Stolen Girl (4 page)

On the day of the disco Lauren knocked on my front door.

‘Wow!’ she gasped as I opened it to find her standing there on the doorstep.

‘Do you like it?’ I asked, posing awkwardly in the doorway. I still felt a little unsure of myself but gave her a self-conscious twirl all the same.

‘
Like
it? I love it! You look ace, Katie. Really pretty.’ Lauren insisted.

I hugged her gratefully – she’d just made me feel like a million dollars.

‘You look lovely too,’ I said as I grabbed my coat and off we set down the road towards the school.

We could hear the music even before we’d even reached the main entrance. The hall was hot and sweaty with too many kids running around and not enough windows open.

‘God, it’s like an oven in here!’ I shouted to Lauren over the boom of the music.

She nodded and wafted her hand against her face to create a draft. It was boiling.

Disco lights flashed and lit up the room with neon colours. We threw our coats on a pile in a cloakroom and headed towards the dance floor. As we did so I spotted the usual group of popular girls standing in a corner of the room. I wanted to smile over but I knew it was pointless. Maybe now they’d seen
my new outfit they’d be a little kinder. However, the more I looked over, the more I noticed something was wrong. They were standing there, pointing towards us, whispering. Lauren and I started to dance but I couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling. They were looking over and talking about us but I didn’t know why. I saw one girl dip her head and say something to the rest of the group; they all nodded and began to laugh.

I glanced down at my top, I wondered if I’d spilt toothpaste or something down it, but there was nothing there. I was worried. Why were the girls looking over and what was so funny? My eyes darted from the group back to Lauren. She’d spotted them too but was just as baffled as me. I fretted; maybe we were dancing wrong? It was hopeless, I felt stupid. I was just about to suggest we sit down when the ringleader approached. Her name was Melanie and she was a nasty piece of work. She was pretty and she knew it. I hated her with a passion. The others pushed her over towards us, egging her on to say something. I waited to see what was wrong. Halfway across the dance floor she stopped and momentarily turned back to face the group. As she did, everyone started to laugh. They were so loud that you could hear them over the din of the music.

More and more kids joined in the group so they could share the joke. It was as if half the hall were standing in the corner, whispering and pointing over.

I’d gone to the disco feeling a million dollars but now I felt less than worthless. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole. The girl smirked as she approached, but she wasn’t smirking at Lauren, she was smirking at me. My heart sank; I knew whatever it was she had to say, her words would crush me.

She looked me up and down for what seemed like an eternity before she finally spoke.

‘Everyone here thinks you’ve got tissues stuffed down your top.’ she said, pointing at my chest.

I self-consciously pulled my top away from my body. The girl saw me do it and turned back to the group, who dissolved into fits of laughter. Suddenly my trainer bra felt too tight against my chest. My heart thumped hard with both fear and embarrassment.

‘What?’ I asked, even though I’d heard her the first time.

‘I
said
,’ she began to shout, her voice was so loud that others nearby could hear, ‘we all think you’ve got tissues stuffed down your top and
they
,’ she said, pointing towards my breasts, ‘aren’t real.’

I was mortified. I wanted to die right there and then but the horror on my face only made them roar even more. I glanced at the group and then down at the floor. I felt utterly humiliated – the whole school was laughing at me. Even Lauren didn’t know what to say. We both just stood there.

‘But…but…I
don’t
use tissues,’ I stammered, trying to find the right words.

‘Well, we think you do and it looks stupid. You look like a slag!’ Melanie said, turning on her heel. With that, she headed back to the safety of the group. Her words hit me like a right hook to the side of my face. By now the whole room was in on the joke and everyone was looking over, pointing and laughing. Tears pricked at the back of my eyes – I could feel them coming and I didn’t want anyone to see, so instinctively I ran for the door. I heard Lauren’s voice calling me but I didn’t turn back. Instead I kept on running. I couldn’t stay, not after that. I ran and ran until I saw the lights of our front room. I
sneaked in quietly through the back door and went straight up to my bedroom and closed the door behind me. Burying my head deep into the pillow, I sobbed my heart out. I listened out for Mum, but she was in the front room and hadn’t heard me come in. I was glad – I didn’t want to tell her what they said to me and how miserable my life was at school. It felt more and more like a prison each day.

I never told Mum a thing – I was too embarrassed. Instead, I pulled off the stupid top and threw it in the bin. I’d loved that top – it had made me feel special and part of the gang – but now I wanted to shred it into tiny pieces because it was a reminder that I was nothing like them and I never would be.

The girls had been right all along: I was different. But what I didn’t realise then was that it was this that’d mark me out in more ways than one – it would be this which would separate me from my best friend forever.

A
s puberty really began to kick in, so my shape continued to change. I hated it because I looked so different compared to my classmates.

Soon hormones were taking over and it wasn’t long before my honey-blonde hair began to dull to a horrible mousey-brown colour. I didn’t care but Mum wasn’t keen and she bought a special spray-in lotion to give my hair a ‘natural sun-kissed look’. Unfortunately, it did nothing of the sort. Instead of making me look like I’d been kissed by the rays of the sun, all the spray did was wreck my hair, turning it both the colour and texture of yellow straw. Still, Mum persevered. Perhaps she thought if I was blonde then I’d become more popular at school but she was wrong. The yellower my hair became, the more the bullying intensified. Soon, my usual nickname of Dumbo changed to ‘Mophead’. When my dark roots reappeared at the end of each month they produced a
thicker, darker stripe at my crown and the name-calling upped to another level.

‘Watch out, here comes Mophead!’ the popular girls would jeer every time I walked by.

I begged Mum not to spray the awful stuff in my hair but she thought she was doing me a favour.

I started at secondary and the nickname followed me across town and to my new school. Of course, the other children from the different intake schools took great pleasure in joining in and shouting it out on every occasion. I think they were relieved I was the target and not them.

‘Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Moppy Taylor!’ They’d all chant in unison, until the only person not laughing was me.

Luckily, the girl who lived across the road from me and my former imaginary Steps band member, Megan, went to the same secondary school and so did Lauren. As luck would have it, Megan and I ended up in the same form group together. I sat close to Lauren that first morning, waiting for my name to be called out, praying they’d put us together, but it wasn’t to be. Instead, Megan’s name was called and we both had to leave Lauren to her own fate. When we met later that day at break, Lauren told us how she’d been put in a class on her own with all the primary school bullies.

‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured her. ‘We’ll still meet up every break and lunchtime, won’t we, Megan?’ I glanced over at my new friend, who nodded in confirmation.

But I’m ashamed to say I was just relieved it was Lauren and not me who’d been thrown into the lions’ den. Poor Lauren, I felt so guilty – she was on her own, but at the same time, I was grateful it wasn’t me because life was hard enough.

Having Megan in my form class helped a little but she was
as meek and mild as I was, so we didn’t stand a chance against the others. Megan would try her best to stand up for me, often putting herself in the line of fire.

‘Shut up,’ she hollered one day, shouting the bullies down. They’d been saying my hair looked like a wig. ‘It’s not a wig, it’s Katie’s own hair!’ Then, as if to prove the point, she pulled at it to show it was still attached to my head.

It hurt when she tugged but I didn’t cry out. She needed to do it to get them off my back but they wouldn’t stop. I refused to cry – I wouldn’t let them see they’d beaten me. But my voice gave me away because when they stole my confidence, they stole my voice too. Now it was barely a whisper; I hid at the back of the class and refused to put my hand up even when I knew the answer. I was running scared.

One day, I trudged sadly along the corridor to maths. I didn’t even have Megan, because she was in a higher group. Wearily, I made my way to the back of the class out of the way of the teacher.

‘Katie Taylor, not there,’ he called. He was standing up and looking directly at me. ‘I want you at the front, where I can see you.’

He pointed towards an empty chair at the front of the room.

My face flushed as the class began to whisper. I gathered up my things but was in such a fluster that I dropped my pencil case. It was already unzipped and, as it hit the ground, dozens of pens and pencils spilled out across the floor.

The teacher sighed and rolled his eyes as if he’d given up on me too. It was a green light for nasty comments as I scrambled around on the ground.

‘Look,’ said an ugly freckled-face boy, ‘Mophead’s dropped her pencils.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed a scrawny-looking boy next to him, ‘she’s so dumb she can’t even pick them up.’

The whole class laughed.

But things were about to become even worse. The more I tried to get out of answering questions, the more my teacher noticed. One day, at the end of the lesson, he strode over to my desk. The rest of the class looked up from their books and tried to earwig what he was saying.

‘Katie, I think you might need a little bit of help during lessons, so I’m going to ask Mrs Wright to come in and help you from now on. Is that okay?’

I went bright red and heard a girl snort behind me. I felt so ashamed that a part of me died inside.

Mrs Wright, the teaching support assistant, was useless. She had no control over the children because no one would listen to her. How on earth was a woman like that ever going to help me?

The following week I prayed for the earth to swallow me up when I spotted her slipping into the room. Her eyes scanned the class and when she met my gaze, she raised a hand in acknowledgement. I shifted uneasily in my seat as the others nudged and whispered to one another.

‘I’m here to help Katie Taylor with her maths skills,’ she repeated, in case anyone didn’t already know.

‘Ah yes,’ the maths teacher replied. ‘She’s just over there.’ He gestured over towards me.

‘Katie, get up and fetch a chair from the back of the class for Mrs Wright, so she can help you.’

I felt my whole body crumple. Maths was excruciating enough without having an extra teacher to point out how stupid I really was. The nudges and whispers continued as I
made my way to the back of the classroom and grabbed a chair. I tried not to look at anyone but try as I might, I couldn’t help but notice some of the popular girls pulling faces. Holding the chair aloft, I turned my head back towards them and stuck out my tongue. Why did they have to make me feel so utterly useless?

After that day, whenever I had a maths lesson, Mrs Wright would be by my side. The woman had the patience of a saint but every time she pointed out a simple mistake I wanted to die on the spot because she’d repeat it loud enough for everyone to hear.

‘No, Katie, you need to add five and 105 together then divide it by that number…’ she said, pointing down at the page in my book. I didn’t need to look up to know that the whole class was laughing. I was still on the simple stuff; they were way ahead of me now.

One day, when the maths teacher was out of the room, the other kids started on me. Even though Mrs Wright was sat by my side, they just ignored her. Instead, a freckle-faced boy sauntered over and asked if he could borrow a pen.

‘No,’ I replied curtly. ‘Go away.’

But he wasn’t giving up.

‘Come on, Mophead, lend us a pen,’ he taunted. He looked back at the rest of the class, who began to laugh.

‘Don’t be tight. I bet you’ve got loads in there, let me have a look,’ he said, grabbing my pencil case up off the desk.

‘Give it back,’ I demanded, but he ignored me.

‘God, Moppy’s got tons of posh pens in here! Hey, who wants one?’

A load of hands shot up into the air.

I looked at Mrs Wright for support. I waited for her to say
or do something but instead she just sat there. Then she did something that stole my breath – she turned away. The boy saw it. He knew he’d won – he was in charge here now.

‘Hey, who wants a pen?’ he said, throwing the pencil case across the classroom. It sailed high above the heads of the other children and came crashing to the ground with a thud.

‘Don’t,’ I called, ‘you’ll break them.’

I looked to Mrs Wright but she refused to get involved. My heart sank – I was on my own.

‘Ooh, don’t break Mophead’s precious pens now!’ the boy mimicked in a high-pitched voice. It made everyone giggle.

Someone picked up the pencil case and threw it again. It happened over and over. I tried to catch it but it was useless by now, the whole class was in on it.

‘Urrghh!’ one of the popular girls shrieked, ‘don’t throw it to me!’ She pushed the pencil case off her desk in disgust. ‘I might catch something.’

Tears pricked behind my eyes. No one cared about my stuff – it was disposable, just like me. To everyone else they were only pens but to me they were special because my mum had bought them. She knew how much I loved writing so she’d got some fancy pens to encourage me. But no one cared about me or my feelings, not even the teacher.

Wearily, I flopped down into my plastic chair and waited for them to tire of their silly game. But the pencil case continued to fly through the air. I looked to the support teacher, tears brimming in my eyes, but she wouldn’t even look at me. She wasn’t going to help; no one was. This was my life now – I was a target for everyone to poke fun at.

I didn’t fit in here and I never would. It was a different school – a new start – but I still wore the wrong shoes. My
trousers were too tight and I carried my books in a backpack instead of a girly shoulder bag. I wasn’t into fashion and it showed. Part of me wanted to fit in but another part didn’t because deep down, I didn’t want to be like them: I knew they were shallow and horrible.

Mum continued to spray my hair and it soon became so frazzled that even she agreed something had to be done.

‘We’re going to the hairdresser,’ she announced one night after school. ‘We need to sort out your hair.’

I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Was I really that repulsive and stupid? I didn’t know anymore. The bullies had chipped away what little confidence I had left.

My hair looked dry and coarse and I tried to pull my fingers through it, but every time I did, they just snagged the ends. It was so brittle, it was beginning to snap off. Mum was right, something had to be done.

The following day was a Saturday, so we caught the bus into town and walked into a nearby hair salon. The shop was packed and suddenly I felt very conscious of my straw-yellow hair. It looked as if I’d poured a bucket of custard over my head.

A young girl approached us breezily. She looked at me and tried not to laugh – it was obvious she’d seen it all before.

‘I need to speak to someone,’ Mum began, ‘…about my daughter’s hair.’

The girl looked at the fuzz on top of my head. I wanted to turn and run.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, as if it was obvious. ‘Take a seat and someone will be straight over.’

I refused to look up because I was convinced everyone was staring at me. Instead I took a seat next to Mum. She flicked
through some magazines but I was anxious and started kicking my heels off the wooden bench beside her.

‘Stop it!’ she snapped.

I glared at the ground. It was her fault I was here. Suddenly, the hairdresser appeared.

‘Do you want to come over?’ she said, tapping the back of a nearby chair.

The stylist was a heavily-bosomed woman with teased blonde hair, exactly the same shape and colour as a brass bell.

Mum explained the problem and the hairdresser pulled sympathetic faces and tutted as she listened. She ruffled her fingers through the frizz and grimaced at the state of my hair. You could read what she was thinking by the look on her face. But even though she was sympathetic, she refused to do anything with it.

‘Her hair’s ruined,’ she said simply. ‘You can either cut it all off and start again or stop using that stuff in it and let it grow out naturally and get its condition back.’

I looked up in horror at Mum through the reflection in the mirror. She was standing behind, nodding her head in agreement.

‘I’m not having it cut,’ I insisted. ‘I’ll look like a boy!’

I knew a boy’s haircut would make my life a hundred times worse at school.

‘Well, in that case you’ll just have to grow it out,’ the hairdresser told me.

‘But how long will that take?’ I gasped.

‘Months, probably even a year. I’d put a colour over it but I’m afraid the condition is so bad that I’d be too scared to touch it.’

And so my fate was sealed. I was the girl with the golden hair, but I wasn’t like the one in the adverts. She was beautiful
and successful. I wasn’t – I felt stupid and ugly. Instead I became more and more of a sitting target. It took an age but my roots slowly grew out, making the blonde and brown equal in length. I looked ridiculous, as if I really was wearing a wig. All I’d ever wanted to do was blend into the crowd, but my hair wouldn’t let me. Instead everyone had a field day at my expense.

The other girls were pretty with nice, shiny hair and they wore the right clothes. I was Mophead, the one everyone laughed at. But fate was about to throw a curveball into my life. Little did I know it then, but I was about to become the envy of every girl in my school.