Chapter 1: 'Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.' - Confucius
I awoke in a van, or possibly a lorry, or a truck, but definitely not a train; I would hear the clackity clack of the track.
The same questions keep whirring around in my head:
What happened to me?
Where am I going?
Am I going to die?
For dying would be an awfully big adventure, I remembered from Peter Pan – A story I had once found in an old video shop. I'd read the book since then, and now it was one of my favourite tales. That and Harry Potter of course, and countless others really.
What am I going on about? I don't even know anymore. Perhaps it would be wise to reapeat to myself some sure facts in order to gain a grip on my situation.
My name is Clara Evangeline Verne, my name is Clara Evangeline Verne, my name is Clara Evangeline Verne. My mother's maiden name is Carroll, my mother's maiden name is Carroll, my mother's maiden name is Carroll. Ok, what else do I know… oh yeah my age. I am fifteen years old, I am fifteen years old. Right… erm, oh – I live in London, I live in London, or at least I lived in London.
This was not a good thing to think about, as is deepened my desire to know the answer to my second big question: where am I going? Because I couldn't possibly still be in London – could I? Any rational person would ask another one of these girls in the- vehicle how long we had been travelling, but I couldn't find my voice. Why couldn't I speak? I moved my lips, and made to make a sound, but at that moment the van or truck or whatever went over a huge bump in the road or track or – never mind, and knocked all the air out of my lungs as I hit the side.
The container I was in seemed to be made of metal, it felt cold and hard, and had those criss cross bumps in it that playground apparatus sometimes had. Yes, it was definitely some sort of metal – steel or aluminium probably. There was very little light, coming only from the top and bottom of what I suppose is the hatch that opened to pile all of us in here.
From what I could see all of the 'passengers' were girls, some younger than I, some older, causing my unease to grow – surely there would be only one fate for a container full of young girls. I didn't dwell on the thought, because that begged a different side to my third question: am I going to die, or worse?
There was a sound of an engine – the type of sound an old car makes when it tries to find a gear too slowly, and the noise was so loud that I almost covered my ears. The engine before was a constant rumble, one that one can feel in one's chest, but with this change in sound, the engine suddenly seemed foreign, rather than a sound my ears had grown accustomed to, as it had been before.
A girl next to me shifted her position, so that the back of her head was close to my shoulder. She smelt quite bad, her sweat and BO smelt like an Indian take away; which must be the weirdest thing I had ever thought, and I attempted to edge a little further away. I expected that I smelt similar, and didn't really want anyone else to think the same as what I had just thought of this girl. In the limited light, I guessed that she had long, blonde hair that was badly cared for – probably the result of too much straightening and curling and stuff. She wore a white vest top, with baggy jeans, or maybe those were the girl next to her's. That girls looked older than I, possibly about seventeen or eighteen. I remembered how people always thought I was younger than I actually was, because I was the second shortest in my year at school, and was quite skinny. People would sometimes comment on that, they would say things like 'ooh I wish I looked like you' or 'Do you eat, like, nothing?' or 'stop sucking in your stomach' (when I wasn't). It got annoying after a while, and I never knew what to say because I always hated the type of people that replied to things like that with 'No I'm not! I'm soooo fat!' because you can tell that they like being told how skinny they are. Being short was the most annoying. I hated fitting into no clothes in regular shops, that sold things I liked, and having to settle for kids clothes, or really small sizes that no shops ever sold, so you had to just walk around shop with your friends while searching for the 'petite' section (always round in some far off corner).
I suppose thinking about all of my little insecurities would annoy some people. The ones that think that they're 'fat' or 'too tall' but I think that a lot of people fail to recognise that every single real person has insecurities, and things that they'd like to change about themselves, no matter what they look like. Why do they think make-up companies make so much money?
This worried me further: if I really am going to be going somewhere where what I look like matters, then what if I'm not good enough. This then struck me as a terrible thing to think. Why would I want some paedophile to like how I look? But the thought of what would happen to me if I wasn't pretty enough for an organisation to (I shuddered at the thought) make a profit from me? Tears threatened to fall, and I let them, silently. I'd practiced at the noble art of silent crying – I lived in a small house, and went to a large school, tears were looked down on, and easily spotted if one made a sound.
I felt the container we were all packed into (there must have been at least forty of us in there) grind to a halt, and suddenly, I began to feel slightly dizzy. It might have been the lack of food or water, I still didn't remember how long I'd been in the vehicle, and I closed my eyes. I felt like I was going to be sick. Before I could empty the condense of my stomach however, another girl beat me to it, and another started to cry. Loudly. It hurt my ears. The girls around me must have also felt the breaks, and a few of us began to open our eyes to look at the current surroundings, but nothing had changed since the last time I opened my eyes, and I wondered what I had expected to see.