The early years part 3

Jumping ahead three years to when I was eleven, my dad died.(He'd been in and out of hospital for most of my life before finally succumbing to the smoking disease emphysema, or what's now known as C.O.P.D) and my love for horror took off.
      I'd never seen a dead body before, so when my mum took me to the undertakers to say goodbye, I was both shocked and intrigued. Shocked because he looked so pale and hard (I poked him) because my mum said if I didn't touch him, I'd have nightmares, and intrigued because, although he looked like my dad, he kind of didn't. His hair was combed the wrong way, he'd always had a side parting and the lines around his mouth and brow had gone. He looked a lot younger and he was wearing a suit. Something he never did unless he was going to a wedding or a funeral, which in hindsight, I guess he was.
       Anyway the day of the funeral arrived, the hymns were sung, abide with me(I still hate that song) the coffin sat on the catafalque and slowly began to descend. I remember asking my mum where it was going, dismissively she said 'downstairs.'
      It wasn't until we'd left the chapel and I'd seen smoke coming from an enormous chimney, that my elder cousin had told me, rather bluntly, the truth.
      'That's your dad, they're burning him.'
Well I was horrified, not being familiar with cremation, my imagination went into overdrive. In my minds eye I could see all these dead people lined up and waiting to climb into a giant oven and get swallowed up by the waiting flames. I never told anyone what my cousin had said, but I did have a few nightmares.
      That aside, my next big milestone was how to survive secondary school. It did have its good points. I was introduced to proper subjects like English language and literature, which I was pretty good at in my first year, but it also had its bad points. If you were good at something, you attracted criticism and bullying. Yes, the bullies were back and not only in my own class, but in other years as well. I was called a swat, a suck up and teacher's pet to name but a few and it was always due to my writing. Expressing my love for the written word was not a good way of making friends.
      I did have friends, social outcasts had to stick together. My friends enjoyed my little stories, or so they said. Mainly, I think, because they involved destroying, humiliating or maiming our tormentors in some way. Part 4 tomorrow.