Streamer by Geoff Bamber - Free

Streamer is fourteen. He lives with his alcoholic mother in a drab, grey block of flats on the edge of a drab, grey city. Inspired by a faded poster of a tree-lined stream in some idyllic corner of the countryside, he longs to escape and start a new life. Oppressively hot and sticky weather and a failed shoplifting expedition led by his best and only friend, the deeply unpleasant Truck, give him the impetus to set out on his great adventure and the self-proclaimed "worst hitch-hiker in the world" takes to the open road. Needless to say, nothing is ever as simple as it seems.