Page 7 of Chase
“Well, you can keep them. Ew, they taste like…like…like ass!”
I burst into laughter and he soon joins me at the same time as making himself at home on the edge of the bridge. We settle into comfortable silence, and I can already tell he’s a good one.
“You’ve come over from California, haven’t you?” I ask, but he just sadly nods. “And you’ve had to relocate here? That must suck.” Again, he nods.
“Probably would have been surfing right about now,” he says, looking at the sky when it starts to drizzle; it’s as if the weather is trying to rub the misery of his relocation in his face. “And it’d be hot and sunny too. You wanna go inside?”
“Nah,” I huff, “I’d rather stay out in the rain than go home. I tend not to go back there until I have to.”
“Jeez, that’s kind of sad,” he says sympathetically. “Why don’t you come back to mine? You know my parents, obviously, and I’ve already got the Xbox set up.”
“What games do you have?” I ask, sounding a lot more interested. Sometimes I sneak into Ethan’s room to playGrand Theft Auto.
“Er, I may have somePeppa Piggames or something,” he offers, to which I scrunch up my nose with disappointment.
“Got anything likeCall of DutyorGears of War?”
“Sure, you play them?” he asks, sounding impressed.
“When I can sneak into Ethan’s room,” I reply, choosing not to take offence over his assumption that I’d only play girly or baby games. “Let’s go through the woods, otherwise we’ll likely run into Tilly and her friends in the village.”
He grimaces as he gets up to follow behind me. Perhaps I’ll finally have an ally against my evil sister. Or at least a friend.
Chapter 3
Theo 14
Izzy 12
Izzy
“Mum! Mum!” I shout out from my bedroom door, sounding desperate; Iamdesperate. This is an emergency, a nightmare, a travesty. “Mum, please hurry!”
“What on earth is wrong with you?” she eventually huffs, sounding bored and disinterested, as though I’m nothing more than irritant. Situation normal then. However, I’m not thinking rationally right now so I’m reaching out, urging her to take just a fraction of interest in me. When she finally approaches my room, looking immaculate and ready to rock one of her tea mornings with the local who’s who of our country bumpkin village, I point to the blood stains on my bed sheets with a look of pure panic on my face.
“Oh, phew!” she laughs, theatrically placing her hand over her heart. “I thought something horrendous had happened. You’ve just got your period, Isobel, nothing to flap about.”
“What?! I don’t want to have my period!” I cry. I waskind of hoping such a thing would bypass me altogether. When Tilly got her first period, Mum cried and made a total singsong over it, then took her out to get pads and a shiny new bag to keep them in. She took her out for afternoon tea, just her and Tilly, to ‘celebrate her becoming a woman.’ The very idea of her doing that is abhorrent, but still, to say it’s nothing only reminds me of how little this woman thinks of me.
“Well, it’s here whether you want it or not; best get used to it. Looks like you’re going to have a heavy flow from the looks of things. You’ll need to get some pads from the village. Let me get you some money and you can pop over now,” she says as she turns to walk out the door.
“Wait, can’t I just use some of yours or Tilly’s?” I practically beg; I don’t want to go into the village and risk someone seeing me buy my first sanitary towels. Besides, I don’t know what I’m supposed to get.
“I only use tampons and you know how precious Tilly is over her things. Perhaps if you made more of an effort not to upset her, she’d let you, but…” She trails off, tutting as she does so.
“But…but…” I stutter, reaching out to beg for something I already know she won’t give into.
“Ahh, has baby Isobel got her first period?” Tilly mocks me with a baby-like tone of voice. “Don’t you dare take any of my stuff, witch!”
“It’s not hard, Isobel,” Mum says, looking at her watch as she shoves some money into my hands. “Just ask the chemist for sanitary towels and explain to them that it’s your first period. They’ll help you.”
“So, you’re not going to come with me?” I ask, trying toappeal to her as my mother. Does she not have any maternal feelings for me at all?
“I’ve got my coffee morning, then a meeting with Ethan’s tutor,” she says, placing her hand on my shoulder for a short moment. “You’ll be fine, Isobel. Trust me, millions of women do this every day; you’ll survive!”
Knowing I’ve lost this battle to get her to be my mother, I throw my hands up in the air and stomp to the bathroom to get ready. I haven’t even got anything to line my knickers to get to the chemist, so I wrap some toilet tissue around and around the gusset and hope for the best. It doesn’t feel like it’s going to protect me for very long and the thought of a huge red patch giving me away in front of the entire village is enough to have me skipping breakfast and heading straight through the woods to the pharmacist. I just hope to God that Tilly and her friends won’t be there.
My best friend, Theo, is hardly the person to call at a time like this. Mary moved to London about a year ago, so that leaves me, myself, and I to go and get this done. I have a few friends from school but most of them are boys, and all of them live elsewhere. Plus, this is really embarrassing. Nonna’s not feeling grand at the moment, especially with her lupus and arthritis playing up, so I don’t want to drag her into the village. Though at least I can pop by her place after the ordeal so I can vent to someone who will understand.