastings, there really isn't much on the strip for a teenager. If you walk uo, which is the only way other than the sea, there are winding weirdo alleys, all bent like crooked teeth, and steps and houses shoved next to each other - too close, like overstuffed bookshelves. Slanted roofs, pokey chimneys, crumbling brickwork and windows and doors all weather beaten and nibbled on by the hungry mouth of the sea air.

　　I live at the top of the hill and that hill, I swear to god, is so steep, it feels like you could kiss your shoes when you are walking up it.

　　But that's Hastings all over. Where I live is a curveball. It reminds you that the globe is round.

　　But it feels like the only place that exists on it.

Lorali, P10-11
Laura Dockrill
ISBN 978-1-4714-0422-1