Bounce is a short story detailing what became of Joel directly after A Different Class - Boyhood. Joel's downward spiral didn't end when he left school and it would have been so easy for him to become a statistic. Some of those he knew were not so lucky.
There was little choice but for Joel to leave school. He could have dealt with the hostility of some teachers. He could have coped with hostility and isolation from his peers. Both was too much to bear. When the initial euphoria at ending the five year nightmare wore off, Joel found his problems wouldn't vanish overnight. It seemed like it at first.The wounds inflicted by the strike meant the village would never recover and Joel's friends were lost boys. At sixteen years old Alan found himself on the verge of becoming a proud father after a faulty prophylactic split. They had been so careful for two years yet it was undone in seconds and his girlfriend had the unenviable task of telling her parents.
Some of Joel's other friends joined a skinhead gang and the repercussions of adult aggression during the strike had transferred to the teens. Not all became violent alcoholics, Steve and Nathan chose drugs instead. By sixteen both had become habitual heroin users. Joel knew about the weed, he had smoked it with them often enough, but was still very naive about other things.
There was no pressure on Joel to get a job straight away, he had earned these summer holidays and fully intended enjoying them. Joel was disappointed. At best they could be termed 'relaxing' but boring was more to Joel's thoughts. Eventually as the summer wore on Joel found himself hanging around with Steve and Nathan and the slope was about to get even more slippery.
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