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Twenty Years Ago
Again, I sit in a toilet cubicle crying my eyes out. PE always does this to me. I’m not good at it and the names they call me stick. No, I can’t run well and I can’t get a ball into a hoop but is that a reason to make my life a misery? Then there’s other things like me always being mistaken for less than my fourteen years. I know I’m sinewy and bony and whatever else they like to tease me with. Wiping the last of my tears away with the coarse school toilet roll, I feel my burning face, knowing that it’s red and blotchy.
It’s no good sitting here all day with the smell of urine turning my stomach. However much I want to, I can’t hide in here forever. There are other lessons today and I could do without another detention for being late even though it’s not my fault. I have to avoid being in the communal area when they’re busy. Pushing the main door open, kids come and go, slamming lockers and gripping books and folders under their arms. The hum of lesson changeover rattles away and the smell of cheese crisps catches in my throat as I inhale.
I scurry along, head bowed and shoulders hunched over as I stare at the floor. The best thing I can do is make myself as small and invisible as possible. Glancing from side to side, I can see that it’s safe to open my locker. My fingers shake as I twist the numbers on the combination lock. I yank it but it won’t open so I pull and pull. I check the numbers, then I realise that I’ve turned the second number to nine instead of six. My locker squeaks as I eventually get it open. That’s when I see the note that has been pushed through the slats. It contains one
word and it’s the most hurtful word ever. They have called me that name since I began high school and they never let up.
Louise nudges me into a locker. ‘Move.’ Then she finishes with the name, saying it at the top of her voice so that everyone can hear. I can’t even think it in my head. Some things hurt too much. It all started at the well, that’s when I first got called that name and it’s never ended. I’ll never forgive the girl who came up with it.
With one final nudge that knocks my chin into my locker, Louise leaves me and sashays towards Glen, the boy she’s been seeing for a couple of weeks. She flicks her long honey waves while applying a coat of pink gluey lip gloss.
She hurt me. We were once close and I don’t know what I ever did wrong to change things so suddenly. I used to follow her and her friends to the well in the field, hoping that she’d let me join in. They’d walk through Beoley Woods at night, leaving our Redditch estate behind so that they could make out and smoke. All I wanted was to be a part of that, to be friends with them. That was when they started to do bad things to me and Louise laughed like I was dog crap on her shoe. And it all still goes on now. I can’t wait for the summer holidays to start because I need out of this hell. I stay back, hoping that she and Glen are going to turn that corner and leave me alone. Keep still, keep silent and keep your head down, that’s what I keep telling myself.
It didn’t work yesterday. Louise spent half of maths throwing bits of paper at me. The others laughed and joined in. My eyes had filled but I’d held in those tears. There’s no way I’d let them see how much hurt they were causing me. That wasn’t the worst of it. Not once had I felt them attaching chewing gum into my hair.
‘Baldy patch has a red face.’ Louise howls with laughter as does Glen and the others. So much for remaining silent, still and keeping my head down. A sea of faces close in on me, blocking the light from the end of the corridor with their open upturned mouths and stares. I place my shaking hand over the patch of removed hair from where I cut the chewing gum out. After washing it with everything I could find, it beat me. All I had left to fix things was my dad’s decorating scissors.
I need to get away from them but they’ve formed a barrier. ‘Let me through.’ My voice barely carries.
‘I don’t think so.’ Louise kicks me in the shin sending me back into the wall. Behind her, I catch the whispers that seem to be coming from everywhere. ‘Who’s been crying? We
haven’t upset you, have we?’ Her grin is all I can see.
I shake my head and break eye contact. My heart is gathering momentum, so much so that I see prickles in my vision and I’m gasping for breath. If I can’t get away, I’ll faint and I can’t let them see me like that. With all I have, I crash past her, slamming into the row behind and then the row behind that. A boy I don’t know grabs the collar of my blazer and pulls me back, throwing me to the floor. The howls and shrieks spill out, like magma being forced from an erupting volcano. About twenty pairs of eyes stare in my direction. Fingers point and laughter rings through my ears then they all chant that name again. Curling up in a ball, I place my hands over my ears and close my eyes, willing it all to be over. Someone punches my cheek and a wet blob lands on my hand and I recoil, grossed out by the spit. Slowly, I release my fingers from my ears and open one eye.
‘Quick, Mr Smith is coming,’ one of the kids calls out, and with that the corridor empties leaving me and the gangly teacher, who knows that I’m being bullied but never does a thing. He’s no exception. They’re all the same.
‘You’re going to be late for history. Best be on your way.’
I almost stumble as I stand, the kick to my shin stinging like mad.
As I hurry towards the history classroom, they’re all there, waiting. My torment never ends. I ignore their sniggers and stare ahead. Control of my emotions is the only thing that will see me through. I can’t let them break me.
I take a seat and gaze out of the window at the sandbags lined up against the outbuildings. Rain crashes against the windowpane, and that’s when the banging of feet on my chair starts. It never ends. A tear slides down my cheek and all I can do is hope that the lesson will go fast but I know it won’t.
Louise makes the sound of a crying baby and points at me and the rest of the bullies roll up paper and throw it at me. I’ve never felt so alone and I can’t go on like this.
