My friend Mark

In September, I´m leaving Primary to go up to the Comprehensive. We don´t know yet whether Mark will be able to come too. Mark´s my friend, my friend who looks like no other friend in the world. He´s autistic. We´ve been inseparable since Infants school. I can see it now. I was knee-high to a grasshopper. That was five years ago... "Hello, Mark, my name´s Miss Goody." This sparked off a storm of kicks and punches, Mark looked like a windmill gone mad, his arms and legs swinging through the air. His mouth was wide open, but he didn`t scream. It was just as if someone had turned the sound off. That day, I was very frightened of Mark!