This Time Next Year(87)

‘On loan, just so you feel at home,’ said her dad with a wink.





New Year’s Eve 2003





The bath water was getting cold. Her skin above water level had sprouted goosebumps and the tips of her fingers had wrinkled into white, alien-like pads. She put her hands over her chest – still practically flat as a pancake. She was going to be fourteen tomorrow, surely they’d have to grow soon. She wanted to run the hot tap and stay in longer but her mum was in the bedroom – if she heard the tap she’d shout at Minnie to get out.

The school holidays felt like life in slow motion. Time could be stretched out; a bath could take an hour, preparing a meal could take two, a walk around the park could take the whole afternoon. Life in term time was faster, harsher; you couldn’t pause for a second. In five days she’d be back in the fast lane, back in Hannah Albright’s sights. Five days.

Last term, the girls in her class had invented a game where they sang songs whenever Minnie came into a room. They all high-fived each other when someone thought of a new one. ‘Driving in My Car’, ‘This Car of Mine’, ‘Life Is a Highway’; it was amazing how many songs there were about cars and driving.

Minnie had learnt to cope with the name-calling and the singing. Let them sing, let them laugh, don’t react – it stopped quicker that way. Hannah Albright was always the one that took it furthest, goading her for a reaction. In the last week of term things had notched up a gear. ‘Notched up a gear,’ Minnie sunk her head beneath the surface of the bath water – now she was even thinking like a car.

Part of the problem was that her best friend, Lacey, wasn’t in her class any more. She didn’t have anyone to stand up for her. Hannah, Pauline and a few of the other girls had taken to physically pushing her, yanking her hair. At one point someone had stabbed her with a pencil. This new violence scared Minnie. She didn’t know how to deal with it; it wasn’t something she could just ignore or silently endure.

She opened her eyes underneath the water, looking up at the stained, beige ceiling tiles through the shimmering lens of water. She broke the surface, filling her lungs with air, then pulled her legs towards her, hugging them against her chest. On her thigh she could still see the small purple welt from the pencil wound. It felt as though the girls at school just wanted to keep needling her, poking her until she snapped.

Was it just her stupid name that made her a target? She was studying Romeo and Juliet in school and one quote had stuck in her head all term; ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. Would life with any other name still be as shit? There were other kids at school with strange names who didn’t attract the kind of grief she did; Isla Whyte in Year Nine was too beautiful to tease and Ziggy Zee Zane in Year Ten had a dad who used to be in a band – that bought him a free pass. There must be something else about Minnie that made her so pick-on-able. Was it her brown frizzy hair, her plump hamster cheeks? She’d secretly thrown away the Quality Street chocolates Grandma C. had given her for Christmas. Maybe her cheeks would shrink if she stopped eating chocolate.

Tonight she’d done something drastic; she’d bleached her hair blonde and spent six months’ pocket money on hair straighteners. Maybe a new look was all she needed? She was scared to show her mother what she had done, that’s why she’d been in the bathroom for over an hour. Tonight was going to be her first night out as a blonde – maybe her luck would change.

A knot had been growing in her stomach all afternoon, knitting itself into a painful ball. Minnie got these stomach aches whenever she was anxious. In term time she had them constantly. What if she changed how she looked and things didn’t improve? What if it wasn’t the hair, the cheeks, or even her name? What if it was something she wasn’t able to change?

What she wouldn’t give to swap lives with someone like Grace Withies. Grace who was so pretty, so good at hockey and who smiled like a celebrity. People buzzed around her like bees around a flower. No one wanted to buzz around Minnie. Life must be so easy for someone like Grace; going to bed every night, safe in the knowledge that no one was setting out to make your life a misery the next day.

‘Minnie, have you drowned in there?’ her mum shouted through the door.

‘No, just getting out,’ Minnie said, pulling herself out of the water and shivering as she grabbed a towel.

‘I’ve got to go out,’ her mum said. ‘You off to this party with your friends then?’

‘Yeah, the youth club – Bambers up the high street. Lacey’s mum is dropping us off.’

Her mum was leaving, perfect; she could avoid the freak-out about her hair until tomorrow.

‘Will Elaine drop you back after?’ Her mum’s voice sounded tired.

‘Uh-huh.’

Minnie stood in front of the mirror, distracted by her new hair. It was so blonde – she looked like a completely different person.

‘Minnie, you hear me?’ said her mum. ‘No drinking either; if I smell it on your breath tomorrow you won’t be allowed out again, we clear?’

‘Yes, Mum.’

A few minutes later she heard the door slam. Minnie walked over to the flat window with her towel wrapped around her. She looked down to see the hunched figure of her mother walking towards the Tube station, pulling her coat up around her ears against the cold.