4

When I started senior school I expected the bullying to continue, but it didn't! In fact I got on well with most of the girls in the all-girls school. The feeling of dread no longer crept up on me every time I opened my eyes in the morning. In my very first French lesson I befriended a girl names Hayley. Our French teacher told us to walk about the classroom, introducing ourselves to the other students in French. Every time I crossed paths with Hayley she would say "Froggy" in a croaky voice. I didn't understand the joke but I thought she was funny. After that day we would said "froggy" whenever we met. Sadly, I soon discovered how fickle people can be when at Christmas she bought me a little ornamental house. None of my friends had ever bought me a gift before and I was so grateful. Yet I felt sick to the pit of my stomach, knowing that I had no money to get her a gift in return. Every day I would tell her that I had forgotten her present, and every day she looked disappointed. I felt dreadful about it! My plan was to give Hayley one of my Christmas presents when we started back at school after the Christmas holiday.

Oh how I loved Christmas! For just one day out of the year, my family would make an effort to be nice to eachother. My mum wouldn't hit me or shout at me, and we had a lovely time! When the song "I wish it could be Christmas every day" blared out on the radio in the days leading up to Christmas, it would fill my heart with joy. I really did wish it could be Christmas every day, and I would gladly have gone without the toys if only I could have had the sense of peace that Christmas day brought to me. During the Christmas holiday I would stare at the little house that Hayley had given me, like it was made of gold.
I went through all of my presents, looking for a suitable gift for Hayley. Nothing seemed good enough for her but it didn't matter, because after Christmas Hayley ignored me. She refused my offer of a present and simply stopped being friends with me. Almost immediately afterwards, the other girls realised that they would gain nothing from being my friend. Only the poorest, plainest, dimmest girls would bother with me. I didn't mind because I still wasn't being bullied and that was good enough for me.

After my first, relatively trouble free year in senior school. The girls school mixed with a local boys school to form a mixed sex school. The bullying began again in full force. My spirit became broken and I fell into depression, (although at the time I didn't realise I was depressed).

Back then I could never understand why I was bullied when my sister wasn't. My sister was a very popular girl. She attracted teenage boys and even men almost twice her age! She was with one of these older men for quite some time. He had a good job, a nice car, and a wonderful caring family. They lived in a big house with a swimming pool and a tennis court, and my sister spent a lot of time there. I think that my sister genuinely fell in love with this for who he was and not for what he could offer. However, he would lavish my sister with expensive gifts and outings. Eventually, (once the relationship had run its course), they stayed together for the sex and he used his money to keep my sister on a string. I didn't realise how using and artificial their relationship was at the time. I wasn't aware of her "reputation" in school. I was jealous of my sister for all of the nice things she received, and for all the attention she got from men. She would literally have boys knocking at the door several times a day, (often bringing gifts to woo her). Looking back now I realise that a big part of why my sister got all the attention was because of her reputation of being easy. They all wanted a piece of her so they came sniffing around her in the hopes of getting some kind of sexual favour. They didn't care about her at all. I realise now that my sister clung to the bad relationship because she longed for the love and security that my parents simply didn't offer us. Both myself and my sister often confused love for lust, or love for need. My sister seemed so confident, sexy, popular and cool on the outside. But on the inside she was as much of a wreck as I was. She started to talk in her sleep and sleepwalk. I don't think she slept well generally because of her emotional problems. My sister would be out most nights and she would come in and out as she pleased. My mum tried to rein her in and she gave my sister beatings, but it made no difference. It came to a head one day, when my sister stuck up for herself and hit my mum back. After that my mum seemed to give up on my sister. She couldn't be bothered to fight with her anymore because my sister fought back. Actually my mum hated conflict, (I think that all bullies do though). From then on, my mum stopped sharing the beatings between me and my sister. Instead she took all of her anger and frustrations out on me. She would punish me for anything and nothing. She would ground me for being a minute late, and she made me do everything around the house. I was kept well and truly "under the thumb." I felt like Cinderella, only there was no Fairy Godmother to help me. Life seemed pretty hopeless a times.

I am painting an awful picture of my mum but she wasn't all bad. She could be nice sometimes, (but it was almost always when it benefited her). For instance, she would let me stay up late... But only if I did all of the family's ironing, the washing up and gave her a foot massage, (or "rub my ankles" as she liked to call it). She would make an all-milk coffee for me sometimes. It was such a treat because I wasn't usually allowed to drink milk. There were many times when I had to use hot water and sugar on my cornflakes because I wasn't allowed to use the milk. Once the cornflakes had been eaten I would use the cardboard boxes to cut out insoles for my shoes where there were ten pence piece size holes in the bottom of them. The kids at school would take great pleasure in poking their pens into the holes in my shoes to try and see who could get the most cardboard out. I had no idea why the other kids were so nasty towards me. Sure I was poor, but I was also kind, gentle, warm hearted unselfish and hard working. There wasn't a bad bone in my body! My brother didn't have the hole filled shoes like I did. At this point in my life, my mum was still treating my brother better. She would, (for example), save all of the strawberry yogurts for my brother. My mum said it was because my brother had told her that strawberry was the only flavour yougurt he liked. When the strawberry yogurts were gone my brother would soon start tucking into the other flavours though. I thought it was a plan that my brother had conjured up so he could eat the best flavour, so I devised a plan too...

I pierced a very small hole into the bottom of all of the strawberry yogurt pots and I sucked the yogurt out. Then I put the empty yogurt pots back in the fridge again. My brother got upset about it, but because there was no evidence that the pots had been opened, I got away with it the first time I did it, (the second time I got caught out and I got a beating). Other examples of my mum's difference of behaviour towards us are that my mum would pay for my brother's school trips... I never went on a single school trip! I hated waiting in the classroom on my own all day whilst the other kids went on field trips! Despite this difference in treatment I didn't bear a grudge against my brother, (even though at times I was jealous of him). It wasn't his fault that he was the golden boy. He didn't ask to be favoured, in the same way that I didn't ask to be the underdog of the family. I loved my brother dearly and we would often play together. When my brother realised that I had nobody to play with and that's why I stayed in all the time, he encouraged me to leave my bedroom and go outside into the park and play football with him and his friends. My brother didn't seem to be aware that his siters were being treated differently then he was, but a lot of the difference in treatment was concealed well.

It was between the ages of 12 and 13 that I went through puberty and I began to notice boys. My sister taught me how to shave and she would walk to the shops with me so I could buy sanitary towels. On my very first trip to the shop to buy my first pack of sanitary towels, the man at the till gave me a super thin carrier bag which was transparent. They had nothing else for me to carry them home in, so I tucked them into the front of my black bomber jacket. Halfway home I noticed a boy I fancied walking towards us on the other side of the road. I got all silly and giggly which brought attention to us. My sister suggested that we should cross the road and pass him by on the same stretch of pavement. Well, I say that she suggested it, but it was more of a knock to the arm and a nod to the other pavement, before she ran across the road with no warning. I started walking across the road towards her, but I didn't look where I was going and a car was coming down the road on my side of the street! The car slammed it's brakes on and I ran across to the other side of the road. I had nearly reached the pavement when suddenly the sanitary towels fell out from the bottom of my coat. I stopped and bent down as quickly as I could, hoping that the boy I fancied had not seen what I had dropped. It was fairly likely that he had seen them fall, because back then there were no super thins with wings and scents and odour control. Oh no, they were huge great things that didn't stick to your knickers properly and never stayed in place. They were so thick that you would waddle when you walked, (so everyone knew you were on your period). Anyway, as I was saying... I grabbed the pack of towels and stood up to a terrifying sight. A car had rounded the corner on my side of the road, and I was right on the corner of the road as they came around! The driver had to slam his brakes on hard and I was certain that I would get run over. It all happened so quickly that I didn't have time to run out of the way. I just stood there with my eyes shut, rooted to the spot, screaming. The car stopped just inches away from my body. I realised I was still alive so I slowly opened one eye. To my horror I was brandishing the sanitary towels in front of me as though they were some kind of sheild! I looked to my right and there on the pavement, (just steps away), was the boy I fancied. He was staring at me with his mouth wide open in amazement. I felt embarrassed and stupid at the time, but as I type this out today, I wonder why he didn't laugh, (it must have looked incredibly funny)! I apologised to the driver, joined my sister on the pavement, and hid the towels back inside my coat again. My sister seemed as embarrassed as I was and she grabbed me roughly by the arm of my black puffer jacket. She marched me across to the other side of the road, away from the boy I fancied telling me off for making a show of myself. My face was as red as a beetroot and I was still shaking from my near miss, so I couldn't answer. I waited for my sister to say something to comfort me... Something to make me feel better about what had just happened. We walked in silence for some time before my sister finally spoke these words... "Ah, you've blown it now. He won't want anything to do with you now. Well, nobody wants to shag a jammy!" Aren't big sisters wonderful hey!