Meet John Smith – Hero Of Ethan Justice: Origins

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Welcome John Smith, the highly educated underachiever, whose life is turned upside down in Ethan Justice: Origins, after he finds his best friend murdered.

There’s clearly a lot more to you than meets the eye. With a name like John Smith, and going to such a prestigious school, life must have been uncomfortable at times.

You mean having a working–class name in a posh boarding school?

Yes, mixing with the sons of royalty, politicians and wealthy bankers can’t have been easy. Especially when you started at eight years old.

I guess the first two weeks were pretty bad.

Just the first two?

On the first night my dorm-mates blacked my face and genitals with shoe polish. Dad had warned me that there might be an initiation ceremony and so I just took it. Not that I had much choice because there were eight or so of them.

And after that?

I got called ‘commoner’, ‘peasant’ or ‘mongrel’ and some names I wouldn’t like to repeat but they all revolved around my lack of good breeding. This carried on for a week and I did shed the odd tear when the others were asleep but then it started to get physical.

More shoe polish?

No, every night our dorm-leader Henry Jenkins, with the encouragement of my peers, would … well … urinate on my bed and the others would drag me out and rub my face in it. They would all dance around laughing and calling me ‘pissy sissy’ or something similar.

Didn’t you tell anyone?

You don’t tell tales at that sort of school, even I knew that. If I spilled the beans, I wouldn’t have lasted another day.

So what did you do?

There was this spindly kid, Bradshaw, who never joined in with the others. Bradders, as he was known, told me that Jenkins kept a set of darts under his mattress to throw at people’s feet when he fancied some sport.

Go on…

I stayed awake until I was sure that the dorm was asleep and I crept over to his bunk bed and felt around under his mattress while trying not to wake him. He tossed and turned and I felt sure he would stir any second but he didn’t. After five minutes or so I pulled out the wallet containing the darts and removed all three.

I’m scared to ask. What did you do with the darts?

I stood on the metal frame of the bottom bunk so that I could peer over his head while he slept.

Yes, yes…

Then I tapped him gently on his forehead until he opened his eyes and looked back at me. He didn’t appear threatened and for a second he looked like he might ignore me and go back to sleep. As his eyelids drooped, I drove the fistful of darts through his blankets, deep into his upper thigh.

Jesus…

He screamed like a madman and jumped out of bed. The covers came with him as they were now attached to his leg and he was dragging them along with him when Matron arrived. There was blood everywhere and the rest of the dorm, woken up by the screaming, began to cry.

How come you didn’t get expelled?

Because Jenkins never said a word. Like I said, you don’t tell tales at a school like that, you have to sort out your own problems.

So you were left alone after that?

Yes, nobody bothered me again and Mark became my best friend for life.

Thank you for sharing that with us.

You’re welcome.

If you would like to follow John Smith’s exploits in Ethan Justice: Origins, you can read the first 10% of the book for FREE via the “Look Inside” feature or BUY NOW on Amazon.