Stories
Here you will find select stories that Bethany has posted in full on this website. For stories published in magazines etc. see the 'Publications and Prizes' tab where online copies (when available) are linked.
An Ode to Puberty
Liv stood in the wings clutching her notepad, elbows by her side to hide the growing sweat patches on her white shirt. Mr Dendy, a tuft of grey hair poking out of his nostrils, lifted his chin and addressed the rows of students from his podium.
“This summer, while taking time to relax with friends and family, remember that your final year of GCSEs is on the horizon. An exercised mind is an exam-ready mind.”
The rows of students groaned. He’d become their head of year a month before and this was only the latest in a list of catchphrases he’d tried out.
“A lazy mind does not an A* student make. Without further ado, let me introduce Olivia Fletcher. Olivia has been chosen by Mrs Summers to read her poem ‘An Ode to Sunflowers’.”
Mr Dendy gestured for Liv to join him. She took a deep breath. Staring down at her polished shoes, she stepped into the light. Mr Dendy stood back from the podium and she took his place.
“An Ode to Sunflowers,” she said.
An hour before, Liv had been in the bathroom, frantically wrapping toilet paper around her underwear.
She’d felt the familiar warm ooze in her M&S spotty knickers whilst sitting with her friends in the quad at lunchtime. Her new best friend, Lucy, had been telling the other girls about an article her mum had made her read. It had said that by the age of fourteen, the average girl was far less confident than the average boy.
“But way more intelligent!” Lucy said.
The cramps in Liv’s stomach had started days before, but, as she searched through her bag under the picnic table, panic rippled from her stomach to her ears. A text went out to the friends sat around her. ‘Sorry, I only have one and I need it,’ ‘Sorry, I’m out,’ came the texted replies.
She imagined herself on A-Hall stage later that day for the end-of-year assembly. Visions of blood dribbling down her legs and pooling around the floor flashed through her mind. She moved quickly, albeit with thighs clamped together, to the murky toilets by the Food Tech rooms. The ceiling was covered in clumps of wet toilet paper, thrown up there by truanting students. The sinks only ran boiling water and the one hand dryer had packed up months ago. If there had ever been a sanitary towel dispenser, there wasn’t one now and, besides, Liv had spent her last pound on a chocolate cornflake slice at the Year 11 Prom bake sale.
She sat on the toilet, staring at her once white-and-red – now mainly red – knickers with a dejected acceptance. She spun off a long trail of scratchy toilet paper and wound it around her knickers. She’d made the mistake once of simply folding the paper and placing it between her legs, but, when she’d stood up to sharpen her pencil in art class, the toilet paper dislodged and fell out the bottom of her trousers. Luckily, only Miss Jackson had noticed. She’d quickly ushered Liv to the staff bathroom and placed a pantyliner in her hand.
Liv sat on the cold toilet seat, her toilet-paper-nappy forming, running over her poem in her mind. ‘An Ode to Sunflowers’. A week before, her class had been reading Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ out loud, very slowly. Liv had studied Keats’ at her old school; she could probably recite most of ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ from memory. She couldn’t draw a nightingale though, she thought. The next thing she knew Mrs Summers was hovering above her, eyeing her sub-par bird doodle. Any other teacher at the school would have shouted, maybe even sent her out. Mrs Summers turned to a blank page in Liv’s notebook and told her to write a poem instead. Liv showed her the poem at the end of class and, without her knowing, Mrs Summers found her a slot to read at the end of term assembly, fifth period on the final Friday.
On A-Hall stage, Liv held her notebook in front of her, the pages quivering. She was sure people would be staring at her forearms. Why hadn’t she shaved them? That’s what Marcy had told her to do. "Shave your arms, monkey.”
“An Ode to Sunflowers,” Liv said again. She looked up. Half of her year were staring at their laps, probably texting each other asking who Liv thought she was. She swallowed. Unlike most people, whose mouths dried up when they were nervous, Liv’s swam with saliva. On the front row, her friends were staring at her, smiling wildly.
During the rehearsal in their fourth period English class, Liv's friends had looked at her with the same wide smiles. Mrs Summers sat on her desk stroking her chin; one arm stretched horizontally across her chest as a prop for the other. She gave Liv a minute nod.
“Go on,” she mouthed.
Liv breathed deeply, fighting her desire to curl into a ball to stop the sharp, stabbing pains spreading across her abdomen. She felt sick, a combination of physical menstrual pain and mental terror at reading in front of her class.
“He loves me, she loves me not,
The petals fall like tears.”
By the second verse, Liv felt herself growing, taking up space. She lifted her chin, pushed her shoulders back, stepped her legs out. She looked up; her friends were nodding, Mrs Summers smiling, the class looking everywhere but at her. She read the final line from memory, then looked down at her notebook. She could hardly remember reading past the first verse.
Mrs Summers congratulated her and Liv took her seat.
“Was it okay?” Liv whispered to her best friend sat across the aisle. “I blacked out.”
“You did great.” Lucy put two thumbs up. Liv had thought her new friends were being nice to her out of politeness, but the niceness had lasted months now, so she was starting to believe them.
She felt a light tap on her back. She turned around but the two boys behind her were etching into their table with a paper clip. She turned away. Again, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around. The boys were still etching into the table, but their shoulders were moving up and down lightly.
“Problem?” Liv said, trying to pitch her voice low enough to seem authoritative.
One of the boys, Ben, looked up. Ben had spiky gelled hair and a scar across his forehead from when his friend threw a knife at him in food tech. They’d been trying to see if he could catch it in his mouth.
“Problem?” he said back to Liv. She turned back to her desk. “You were shit,” he whispered. She closed her eyes. Maybe she was shit.
The bell rang and her class lined up for assembly. Liv took her place in the front-middle section, behind Harry Fairbrother and in front of Luis Figueira. She was taller than both, taller than half the boys in her class.
At her old school, they’d taken a photo on the first day of Year 7. There she was, hair combed neatly into a ponytail, new glasses overwhelming her face, black shoes so heavily polished you could see the clouds in them. Liv had stood next to her form tutor and smiled. When the photos were shown years later in an end-of-term assembly, as the school wished her good luck on her move to Cornwall, her head of year had remarked to the hall that it was hard to tell the teacher from the student. She had stood half a foot above the other eleven-year-olds. She’d hoped it would be different in Cornwall. But on her first day here a five-foot-tall boy with his hair in a bun had called her a giraffe.
She’d called herself a giraffe this morning as she practiced her poem in the mirror. Only, this time, it was because of the blanket of spots covering her face. She’d applied a stick of concealer her mum had bought her from Boots and thought she looked better.
In the assembly line, she pulled out a mirror from her bag and checked her face. Now, the concealer had dried out and formed thick flakes around each spot. She hoped the other students wouldn’t notice; she’d be too far away on the stage. Maybe the stage lights would hide the spots.
Mr Dendy stepped towards the podium.
“We have another child who needs to read before the bell goes, Olivia. Please continue,” he said.
Spiky-haired Ben smirked at her. She felt a knife stab into her aching calf. She stopped herself from yelping and let out a noise like a balloon deflating. Her mum had told her the pains would stop eventually, usually by sixteen, but Liv didn’t want to be any taller than she was now. What’s the point of growing pains when you don’t want to grow?
As fifty pairs of eyes stared at her, and fifty pretended she didn't exist, Liv suddenly wanted to take up less space. She wished her hips would shrink, her stomach would suck in, her arms would get smaller. Slowly, the attentive eyes gave up and looked down at their laps, too.
“An – An Ode to –” Liv stammered. Her heart was beating too fast, she felt hot, she felt naked. She looked down at her notebook and flipped back a few pages.
“Olivia,” Mr Dendy whispered. She lifted the book higher and looked out at the hall. Mrs Summers was there, smiling.
“An Ode”, Liv said brightly. “To Puberty”. Mrs Summers stopped smiling. She was right at the back, but Liv could tell she was frowning.
“What?” Mr Dendy said. Liv looked out across the room.
“My emotions won’t stay still.
As I move, my body moves,
And it doesn’t move like it did before.
I tell myself stay still.
Maybe then the pain will stop.”
The smiles of her friends in the front row grew somehow wider. Liv smiled. She looked down at her words written only days before, written as she hid under her duvet with a hot water bottle clamped to her stomach.
“As my stomach twists into knots,
My face fills with spots.
I moisturise, medicate, bathe and meditate,
But I can’t conceal
That my skin won’t heal
And these scars may last a lifetime.”
Liv watched as Mrs Summers’ shoulders moved up and down in a silent chuckle. Liv glanced to her side; Mr Dendy, hands gripping his shirt sleeves, was rocking from foot to foot, his mouth so downturned that Liv had to stop herself from laughing. She turned back to her book.
“I grow taller;
Knives stab into my gut.
I grow wider;
You scream slut.
I throw volleyballs, hit tennis balls, kick footballs, run miles.”
Liv looked to the back of the room where the PE teachers stood by the nearest exit.
“Because you said I wasn’t allowed to stay still.
All the while, my knickers are filling with blood,
Because no one has a tampon.”
More eyes looked up at her and Liv felt herself growing once more. This time though, it was her voice, reaching out to every corner of the hall. Her friends cheered.
“I feel the gorge rise in my throat.
My stomach starts to bloat.
Something stabs me in the back.
My joints start to crack.
And, no, paracetamol won’t help.
I grow inwards,
As you laugh at me.”
Liv breathed in slowly and let the hall settle into silence. All eyes were now on her.
“But I grow
Like a sunflower
And bloom
Like a sunflower
And shed
My petals falling to the ground
Knowing that
This,
Bleeding,
Is my life now
For thirty – forty? - years.”
Liv shut her notebook. She turned to Mr Dendy and held out her hand. He reached forward and shook it, his mouth agape. She couldn’t wait to see how he followed that. She walked down the steps from the stage and looked out at the rows of wide eyes. Spiky-haired Ben elbowed the boy next to him and started to whisper. Liv glared at him. He closed his mouth. She took her seat next to her friends and smiled.
Just Bleeding
Monday 13th March 9.21pm
Dear Diary,
Sorry, I can’t write to you right now. I think I’m dying. This might be my last entry.
Goodbye,
Ella.
Tuesday 14th March 7.30am
Dear Diary,
I’m ill. And I’m going to be ill every month until I’m an old woman with children. Mum says that’s the way it is for girls. I’m sorry I didn’t write to you yesterday. A LOT has happened. I should be getting ready for school, but Mark is in the shower and I need a wee so I’m distracting myself. Where to start? I suppose:
I’m a woman now!
That’s what Mum said. I do feel different. It’s painful and I’m sure people can tell just by looking at me... I’ll tell you this from the beginning.
I woke up in the middle of the night before school on Monday and my tummy felt like it was going to explode and implode all at the same time. I did that tossing and turning and grumbling and moaning thing that I do when I feel horribly ill, hoping that Mum will hear and come and look after me. She didn’t. Obviously. You know what she's like.
The next morning, Mum came into my room and I was curled in a ball at the bottom of my bed. She said I looked as pale as a ghost and let me stay off school. She had to go to work though, so I was on my own. She said Mark could stay home and look after me, but he doesn’t let me watch telly, so I said no.
My tummy hurt all day. I kept rolling myself into a ball, but the pain wouldn’t stop.
When Mum got home, I told her I thought I had appendicitis like Maya did when we were eight, or maybe a tumour, or those stones in your liver or wherever. She said it was just a tummy bug and turned the hoover on. She had that makeup on again; the dark foundation and thick blue eyeshadow. She thinks it hides the bruises. And she was wearing another long-sleeved shirt, even though she used to love showing off her tattoos.
Then, Mark got home. We knew he was in a bad mood from the way he closed the front door. Quietly. (Don’t worry, I can talk about him now, Maya bought me a diary with a padlock for my birthday last week. I keep forgetting I’m eleven now!) Mum told me to go to my room. I closed the door and laid down with my ear on the carpet. I stopped listening when Mum started crying. He smashed a hole in the wall taking his shoes off, I saw it this morning.
When Mum came to tuck me into bed, I told her what Mrs Dean said about not letting boys push you around, but she said ‘Mrs Doon’ didn’t know a damn thing about her life.
I fell asleep but woke up at 4.37am. I remember the time because I only had three hours and twenty-three minutes left to sleep before getting up for school. I knew I would be too tired at breakfast, then Mark would shout at me for not eating my porridge, and I would look all red and puffy at school from crying. The new boy is starting today. I can’t look all red and puffy when a new boy is starting.
I sat up in bed and my tummy felt so much worse. My legs were all hot and sticky under the sheets. I rolled out of bed and tip-toed to the bathroom. I knew Mum had some pills in the cupboard above the sink that she takes when she needs to sleep, so I thought I’d take a couple. Before I took them, I realised I needed a wee. I went to the toilet, but when I stood up there was blood everywhere. It was bright red in the toilet and little drops led from where I was standing onto the toilet seat and down onto the floor. It was like a trail of evidence from a crime scene. I screamed that high-pitch scream that I wish was lower so I didn’t sound like such a wuss on rollercoasters. Luckily, Mark sleeps with ear plugs. I grabbed a roll of toilet paper and threw wads in and around the toilet, soaking up the blood. I shoved loads between my legs and hobbled towards the door.
I was dying, I was sure of it. I’d told Mum something was wrong, but she didn’t listen. My insides were coming out. Next my intestines would fall out of my bum and my tummy would explode. Then I wouldn’t be able to meet the new boy and Evie (my ex-best friend) would be his friend first.
I stepped onto the landing then jumped backwards. I’m so stupid sometimes. I looked down. A tiny dot of bright red blood. On the cream carpet. Mark doesn’t even let me use crayons in the house. I waddled to the sink and found a sponge and a squirty bottle of liquid and sprayed the floor like Mum does, until there was a huge pile of foam covering the spot.
I knelt on the bathroom floor and scrubbed. I thought I saw the blood turn pink and spread across the carpet but then I blinked, and it was gone. I shouted for Mum. I heard a bang in her room and a second later she ran onto the landing; hair all bed-heady, eyes crusted. I showed her the blood in the toilet and burst into tears. She didn’t hug me. Or say anything at all. She sighed.
I hug her when she cries.
She went to the cupboard under the sink, picked up a box and put it in my hands.
“You knew this would happen. Didn’t your teacher tell you it would be soon? I’ll have to have a word with that Mrs Doon woman.” (I’m pretty sure Mum knows Mrs Dean’s name). She told me to keep one in for eight hours, I think. Or don’t keep it in for eight. I’ll have to Google it. Finally, she gave me a hug. I snuggled my face against her velvet nightie. “You’re a woman now, sweetheart. A grown woman.” I love it when she calls me sweetheart.
She stepped back and I looked at the box in my hands; on the front it said TAMPAX in big letters and underneath there was a picture of a caped woman riding a tampon, fist raised in the air and a grin on her cartoon face. The box was a bit crushed, so her face looked deformed. The Tampax people must want me to be happy about the blood coming from my – Maya always uses the proper word – vagina. I feel silly even writing the word!
I’d started my period. I wasn’t dying, just… bleeding. Bleeding and in pain but… not dying, apparently. No matter how much it feels like I am. I think Hannah and Sheriene in Mr Murphy’s class have started their periods. He lets them go to the toilet during lessons. They seem to be OK.
Mum sighed and looked at me like she was staring into my brain. I wondered if she could see it racing to remember Mrs Dean’s lesson on periods. I only listened to the learning objectives then started sending secret letters across the classroom to Maya about what she had in her packed lunch (something called a keen-wah salad, her mum was trying a new recipe).
Mum went to bed and I took out one of the tampons. They’re quite big; I wasn’t sure it would fit. It’s got a plastic case with a white soft bit inside. I took the white part out and tried to push it in, but it wouldn’t go very far. I went through almost the whole box before I realised there were instructions. It was hard to get it up there, and it feels weird when I walk, and the string dangles into your knickers. What if it starts to fall out in PE when I’m in my shorts and someone tries to pull it like a string on a toy to make me talk? I think I might cut the string to make sure it’s hidden. It’s probably made for a grown lady's body.
I cleaned up the bathroom, flushed the practice tampons down the toilet and went back to bed.
I slept for two hours.
When Mark eventually gets out of the shower, I’m going to pretend I’ve already had my porridge, then he won’t shout at me. I went downstairs a minute ago and Mum has left a post-it note on the kitchen table:
Ella,
Things to buy on the way home from school:
*Ibuprofen (it’ll help with cramps)
*Sanitary towels (I saw all the tampon wrappers
in the bin, these might be easier for you)
*More toilet roll
*Chocolate
*Fruit (Grown up girls need to take care of
their bodies!)
Mum x
Like I said, I guess I’m a woman now.
Stuff I need to do that is more important that buying and eating fruit:
Maths and English homework
Ring Maya and warn her
Curl into a ball
Make friends with the new boy
Google when the pain in my tummy will stop
Love,
Ella.
Tuesday 14th March 9.15pm
Dear Diary,
I met the new boy. He was expelled from his last school for threatening a teacher with a screwdriver. He didn’t want to be my friend. He called me four-eyes and went and sat next to Jack because Jack's got cool hair (a ginormous afro!). But Jack’s a secret nerd and he’s our friend now; he came to sit with me and Maya at lunch last week. He loves the same things as us: watching YouTube videos of people who can’t sing, guessing what other people are talking about, writing new lyrics to bad pop songs.
Me and Maya took a vote on Friday and decided to officially allow him to sit with us. We used to call ourselves The Twins, but we’re The Triplets now.
Today, we let Jack join our lunchtime ritual: we eat a bite of our lunch then pass it to the next person. That way even everything in our stomachs is the same. Apart from Jack and Maya’s stomachs aren’t falling out of their ‘vagina’. Yes, I know it’s not my stomach that’s falling out. Google says it’s my womb ‘shedding’, like Maya’s dog’s fur. Google also said that since I’ve started my period before I’m twelve I’ve “increased the risk of heart disease and stroke later in life”. Which is scary. I'm not sure when ‘later in life’ is but I'm sure it’s when I’m older like Mum.
The new boy saw Jack sitting with us and went to sit next to Evie. I thought I would be jealous that she got to be friends with him – she always gloats that she’s popular – but Jack is nicer than the new boy. The new boy has a weird laugh. Worse than mine.
I like having Jack around, but it did make warning Maya about periods a bit more difficult. I had to wait until she needed the toilet and by then I was absolutely bursting for a wee. We left Jack on the playground making up a new game.
We went into a cubicle and I showed Maya how you stand to get a tampon in; with one leg up on the toilet seat. I told her how it feels really weird having something up there, and that I bought sanitary towels this morning instead. Maya said I should call them ‘pads’, that’s what her mum calls them. I told her about the pain, like your stomach is eating itself, and how much blood there is, and how you can feel it come out of you when you stand up. Maya’s mum calls it ‘the natural monthly cycle’ and says the pain is ‘womanhood’. She said Maya should be proud when it happens, that it’s a blessing from Mother Nature. I said it’s more like something from the Devil.
I’m sad that Maya hasn’t had her period yet. I don’t want her to be ill, but, for the first time, we’re not the same. She doesn’t get it. It’s not a blessing. It’s gross.
Maya went into another cubicle. Normally we sing songs while we wee but I refused. I pulled down my knickers, and the pad was full of blood. I thought I could use the same pad for eight hours? I’d bought a new pack in the shop this morning. The period stuff, all brightly coloured, had a row of their own. Along the bottom of each pack was a line of droplets, some were coloured in; the green pack had one coloured droplet, the blue pack had five. Some of them had wings. I’m not sure what that means. I’m four foot eleven, everyone in my class calls me a mouse, so I picked the bright green one with one droplet. I didn’t want anyone to see them in my bag, so I ran home and dropped them off.
In the cubicle, my naked bum on the cold toilet seat, I took everything out of my bag, hoping Mum might have stashed a tampon at the bottom. Nothing. I whispered to Maya, but she was washing her hands and didn’t hear me. A group of laughing girls came into the bathroom. I didn’t dare ask them. There’s a tampon machine on the wall in the staff toilets, but they cost a pound and Mark doesn’t let me carry money. He says bullies will target you if you have money.
I span the toilet roll and ripped off a huge line. I wound it around my knickers, three, four times. It looked like a nappy. It felt like one too. But it stayed in place until the end of the day.
Tomorrow, I’m going to line the bottom of my bag with sanitary towels. I'm never running out again.
Thursday 16th March 9.05pm
Dear Diary,
Today I had PE. It was Period 4 and I’d been wearing pads all day, but Mum said I should wear tampons when I exercise. I was less likely to ‘leak’ that way. Like a tap? I asked if I could have a note for my tummy cramps so that I could sit out, but she said if women stopped working every time they had a period the world would end.
I went to the gross PE toilets and sprayed ‘So...Kiss Me?’ around the cubicle. Mum had bought me a set of ‘So...?’ body sprays for my birthday. I put my foot on the toilet seat and got the tampon in on my first try. I was proud of myself and did a little victory dance, but then I realised someone might hear me moving around and think I was having a poo.
I’d told Maya about the string between my legs and she said the boys wouldn’t see it if I tucked it into my knickers. I wasn’t so sure. I reached up and pushed the tampon further in, so that the string wasn’t showing at all.
No one noticed in PE, but I could feel it inside me when I ran to get a tennis ball that went over the fence. I asked Mr Wigley if I could sit out. He asked why. I said it’s that time of the month in a low whisper like Mum does to Mark. Mr Wigley went red and walked away. I took that as a yes, so I sat out for half an hour. Then, Jack and Maya started running into other people’s games and hitting their balls away, so I joined back in. My tummy felt a little better afterwards.
When all the girls were changing back into their tiny skirts, I went to the toilet to take the tampon out. There was blood in my knickers, and it turns out there’s a reason why the string dangles down. The running had shimmied it further up my body. I bent in half, stuck my fingers in, and wiggled around. Eventually, I felt it. I pinched it with the tips of my fingers and pulled. I think the blood in my knickers is what Mum had meant by ‘leaking’, and I had leaked even though I had a tampon in me. Maybe it doesn’t work if it’s up too high.
By the time I came out of the toilet, everyone was gone, even Maya. She said she’d tried to tell Mr Wigley that I was still in there, but he’d ignored her. I was five minutes late to Period 5 and had to walk past the entire class to my seat at the back with huge sweat patches on my shirt. We had English, and Jack passed me a note asking if he could come over to my house on Saturday. He said we could go to the park afterwards. I passed it to Maya and she wrote back to him inviting us to her house before the park.
What I’m planning to do this weekend:
Saturday: Maya’s house and then the park. Watch telly with Mum and Mark because Mark says I don’t spend enough time with him.
Sunday: Eat lunch at Nanny’s. Do my homework for SAT’s.
Hopefully my period will stop soon. Mum says it should by Sunday.
Love,
Ella.
Sunday 18th March 12.20am
Dear Diary,
It hasn’t been a good day. Mum thinks I’m asleep but I’m under my covers using the book light Auntie Heather bought me for Christmas.
I went to the park with Jack and Maya. I didn’t think Mark was going to let me because he didn’t believe I’d come home in time to watch telly with him, but I promised. He gave me his watch. He tried to make me call him Dad again, but he’s not my dad, and he never will be. I didn’t say that though because I wanted to go to the park.
I cycled to Maya’s house and her mum answered the door. She has these amazing dreadlocks down to her bum and she always smells like flowers. She sews all the family’s clothes, but she lets Maya buy an outfit from New Look once a year. She said something very exciting had happened and her smile was so wide I could see right into the back of her mouth. She pointed me to the lounge and said Maya would tell me everything.
Their dog, Aphrodite, came into the room, sniffed around me, then padded away. They found her as a puppy in a bin in the alleyway behind their house. Maya’s mum had said it was a sign. Now she runs a puppy rescue centre on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Aphrodite normally plays with me but today it was like she didn’t recognise me. I wonder if I smell different. Does period blood smell bad to dogs?
The living room was full of cards; on the mantlepiece, the coffee table, the incense table. Maya’s family have their birthdays in August though, and it’s not Christmas, or Easter.
I was reaching for one of the cards when I heard a big thud upstairs. Then another. Someone was stomping down the stairs. I looked towards the door. Slowly, it creaked open. Maya’s arm appeared, covered to the wrist in see-through pink material. She kicked out a leg. At the bottom of it was a ruffled white sock under a pink, heeled shoe. Finally, she flounced in, a huge tutu-like skirt puffing out around her, her hair curled and stuck with sparkly pins. She looked like the Barbie from the top of my ninth birthday cake.
I burst out laughing. She looked at me like she wanted to shoot lightning through my eye. I held my mouth and tried to stop. She pointed to the cards. I picked one up.
Our dearest Maya,
CONGRATULATIONS on your first period!
We are so proud of you.
Uncle and Auntie J xx
I picked up two more from the mantlepiece. A cartoon woman, her unzipped jeans showing her white knickers, ‘Congratulations! You’re Becoming A Woman’ written over her stomach. A bright red card with the words ‘Mother Nature called, and you answered!’ in swirly writing.
We were twins again, period blood and all! I couldn’t help but smile. Maya stomped into the hall and I followed. She kicked off the heels and put on her favourite green trainers. “Bobble?” she said. I pulled one from my wrist and she tied her hair into a high bun.
Outside, she lifted her skirt up and kicked her leg over her bike. I was still stood in the doorway, watching her. She looked like a badass Disney princess. I wished I looked like that. She told me to hurry up, Jack was waiting at the park. As I pedalled after her, her mum shouted down the street.
“Remember to invite Ella to your period party!”
Maya had woken up that morning with a huge circle of blood soaked into her sheets. She said she’d had a little bit of pain in her tummy but hadn’t really thought about it. She shouted her mum who stripped the bed and ran around the house waking her siblings up. She told them Mother Nature had blessed the house and to get ready for the celebrations. She rang every relative and invited them to their house on Sunday. Maya was mortified.
Jack met us at the park. We played on the swings before making our own game where Jack was an evil tooth fairy coming to steal our teeth.
My watch beeped, but we were in the middle of the game, so I pressed a button and it stopped. I told Jack and Maya I had to leave in a second. A little later, the watch beeped again. I froze. Jack caught me and stole my teeth. I ran to my bike and cycled home as quickly as I could. My legs were like jelly as I dumped my bike in the garden. I checked my watch. I was supposed to be back at 5pm. It was 5.24pm. I pressed some buttons, and the time on the watch moved backwards. Soon, it said 4.59pm.
I walked inside, took my shoes off and placed them on the rack. I turned into the lounge. Mum and Mark were sat at each end of the sofa. In complete silence.
I walked in and said ‘hi!’ as brightly as I could, a big smile on my face. I said a prayer in my head that Mark hadn’t checked the time yet.
I sat in the armchair. Mum wouldn’t look at me.
Mark jumped up and started pacing up and down. I pushed myself backwards, saying a new prayer that the chair might swallow me up. Life as a sofa-girl wouldn't be so bad. Mark said I was an ungrateful child. I told him it was only 5 o’clock and showed him the watch. He looked confused and I thought I might have fooled him. He walked into the kitchen. Mum said, ‘just say sorry’. He came back, grabbed me by the back of my neck and pulled me into the kitchen. He pushed my head close to the oven.
“What time does that say?” he said. He spoke slowly and deeply, like a robot. He pulled me back into the lounge and made me sit next to Mum. She was crying.
Did I think he was stupid? he said.
That he didn’t know how to tell the time?
That I had the right to ignore the orders of my parents?
I told him he wasn’t my dad.
He smashed the TV. He said if he wasn’t my dad then I didn't deserve the luxuries he provided.
But he’s not my dad. No matter how many times he says it.
He didn’t hit me. He never has. He walked out of the house leaving me and Mum in silence for what felt like hours. Eventually, she got up, and started sweeping the broken glass into a bin bag. I told her about Maya starting her period and that her mum had invited us to her party tomorrow. Mum said we were eating lunch at Nanny’s.
Mark came home at midnight and woke us both up. He said we wouldn’t be going to Nanny’s. He’d be going to Nanny’s, and we had to stay at home.
I don’t know what I’ll be doing tomorrow but my period still hasn’t stopped. Hopefully it will soon.
I’m going to sleep now.
Night,
Ella.
Sunday 18th March 6pm
Dear Diary,
Today was a little better. My period blood has turned brown, which Google says is a sign it’s going to stop soon, and I haven’t had cramps since Saturday morning. Mum came into my room to wake me up and told me to stay in my room for a few hours. I tried to do my homework, but I couldn’t stop imagining Maya at her period party. Jack would be there, and there’d be cake, and Maya said she’d let me try on her tutu dress.
At lunch time, Mum came in with a plate of sandwiches and sat on my bed watching me eat. She said I could go to the party. I thought she was joking, I almost choked on a piece of cucumber. She said I had to leave quietly. She found my best shoes and put a present for Maya in my backpack with a bag of Doritos to put on the food table. She made my bed but put three cushions from my chair under the duvet. She shut the curtains, turned off the lights.
We tiptoed downstairs. I could hear Mark snoring in the lounge.
“I’ve told him you’re feeling really poorly and not to disturb you,” she said. “He’s going to Nanny’s soon. Be home by 5pm.” She gave me her watch.
Maya’s party was amazing, although her relatives hugged us a lot. There was a red bouncy castle shaped, her mum said, like a vagina. We giggled. Jack went bright red. We bounced on it for ages, once we had convinced Jack that boys were allowed on it, too. There were cakes with strawberry jam in the middle and cranberry juice to drink. There was even a tampon-shaped pinata with real tampons inside – although there wasn’t a woman straddling it.
Maya’s mum had let her wear what she wanted as long as it was red or pink, so she was wearing a pair of red jeans with a pink t-shirt with someone called Janis Joplin on it. Maya said she hated the fuss, but by the end she was smiling.
We were sent home with goody bags filled with a pack of ‘organic cotton tampons’, ‘’Fairtrade 70% cocoa chocolate’ and something called a Mooncup.
I got home at 4.45pm and tiptoed upstairs to hide my goody bag. I walked into the lounge just as Mark opened the front door. Mum winked at me. He asked how I was feeling, and I said I was really bored after being stuck in my room all day. I think I should join the school drama club.
Now, Mum is cooking a big roast dinner, Nanny’s coming over and Mark’s gone to the pub.
And?
My period has stopped!
Next month, I’ll be ready. I’m not sure I’m a woman yet though.
Love,
Ella.