'Matchstick, I can't. I'm going to school.'

'School?'

'Yeah. Why don't you come with me.'

But he wouldn't, so I left the poor kid just sitting there, what else could I do? But when I got to the top of the rise, I see this beat-up red Mini driving over the waste ground towards me. I'm about to hit top gear except I suddenly can't. It's like the force has gone out of me, like happened to Krazy Mac Robokat in that episode with the giant Twister Wipe snake. I'm just sitting there astride my bike, waiting for the car to come get me. I guess I wanted to get it finished, because what else could go wrong?

Anyway, the Mini stops and I can see the woman in the passenger seat and the Pakistani guy beside her. It's him that gets out of the car, the woman just stays there like she's the big boss or something, like she's Dazzle to Spike's action.

As the man's walking towards me I hear Matchstick coming up close behind. 'Who's this, Melv?' he asks. I tell him not to be scared, get back down the hole, get on his bike. But he doesn't, he just stands there waiting.

'Where is it?'

It's the man talking. I shake my head, wipe some sweat away.

'Come on.'

'Threw it away,' I reply.

'Best not have.'

'Yeah. It's down a grid.'

Now he's angry, takes a step forward. Matchstick is gone suddenly, don't know where. It's just me and the man, and his face is right up in front of mine with his hands holding the handlebars tight, I think he's going to throw me off.

'Down a grid!' I shout. 'And I wiped it from my hard drive.'

'Not the disk, kid. The feather.'

The feather?'

'Come here! Where's the feather?'

Now he's grabbed me by the shoulders and I'm thinking what's all this about, some stupid bit off a dead bird? So I'm shouting for him to get off and leave me alone, the same time trying to get me and the bike out from under him until he throws the both of us, that's me and bike, aside. I land with the bike half on top of me and when I get up I bring the bike with me, the whole thing in two hands, just pick it up and throw it at him.

Yes!

Hits him square.

He nearly falls. I think he will, but he doesn't. He grabs my bike, smashes it down. I can see already that the front wheel is buckled, so I'm just standing there, facing him off just like the movies. He's standing there as well, I think I've impressed him a little because he starts smiling at me. 'How about we make a deal, kid?' He's taken out his wallet, and he's waving some notes around. 'Twenty quid,' he says.

'Twenty quid? I can nick that in two minutes.'

'Fifty?'

'Fifty? Just for the feather?'

He nods, and I nod back. He wants the feather, but I want the money first. He gives it to me, and I'm thinking maybe I should just run now. But instead I unzip my bumbag and take out the feather. The woman has got out of the car, she's waiting for me to hand it over. I can see now she's only young, maybe only twice my age. 'It's OK, Celia,' he says back at her, and I suppose it is because I hand over the feather.

'What is it?' I ask.

'Beautiful, isn't it?' he says.

'Yes. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.'

He laughs at that, as well he might, cause there ain't much beauty in my life to compare it to. 'Did you use it?' he asks.

'Use it?'

'Did you dream with it?'

'What?'

'Never mind. I hope it was a good one. For your sake.'

Then he's gone, back into the car, the woman beside him. I watch the red Mini till it disappears, then have a look at my bike. Busted. Matchstick has vanished, but Dazzle's bike is • waiting for me down in the hole. Why not? Dazzle won't be needing it now, not for a while anyway. I'll keep it warm for him.

I think about school for a bit, I really do. I even start to ride over there, but the feel of a Boomerang 509 under me with the seat set high and the weight of the wheels is too much to resist. I spend the day in a wild spree, doing wheelies and flips, which come easy with the good bike, and checking out some possible victims for a little snatch and chase of me own.

I get home late and get my mam mad by telling her I haven't been in to school. I tell her tomorrow definitely I'll start keeping my promises. My dad wants to know where I got the flash bike but I tell him to piss off down the pub where he belongs. My mam then says that the cops have let Dazzle out, and that something's happened, she's not sure what. So I ride over to Dazzle's house, already pissed off that I have to give up the good bike so soon and why had I left mine down the hole so easily? But when I get there all that falls away because all the gang's in, watching the tele, Dazzle and Jackie and Spike and Flute and Matchstick too. They're all bunched up round the tele, like it's the World Cup final and England are winning with ten seconds to go or something. But they go quiet when I walk in. I ask what's up, but all they do is make way for me like I'm some kind of hero or something. They sit me down in front of the tele, and it's Dazzle who gives up his seat for me. He uses the remote to restart the vid, the one showing his glorious arrest. I'm wondering why I have to sit through this again, but then I see it's not the same programme, this one was broadcast earlier this evening, some kind of follow-up report no doubt. 'Melvin, you are the bomb!' says Dazzle, and before I can ask, the reporter has finished speaking I don't know what and the security film from the mall starts rolling.

There's Dazzle on the screen just before the cops come get him, then the camera closes in on his lovely pixellated face till it's filling the screen. Then the pixels start to pop one by one like bubbles and it's not his face underneath them, it's my face!

I look around at Dazzle, who's smiling, and at the others and nobody's saying anything especially not me until Flute asks, 'How the fuck did you do that, Melv?'

I look at Jackie, thinking she's behind it with her hi-tech wizardry but she just looks at me smiling and says, 'Not me, Melv. This is from the cop station, and the copy at the mall is the same, I checked.'

'The cops don't know what to do, Pixel!' shouts Spike, ruffling my hair.

'Cops don't know nothing about Pixel Face!' pipes up Matchstick, then they're all hugging me and slapping my back like I'm a hero, and you know what? I am a hero, I am a fucking hero!

Anyway that's how it happened, I swear. That's how I got my new name, and that's how Dazzle donated me his Boomerang 509 like for ever and that's how I became a full-time member of the Hang 5ers, except that now we're called the Pixelkids. And I don't care if you cops don't believe me because that's what happened and I can't explain it and I don't even want to.

STIGMATICA

Flute wasn't your usual low-level partaker, no cheap and greedy half-incher she. Sure, she could turn on the hard-luck fairytale bollocks when cop-cornered, how she'd been a test-tube baby for instance, and had never known a good home that wasn't made of glass, so was it any wonder she was always throwing stones? Never known no father, except for some wayward fridge specimen. Her mum was nouveau lesbian with hetero latents, and posh with it, well able to afford the very best in frozen goods, so there must have been a mix-up at the Spurm-U-Want, don't you think? Must have been some nasty in there, how else explain her criminal tendencies?

These were the kinds of tales that Flute could tell with her mouth closed, and the look in her eyes said you better believe it, baby, or else you'll get this here in your gob, comprendez? Yes, we see.

She'd tried to go straight a few times, just to prove how good at heart she was, once when eight, once when nine, one final time at the age of eleven. But then she'd come on, and nicked her very first pack of tampons, which kinda sealed the life of her, stained her pocketbook, so to speak. A dark streak of blood, set loose.