Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Needle
    Needle
    Needle
    Ebook99 pages1 hour

    Needle

    By Patrice Lawrence and Andy Gellenberg

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Award-winning author Patrice Lawrence explores the harsh reality of the criminal justice system for young people in this riveting teen drama.

    A powerful and heart-rending exploration of a teenager’s journey through grief, rage and getting caught in the criminal justice system from award-winning author Patrice Lawrence.

    Charlene is a demon knitter. It’s the only thing she enjoys and the only thing she believes she’s really good at.

    So when her foster mum’s son destroys her latest creation, Charlene loses it and stabs him in the hand with her knitting needle. It damages a nerve and she gets sucked into the criminal justice system for assault.

    Charlene's not sorry and she’s never apologised to anyone in her life. But people keep telling her that if she says sorry, they’ll go easier on her. Can she bring herself to say it and not mean it when her freedom’s at stake?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateMay 5, 2022
    ISBN9781800901537
    Needle
    Author

    Patrice Lawrence

    Patrice Lawrence was brought up in an Italian-Trinidadian household in Sussex. Her highly-acclaimed novel, Orangeboy has won multiple awards.

    Read more from Patrice Lawrence

    Related to Needle

    Related ebooks

    YA Social Themes For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Problem with My Dachshund

      Dec 11, 2019

      The Problem with My Dachshund
      10 min read

    • Article

      Heave’s Whisky

      Feb 27, 2024

      Heave’s Whisky
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Red KIMONO

      Jul 5, 2023

      The Red KIMONO
      6 min read

    • Article

      Kids & Angels

      Jun 25, 2019

      Kids & Angels
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Stinking Bad Date

      Jun 4, 2020

      A Stinking Bad Date
      2 min read

    • Article

      Now That I’ve Arrived

      Dec 30, 2020

      Now That I’ve Arrived
      5 min read

    • Article

      Festival

      Sep 15, 2018

      My husband, who loved festivals, who was a great fan of festivals, wanted to get to the square in time for the first band at eleven o’clock. From bed, the dog and I watched him dress. He tried on various T-shirts, declaring some of them too tight and

      13 min read

    • Article

      The Space Between Us

      Oct 9, 2019

      The Space Between Us
      8 min read

    • Article

      Here’s What I Don’t Say

      Jun 1, 2019

      Here’s What I Don’t Say
      13 min read

    • Article

      Counselor of Chippewa Cabin

      Jun 26, 2020

      Counselor of Chippewa Cabin
      5 min read

    • Article

      Choosing the Flowers

      Oct 10, 2022

      Choosing the Flowers
      10 min read

    • Article

      Lineal Gaps

      Apr 6, 2021

      Lineal Gaps
      15 min read

    • Article

      In The Place Of Our Parents

      Oct 13, 2017

      In The Place Of Our Parents
      11 min read

    • Article

      Counter Waves

      Oct 23, 2020

      Counter Waves
      8 min read

    • Article

      In a class OF MY OWN

      Jan 29, 2020

      In a class OF MY OWN
      6 min read

    • Article

      How Embarrassing

      Dec 9, 2019

      I had my cousin’s one-year-old kid sit on my lap at a family get-together over Christmas and hadn’t noticed she’d undone the straps on my super cute tie-up dress as I was talking away. When I stood up, my dress just fell to the floor and I flashed my

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Gentle STIRRING

      Mar 13, 2024

      A Gentle STIRRING
      6 min read

    • Article

      Come with Me

      Dec 1, 2022

      Come with Me
      12 min read

    • Article

      Advent

      Nov 22, 2018

      Advent
      8 min read

    • Article

      Candy

      Aug 1, 2024

      Louise has always devoured fiction of all genres, inspiring her first job at eighteen as a bookseller. She delved into writing short and flash fiction three years ago, when she quit her stressful job to become a dog walker in rural Bedfordshire. She

      6 min read

    • Article

      Let Me Do It

      Jun 1, 2023

      Let Me Do It
      6 min read

    • Article

      Metaphors

      Mar 10, 2023

      I’m knitting on my front porch when a car roars to a stop in front of my house. It’s a red Mustang convertible, top down on this warm Thursday afternoon in June. Two girls sit in the front, two in the back. They smile and wave at me. I smile back tho

      8 min read

    • Article

      Tripping The Light FANTASTIC!

      Apr 3, 2022

      Finally, I can tell you! After years of politely declining the opportunity to appear on Dancing with the Stars – in fact, I think I wrote a column a couple of years ago as to the reasons why I simply couldn’t bring myself to say yes, even though I ab

      2 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Jan 1, 2022

      It was an unusual birthday. Colorful banners blanketed the backyard. Kids chased each other through the grass. Adults talked. It all went downhill from there. My little sister was turning five. On her birthday cake, painted in frosting, was a fat, pi

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Class ACT

      Dec 29, 2020

      A Class ACT
      6 min read

    • Article

      Not Just For CHRISTMAS

      Nov 24, 2021

      Not Just For CHRISTMAS
      9 min read

    • Article

      Supportive Husband

      Sep 12, 2023

      There were less intimate places available, so it was odd when a woman took the seat directly facing mine across the subway aisle. I looked up from my book and right back down: a couple of months before, we’d gone home together. She had a Southern acc

      22 min read

    • Article

      The Doll

      Apr 14, 2022

      The Doll
      5 min read

    • Article

      Soul On Sale

      Aug 10, 2022

      I was waiting for the call at the telephone booth. I’d been waiting for fourteen or seventeen minutes and finally, I decided to leave. It was pointless. I only had a 20-dollar bill on me and no coins for the slot. Hard rain was coming, some type of s

      9 min read

    • Article

      Normal Life

      Jun 4, 2018

      At last the water went down as our mother said it would. Lona and I went out into the dark street to catch and throw the lopsided ball we’d kept up high. After her fifth expert catch, Lona took on a far look and stretched out an arm and pointed. “Lo

      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Needle

    4.5/5

    3 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Needle - Patrice Lawrence

      To LJ for bringing people together to change this

      Contents

      Title Page

      Dedication

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Copyright

      Chapter 1

      I’ve got my needles. I’ve got my wool. And now, I’m gonna knit. Some folks like to pray. Some folks like yoga. My foster mum, Annie – she’s one of them yoga people. But me, I knit when I’m stressed out. Today was a big stress out. It’s lucky I’ve got something big to knit. I mean proper big. Dinosaur big.

      I don’t even like dinosaurs. (Of course I haven’t met no dinosaurs face to face. And most of them have faces way too high up for me to see anyway.) But some kids are obsessed with dinosaurs. They know what every dinosaur is called. Their full Latin names and everything. My little sister, Kandi, is one of those kids. I’m knitting something special, just for her.

      I haven’t seen Kandi for two years now. When our mum died, there wasn’t no one around who could look after both of us. Kandi went to live with her dad. But no one knew where my dad had gone and our aunty had baby twins and didn’t have room for me.

      So I live with Annie. I’ve been here for ten months now. It’s the third place I’ve lived since me and Kandi got split up. Annie’s been fostering kids like me for ages. Her parents used to foster kids too. Me and Annie get on all right. She tells me she’s in it for the long term. But sometimes we have to work at our relationship, as she puts it.

      Annie runs a yoga studio in an alley off the high street. She says to me, Charlene, yoga’s perfect for slowing down our minds and easing our stress.

      Annie’s offered me free classes any time I want. But I got my knitting to slow down my mind and help me deal with stress. I don’t need to stare at other people’s bums for an hour.

      Annie’s got a son called Blake. He’s at uni, so I’ve got his old room. I know he’s not happy with that. He wants it free for when he comes back here. Still, the third bedroom he sleeps in isn’t that small. At least he doesn’t have to share like me and Kandi did until we got separated.

      Last time Blake was here, Annie made him wash his own clothes, the same way I have to. I heard them arguing. Annie said, "I’m your mother, not your slave, Blake. You know how the washing machine works." Blake acted like it was my fault she was making him do this, despite him seeing me unloading my clothes and hanging them out in the garden to dry.

      Annie’s been helping me with dinosaur research. We went to the library and found a whole load of books with pictures of dinosaurs in them. Then she found some small toy dinosaurs in an old box in a cupboard in the loft. They used to belong to Blake when he was a kid. Last week, me and Annie spent a couple of evenings watching the Jurassic Park films. We thought about watching the Jurassic World films too but didn’t. Annie said that she didn’t want to ruin her memory of the originals. And me, like I said, I’m just not that into dinosaurs.

      But I want to make sure I get everything right for Kandi. I can’t knit a real-size dinosaur. Annie hasn’t got a ladder that tall nor pockets that deep to buy all that wool. I’m making my little sister a kind of blanket that she can wrap around herself, with a dinosaur hood to pull over her head. Because, man, do you want to know another one of Kandi’s favourite things? It was when we wriggled under the covers to the bottom of her bed. Then I’d use my phone torch to read her favourite dinosaur books. We even kept doing it when she could read them herself.

      I miss Kandi so much.

      Right now, Annie’s downstairs eating dinner. I’ve told her I’m too stressed and I don’t want nothing to eat. She says the food’s waiting in the fridge for when I’m ready. I can just stick it in the microwave, but I shouldn’t bring it up here to my bedroom. Annie had a foster kid a couple of years ago that stored doughnuts in the wardrobe and the place ended up full of mice.

      No food. Just knitting. I need to close my eyes and feel the stitches as they slip from one needle to the other. I need the click, click, click.

      When you’re knitting, there’s no silence until you finish it.

      Click, click, click.

      I hope my heart calms down soon.

      Click.

      Click.

      Click.

      If I knit too fast, the stitches are gonna drop and there’s gonna be holes. I don’t want that. If there’s holes, I’ll have to start again.

      Click.

      And it’s working – it’s slowing me down, even though I don’t like the way this cheap wool feels. When I was a kid, I picked up a stone and there was a slug stuck to it. The slug fell into my hand and I screamed. The wool reminds me of that feeling, except it’s not wet and slimy. My last social worker, Wanda, bought the wool for me out of her own money before she left and started training to be a teacher. I’m really grateful. I just wish it didn’t feel so weird. But this is for Kandi, so I’m gonna make myself use it.

      My stomach just rumbled. It’s lying. I’m not hungry.

      Click, click, click, click, click.

      I’m going too fast again. I want my knitting to make me stop thinking about what happened in that shop earlier. It’s the thing that stressed me out today. Annie believes my version of the story. She’s even cooked macaroni cheese for dinner because she knows it’s my favourite. She wants me to feel better. Annie says that no stuck-up security guard from a make-up store is gonna make her feel bad about me. But maybe me swearing didn’t help, Annie says. And she reckons it would have been much easier if I’d just said sorry.

      Nuh!

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1