Young Writers Society

Things were pretty shit.

Well, what does it matter to you? I don’t know. You’re the one reading this, so you’ll just have to figure out that for yourself, won’t you? In the meantime I’ll just go on. It’s one of those days where everything just seems to go wrong. You’ve probably had one of those as well, as they are quite common.

I’m not really an angry person by nature. I mean, I’ve had my moments of angriness, but this was nothing like it. This was pure, utterly uncontrollable, blood-pulsing rage. I’m talking away to you in a quite nice way now. But outside of this story, I’m actually in a very different situation I’ll tell you. The sun is shining, there is a light breeze filled with salt and I can hear the waves sloshing away underneath me. I’m standing at the pier; I’ve got ice cream all over me, people are staring, the kid is forever annoyingly screaming his head off and his mum is even worse.

“Well it wasn’t my bloody fault, was it?” I screamed and stomped my foot as hard as I could. Now this wasn’t some normal, high-pitched voice I was using. I’ve honestly never heard myself like this before. I seem to have lost it, completely.

“Will you calm down, young lady?” the police officer said, and I felt my rage going up just a notch I was so annoyed by him. I wanted to shake him until he went crazy. The kid was still screaming and I closed my eyes to practice the little patience I had left.

“Listen, either you let me walk away or you take them away from me. It’s got to be one of ‘em, cause it’s straight before I bloody hurl his mum into the ocean!” I said as calmly as I could through gritted teeth.

She reacted like the idiot she was. Gasping, she turned around to the police officer, clearly wanting him to take action.

Before we go on, let me just say. You’ve got to be on my side. There’s not even an option not to be. I wouldn’t have bothered to tell you if you were to run along and kick my shins for being a bitch towards the kid. As a matter of fact, if you are then you can just stop reading this very minute. Stop reading. If you’re on their side, stop reading.

So you think I’m right, yeah? Good for you, seems you’ve got more brains than all three of them put together, the kid, his mum and the police officer that is. Now we got that out of the world, I’ll be so kind as to explain how this all came to happen. The day had started out pretty okay. It was a Saturday morning, the sun was shining and the birds were singing. We’re in the middle of May, so the summer has peaked. It was all good until halfway through breakfast. Then what happened was a bit stupid really, but inevitable nevertheless.

“Will you pass the milk, Brady?” I asked absentmindedly, reaching my hand out.

“You forgot the magic word,” Brady answered, a smug look all across his face. I sighed, “Will you please pass the milk, Brady?

“That’s not the magic word.”

“Hocus pocus,”

“That ain’t it either.”

“Mum, will you tell Brady to stop being a brat?”

“Stop being a brat, Brady.”

“I’ll stop when you say the magic word.”

“Brady, just pass the bloody milk!”

“’Brady, just pass the bloody milk’” Brady mimicked.

I stood up and walked around the table, slapping Brady as I reached for the milk. And we need to get this clear now; I did not slap him hard. If you would call that hard, I would call you a wuss. And I’m not even making excuses. Anyway, Brady started howling and crying, making a right show out of being a small, little shit.

“Keira!” my mother exclaimed, looking up from the paper for the first time since she disappeared behind it fifteen minutes ago.

“She hit me!” Brady cried, making a face of sorrow.

“Aw, babes, it’ll be alright,” mum said and walked over to him. She bent down and hugged him, and over her shoulder – he grinned at me.

“Stop acting like such a baby, Brady,” I said and sat promptly down at my chair, arms crossed.

“Keira! That’s enough!” mum said, turning on me and staring me down.

“He isn’t really hurt; he just grinned across your shoulder, pleased with his little show!”

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s going on?” My dad said from behind me. I turned around. He was standing in the doorway with a sheepish grin across his face. His glasses had fallen down from one ear, and his hair was standing in all directions, “My girls aren’t fighting are they? Why don’t we all have a game of snap?” We all fell silent, realising our situation. I was just about to smile at mum and forget the whole thing when –

“Keira hit me!” Brady howled, ending the yell in a sob.

As one would perfectly well understand, I was pissed off all over again. Sending Brady one last, piercing look I hoped conveyed my feelings I went outside. I grabbed my board that was leaning up against the wall in the hallway on my way and then I was off. I skated with ease across the pavement. The warmth of the sun and the warm breeze calmed me down a bit, and halfway down the street I was rational enough to realise that I didn’t know where I was going. I figured I’d go down to the pier and see if anyone was around, and so I changed directions and crossed the street.

“Hey, Kiera!”

I was halfway through the city, five minutes away from the pier when Allison made her appearance clear. She was standing between Liz and Charlotte, and all three of them smiled at me, faking it thoroughly. They stepped in front of me, blocking my way.

“Oh,” I said, grudgingly stopping, “Hey Allison.”

“Where are you going?” Liz asked merrily.

“Figured I’d just take a trip down to the pier, actually,” I mumbled. Looking around nervously, I noticed that no one else was around.

So now I’m going to tell you something I’m not really big on telling. So don’t say anything about it, just hear me out and then we’ll talk about something else later. This situation I’m in right now, standing before those three girls, it’s not my favourite. It’s not that I’m this victim or anything, I mean, I have friends! They just seem to have it in for me, and it’s been like that for about fifteen years, ever since the first day of elementary school. I’m not really bullyable, I don’t take shit. Not from anyone else, at least. But they cross some line, and it hurts, and I feel kinda worthless when they do it. So I generally try to avoid provoking them, so that they won’t cross the line you know.

“What’s going on there? Who’s around?” Allison asked.

“Uhm, I’m not sure really, I thought I’d just go down and check it out,” I mumbled, too aware of how lame I sounded. My face reddened. I didn’t want to tell them that I didn’t have plans with anyone.

“Are you meeting some guy? Since you won’t tell us who you’re meeting?”

“No!” I said, blushing even more, “I just don’t have any plans with anyone!”

“Gee, I wonder who it is!” Charlotte said, addressing Liz and Allison, but loud enough for me to hear.

“I can’t imagine,” Allison answered, just as loudly, “I mean, who’d want her? Except maybe if they were desperate for a shag.”

“They’d be pretty desperate if that were the case!”

“Yeah, but when she’s that easy I suppose it’s not that big of an effort. And besides, you heard when Dean said about her being kinky. Maybe the guy’s got some weird fetish or whatever.”

“I’m not meeting some guy!” I said, almost pleadingly, but not quite.

“Actually, we weren’t really talking to you right now,” said Liz promptly.

“Well, you were talking about me, so,” I said a bit stubbornly.

“What’s that you’re wearing anyway?” Charlotte said.

I looked down at my clothes. I hadn’t thought about what I was wearing at all up until now. I had some light jeans on and old sneakers. My tee was yellow with “Cool girl” written across it. My aunt had given it to me for my birthday three years ago. I looked utterly stupid.

“Just some rubbish clothes, I weren’t really thinking about it when I got dressed,” I mumbled, looking down. I felt a lump in my throat and I swallowed hard. They were laughing at me, finding my “Cool girl” tee to be the funniest thing they’d ever seen.

“Gee, Kiera, I wonder how you even bother living, I wouldn’t if I were you,” Charlotte laughed. She grabbed my tee at the bottom, saying “I hope you’ve got something better looking underneath,” and lifted it up. I screamed and tried to pull it down again, my breasts revealed to the world; I hadn’t bothered to put on a bra when I went to eat breakfast. But Charlotte was holding it up in a firm grip, laughing. I cried and screamed, begging her to let go while trying desperately to pull it down with one hand and failing to cover my breasts with the other. She kept laughing, and so did Liz and Allison. So I shoved her away, pushing her to the ground. As she fell, I knew I was in for hell.

Liz and Allison looked up at me, all trace of laughter gone from their faces. I grabbed my board and ran up the street I’d come from, but I could hear their running steps right behind me. I was about to round the corner when I felt pain rip through my skull, my hair grabbed from behind and pulled back. I fell to the ground and felt them kicking me in the side. I curled up against the wall of the building next to me and squeezed my eyes shut. Finally they stopped and started walking away.

“Did you see how small her boobs were?” I heard Charlotte say. They laughed hysterically, and then they were gone. I sat up and wiped my tears, and then I kept skating down the street.

So let’s not talk about that anymore. I don’t feel like it. That’s just how it is, and this wasn’t really a big deal. Anyway, you get that I was in a bad mood, yeah? I went down to the pier and found Tim and Patrick around, throwing pieces of bread to the seagulls.

“Hey guys!” I said, “What’s up?”

They turned around, smiling when they saw me, “Hey, Ky, nothing much.”

“Will you watch my board? I’m just going to buy an ice cream, do you want one?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

I went and got three ice creams, and on my way back I was a little too focused on holding them all, and not focused enough on where I was going. I kid ran up from out of nowhere and got tangled up in my legs. I lost balance and fell forwards, getting the ice cream spilled all over me and landing on top of the kid.

“Aw, shit!” I screamed, worried about the child I may or may not just have squeezed to death. I got up in a right hurry and picked the crying boy up, stroking his hair and wiping ice off his face.

“Oh my god! What happened? What is the matter with you?” someone yelled. I felt two hands push me away so that I fell hard on my back and saw the kid flying up into the air, his mum lifting him into her arms. I got up slowly. People had started watching now. I looked over at Tim and Patrick, but they were laughing hysterically at some unknown joke, high fiving and stumbling around from laughing so much. I looked over at the mother of the crying child; she was staring at me as if I were the devil himself.

“Well, it wasn’t really my fault,” I said, quite honestly.

“Wasn’t really your fault?” She exclaimed in a high pitched voice.

“No, I mean, he was the one who ran into me.”

“He was the one who ran into you?”

“Yeah, I was just walking, at a quite low pace really.”

“You were just walking?”

Communication didn’t seem to be her strong side. I looked at her, trying to figure out how to convey my case, but she just stared at me, her moth pressed tightly shut and her eyes bulging. She reminded me of a bird that’s got the crazy-eye. This made me laugh, but I realised that was a mistake at once.

“What’s so funny? You find torturing little babys to be entertaining do you?” she screamed along with her son.

“Gee, no, of course not. I was just thinking about something. And I wasn’t torturing him either. He ran into me and we fell over,” I said indignantly, “besides, he’s not really a baby, is he? He’s got to be four at least.”

“That’s right! Blame him! It’s all his fault isn’t i–“

“I didn’t say it was his fault!” I yelled back, really annoyed now, “It wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was an accident! And he seems to be alright now anyway, apart from the screaming.”

“Yeah, nothing is ever your fault! You young, ignorant kids never can be blamed for anything! It’s the world that’s against you! You’re all the same! You’re all just little brats without any sense of decency!”

“Well, excuse me, but I think you’re the one that’s out of line now!” I screamed, waving my hands frantically above my head; trying to gesticulate how mad she seemed. That shut her up for half a second, and I think she realised that I was right.

“What’s that you’re wearing anyway?” she said. My eyes filled with tears, and I tried to run away. But just then a police officer grabbed me around the waist, pushing me back.

“Oy! What’s going on here?” he asked, obviously having picked me out as the bad guy already.

“I’ll tell you what’s going on!” the crazy bird scremed, “that girl just molested my little baby!”

“Molested? What the fuck are you talking about? What’s the matter with you?” I yelled, losing my temper.

“Don’t use that sort of language!” the police officer said.

“I’m sorry, but she’s acting crazy! The kid’s fine! Except that he seems to be unable to stop screaming there’s really nothing wrong with him!”

“You made him scream like this?” the police officer asked, cringing a little at the never ending high pitched sound.

“Yeah, well, at first I did, but not on purpose, and now I think it’s just because he realised what a nutcase his mum is!”

“Do you see officer? What a little brat she is?” the crazy bird almost sang, happy I was giving away reasons for her to act like a bitch.

“Stop! Both of you, stop screaming!” he replied, panting from all the drama.

“Now, did you or did you not make him… this way?” the officer asked, looking sternly at me.

“Well it wasn’t my bloody fault, was it?” I screamed and stomped my foot as hard as I could. Now this wasn’t some normal, high-pitched voice I was using. I’ve honestly never heard myself like this before. I seem to have lost it, completely.

“Will you calm down, young lady?” the police officer said, and I felt my rage going up just a notch I was so annoyed by him. I wanted to shake him until he went crazy. The kid was still screaming and I closed my eyes to practice the little patience I had left.

“Listen, either you let me walk away or you take them away from me. It’s got to be one of ‘em, cause it’s straight before I bloody hurl his mum into the ocean!” I said as calmly as I could through gritted teeth.

She reacted like the idiot she was. Gasping, she turned around to the police officer, clearly wanting him to take action.

“Ky? What’s going on?”

I looked around. It was Tim, and he was looking at me as though he didn’t recognize me, “What happened to the ice cream?” I looked down at myself; the ice cream was all over me. I felt my face, and sure; there is was well.

Things were pretty shit.

I looked up at the crazy bird. She looked as crazy as ever. The police officer looked confused, and I felt confused.

“Would it be alright if I just went?” I asked him. He nodded. And I went.

I walked over to my board, feeling everyone’s eyes at me, and skated down the pier. I started on my way back home, and with tears running down my cheeks I tried to skate as fast as I could. But just as I made a sharp turn around a corner I slipped and fell. I fell to the ground and I stayed there, sobbing like a child.

“What’s wrong?” I heard someone say. I looked up, and saw a guy standing over me.

“Nothing,” I mumbled and put my face in my hands to hide it.

“It doesn’t seem like it,” he said, and sat down next to me, “brighten up, it’s a nice day.”

“No, it’s a shit day.”

“Well at least you look pretty.”

I snorted and looked up at him.

Then he kissed me, and thing’s weren’t really shit anymore.

Well, what does any of this matter to you? I don’t know. You’re the one reading this, so you’ll just have to figure out that for yourself, won’t you? I just wrote it down for myself and you started reading. Don’t blame me if there weren’t really a point.

So if you’re still reading, I suppose I’ll just say that that’s how I met my husband. He’s a real tosser. But he’s my tosser. And I wrote it down to remind myself, and I guess you as well, that even though things are pretty shit, they can still turn out okay. You just gotta hang in there.