SPOW
My mornings were not the same any more. Until two weeks ago, I'd had my own room, with sloping ceilings and open shelving, Magritte posters, and privacy. Now there's ten square feet of Aston Villa wallpaper and a tacky metal window to be shared with Zora, the middle one. Annoyingly, Zora couldn't share with Demitria, the youngest, because the third bedroom here was so – what would an estate agent say? – so compact, the headboard had been sawn off to get Demi's bed into the room.
Today, Zora was plaguing me with stupid questions.
'What's it like having a period?' she asked.
'Fantastic,' I told her, brushing my hair.
'Really?'
'Really. You don't stop laughing for four days – five if you're lucky.'
'Megan Weeks has started hers. She's allowed to get changed for Games in the stock cupboard.'
'Those are only some of the perks,' I replied, throwing down the brush and searching for my shoes. I got down on all fours and squinted beneath the bed, laddering my only pair of decent tights on the bare floorboards. 'Merde,' I said under my breath.
'Do you use pads or tampons?' Zora pursued.
'Neither. I stuff an old pair of socks in my pants and hope for the best,' I replied.
'No you don't! You use both. I've seen them.'
'Why ask, then?' I was getting mad now. I couldn't find my shoes and I'd got about five seconds before the bus arrived and my eleven – year – old sister was revealing things about me she has no right to know, and wouldn't know if my stupid parents hadn't messed up and lost our house and made us move to this bum hole.
Apparently, through, I was lucky. According to my mother, we'd been fortunate to get a council house so quickly, especially one on the York Estate. The York Estate had a good reputation. It was well know people on this estate won competitions for 'best kept garden' and had a zero tolerance policy on vandalism. And we're even on The Close, with a grassy area to look out on , instead of being overlooked. Its quite nice, really.
'Course it is. It's quite nice living in a house without a telephone so I can't talk to my friends when I feel like it. It's quite nice waiting at the bus stop with the Scrunchie Girls every morning staring wordlessly at you. It's quite nice being told 'you're very posh' in the newsagents when all you did was ask for some Tictacs.
You could say I was finding it hard to adjust.
' If you're looking for your shoes , they're downstairs,' Zora eventually revealed. 'Dad was cleaning them last night.'
'Part of his community service order, was it?' I spat.
'What do you mean?'
'Nothing.' I said, knowing Mum would be livid if I explained, and left her to wallow in the luxury of our shared cell.