Break the Child: Chapter Twenty-Eight Bullying...1

Chapter Twenty-eight

It’s my Birthday tomorrow, I can’t wait but even better than that, in two weeks on Friday, Mum goes into hospital to have Andy. Just think, in just over two weeks I’m going to have my little brother here. I can’t wait to see him. I wonder if he looks like me? In a way, I hope that he looks like Mum, because then, when she gets really bad, or if she dies or something, I’ll always be able to see her in Andy. I just look like my dad, everybody says so.

            I was so nervous going into school yesterday and that’s apart from being tired cause I’d been up with Mum all night. I didn’t know what it’d be like seeing Danny again; I mean, what if he’d had second thoughts overnight. What if he’d decided that he didn’t want to go out with me after all? But mostly I was just excited. I didn’t expect to see him until I got into school, so imagine my shock when I opened my front door and he was there, leaning against the privet. He lives almost as far away from school as me, but in the other direction, he usually bikes it in. He must have been up really early to get to mine—and he’d left his bike at home so that he could walk with me.

            ‘Hi,’ he said kind of shy, like.

            ‘Hi,’ I said back to him and he pushed himself off the hedge as though he was really cool, but he had this piece of bush sticking out of his hair. I laughed and when he looked to see what I was laughing at I reached up and picked the branch out of his hair and he blushed. We started walking but I couldn’t think of anything to say and I don’t think he could either because he didn’t say anything for awhile. He didn’t hold my hand or nothing and I so wanted him to.

            ‘Did you sleep well?’

            ‘Yes, thanks,’ I said. Well, I couldn’t tell him the truth, could I? I mean, how bad would this sound, ‘No, my mum wet the bed and I was up all-night bathing her and getting all the stink off her,’ so I just said yes and asked about him. ‘You?’

            ‘Not really.’

            ‘Why?’

            ‘Because I was lying awake for ages thinking about you and I couldn’t get to sleep.’

            I’ve never had a boyfriend before, not really, but I don’t think they’re supposed to say things like that when you haven’t even been seeing them for one whole day. I don’t think he’s had a proper girlfriend before, either. My stomach did the butterfly thing that it did when I got home and thought about him kissing me. I got dead brave and reached for his hand and he grabbed mine and gave it a squeeze and then he let go of it and put his arm around me and pulled me into him, first around my shoulders, and then, when I put my arm around him, he dropped his so that it was around my waist and we walked along the street like that with our arms crossed at the back and I put my thumb in the belt loop on his trousers. And we were there, just liking the feel of each others arms and then he kissed me on the cheek, and I turned my head to look at him.

            Then he made this noise in his throat and he pulled me behind a bush where people walking down the street couldn’t see us. He pushed me up against the wall, quite hard, too, not gentle and then we were kissing, and kissing, and kissing and he had his hand under my hair on my neck all hot and dry, not soft, like a girl’s hand. Not that I’ve had any girl’s hands on my neck, mind. But the thing is Mum was gone, and the wee on the mattress was gone, and the spelling test second period was gone, and I wasn’t tired anymore.  I could hear him breathing all loud and deep and then he put his tongue in my mouth. It felt weird and then I got a bit scared because I thought that he might want to touch my boobs. I pushed him away.

 ‘We’re going to be late for school,’ I said, and it was only then that I noticed that I could hardly breathe. I was all breathless, too. I felt happy and a little bit scared and a little bit embarrassed all at once.

            He put his arm around me again and I put my arm around him, and we walked the rest of the way to school. Every time I looked at him, he’d give me a little kiss on the lips, and it took longer to get there than it would have done if I’d been going on my own.

            Most people were already in the form room, but we weren’t late, it was only five to nine. I was supposed to meet Sal in the yard before we went to class and when we walked in she glared at me. I mouthed ‘I’m sorry,’ at her, but she still didn’t look happy with me. I’d made her promise not to tell anybody about me and Danny because I didn’t know if he wanted people to know, or not. I couldn’t stop looking at him and when I had my head down working, I could just feel him looking at me. It’s a good job I’d memorised all the spellings because if I’d had to think about them, I know I’d have got, like, two percent or something. I only got one wrong, Veterinarian, see, I know it now. I came third in the class and got 92%. Danny got 64% and blushed when his score was read out. He glanced at me and I smiled, but I think he was worried that I’d think he was thick.

            At first break Sal rushed me off to the toilets to talk. She wanted all the details of this morning and I wanted to tell her, but I was worried that she’d get all stroppy with me again because I’m seeing somebody, and she isn’t. I told her a bit about the kissing again and his tongue and stuff and she said, ‘He’s so going to cop a feel, for sure.’ And I felt scared then. I don’t want him to touch me. I just want it to be nice, you know? If he did touch my boobs, it’s no big deal, but what if they’re still too small? Lots of girl’s in my class have had their boobs felt, in fact, most of them. It’s no biggie, but if I let him touch my boobs would he want to touch something else? That is a big deal. It’s a huge deal. I know I don’t want that. I’m not ready.

            I told Sal about him getting all breathy.

 ‘Oh my God, Kate,’ she said, ‘did he have a stiffy?’

            I could feel my cheeks all red and hot, ‘I don’t know.’

            ‘Couldn’t you feel it pushing against you?’

            ‘No.’

            ‘Well how were you standing? Show me what position you were in.’

I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It was private stuff between me and Danny. And now I feel torn between them. I’ve got my boyfriend on one side and my best friend since juniors, on the other. I can see problems coming up and I don’t know what do to. I didn’t even want to be with Sal at first break, I wanted to be with Danny, not kissing or anything like that, just being with him, talking to him. I couldn’t stop thinking about him and I hadn’t seen him for ten whole minutes, and it was killing me. And there’s Sal telling me what we’d do at lunch break. She’s never done that before.

She’s never said, ‘We’ll have lunch and then hang on the top field.’ We just have lunch and then hang on the top field without having to say so. And I said okay, just because I didn’t want to cause an argument. But I knew that I would go crazy, if I didn’t see Danny at lunch time.

            We went to history, next lesson. Miss Chew always asks me now, every lesson, ‘You all right Kate?’

And I always say, ‘Yes Miss.’ I don’t think she expects me to say anything else, but I think she’s just letting me know that I can talk to her if I want to. I wondered about asking her about the Danny versus Sal thing but then I decide not to because it’s just kid’s stuff, like what every kid goes through. It’s not like, extra on account of my mum going mad. And what would old miss Chew know about a boy touching your boobs? Do I let him, or stop him? I don’t know. And it’s not like mum being nuts makes any difference `cause even if she was normal, it’s not something you can ask your mum, is it?

            We all got our books out and I thought that we were going to do about the Ancient Romans again. Do you know that they used to sit in a bath, all of them, together, but they weren’t gay, or anything, I don’t think. Miss Chew didn’t tell us that bit, so I don’t know if they were all gay or not for truth. I suppose they can’t be `cause then there’d be no Roman babies—unless they adopted. Lots of gay couples adopt babies now—they used to get a poodle and dye it pink.

But the grossest thing I’ve ever heard, apart from Mum peeing the bed, that was pretty gross too, but the Roman’s used to eat so much, a whole heck of a lot, in fact, that they made themselves sick and they had this cut out bit in the side of the big bath. Like a gutter that they used to puke into. And then they used to eat some more until they puked again. They were all really fat, apart from the peasants who were starving, and they just spent all day eating and puking. I don’t think they had time to be gay. Isn’t that just the most disgusting thing you’ve ever heard?

            So, I opened my book and turned to page twenty-three to learn more about the Puking Romans, but Miss went to the blackboard and wrote one word in big capital letters.

Bullying