The lie that showed me the truth

“You’re a liar!”

The words stung and stopped me in my tracks.

I protested, but he laughed and walked away. With a sinking feeling in my gut, I turned to my audience for support. They avoided my eyes and followed my accuser.

Drake.

No one called him by his first name. No one asked him what it was.

He looked back, an arrogant smile spreading across his thin lips. His piercing gaze defied me to challenge him.

In that instant, I had a choice to make.

Did I stand my ground? Or did I follow them back to the noise and bustle of the playground?

I’d embellished the story to impress Drake.

Like most of the kids in class, we wanted to walk with him, to be his friend. He had influence, status and a father who owned a minimarket, which meant free sweets.

We’d only moved to Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire a few months ago. I knew no one. But I soon realised Drake was the boy to make friends with. Where he went, others followed. For a shy boy of seven, whose mother had left his father, I needed Drake on my side.

To gain his friendship and respect, I had to make myself more interesting and exciting than I was.

If I didn’t, he could make my life a misery.

Thanks to Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, which gave me a sense of courage and adventure, I soon created a plan. From the moment I began to read their adventures, I yearned to be like them. I read every book in the series, improving my vocabulary along with my imagination.

When children asked me what I’d done the previous night or over the weekend, I embellished my responses. Joining the children next door at teatime became a treasure hunt. In reality, we had to search high and low to find their mother’s misplaced reading glasses.

My bedroom became the attic at the honey-coloured stone house where we lived. I had the run of the entire roof space, which contained enough old furniture to open and antiques’ shop. I preferred to call them relics from expeditions to Egypt and China. There were charts and maps where treasure was located.

Thankfully, no one asked to visit the attic or see copies of the charts. A faded set of drawings that showed where the drains ran was hardly going to excite anyone.

My mistake was to embellish a chance meeting with James, whose father was an important businessman in the village. James and I ran into each other one Sunday morning near the Norman bridge that spanned the River Avon.

As usual, I’d walked to the village centre to collect the Sunday newspaper. When I ran into James on the way, we talked, sharing adventures. Outside the newsagent, he stopped, telling me he never went inside. For a dare, he’d once taken some sweets and almost got caught.

On Monday, I related the tale, saying James took a large Fruit and Nut bar and shared it with a friend, who didn’t have the money to buy chocolate.

Had I known James was allergic to nuts, I might have impressed Drake and made some new friends.

Instead, he caught me out, strolling off with his friends to tell everyone I was a liar.

I could have gone with them to explain how my small exaggeration was purely for entertainment. But Drake would still tell everyone I was a liar.

I should have saved the embellishments for the stories I wanted to write.

But even at the age of seven, I knew I couldn’t follow Drake. It would have been tantamount to admitting I was a liar, when I’d never tried to cheat or defraud.

No, I would remain defiant, even if it meant becoming an outsider.

At the time, I had no idea it would set me on a path I’d rarely deviate from.

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