All about the Benjamins

Sometimes I am my own worst enemy.

I was giving it out on the phone to Dinesh about my seriously low cash situation, and how my parents are way tight with the pocket money. Which is all totally true, by the way: they’re always telling me to ‘save and watch the pennies’, but don't hardly give me enough to buy the stuff I need for school! So I'm moaning, and my mum sticks her head round the door and is all like, "If it's more money you're after, why don't you get a job? Grown boy like you, sixteen and everything."

I thought that was the end of it, but at dinner she and Dad were sat there with smug faces on, and he starts in on how a sixteen-year-old should be helping to support his parents not the other way round, and it's time I paid something towards the household bills, and how I should get a job. And I'm ready with the whole “I have exams coming up and you want me to spend more time at the mosque anyway” bit when Dad says, "And we've found one for you."

So I'm the newest employee at the Food Etc. on Manor Street, right by the Eastburgh Estate. Great, right? Working for Tareq's uncle Manoj, evenings and weekends – oh and like my homework had better not suffer because of it because we will take no slacking from a son of ours or it's off to Bangladesh with you, state of emergency or no state of emergency. Guess when I start? Tomorrow. And half the dosh is going to my parents!