YOU TOOK A DEEP BREATH as you lifted your bruised and dried bloody knuckle to the oh so family door. A thousand thoughts racing through your mind as you tapped your foot, both with impatience and disconcertment of what consequences would follow.
You had moved to Small Heath at the age of seven, give or take, your father had got a job promotion which meant moving up country. When you first arrived you were known as 'The Cockneys At The Bottom Of Watery Lane'. You weren't even from London. You just happened to live near the capital. Not that anyone cared.
When you started school it was the same, only worse. All the girls would pick on you for speaking funny and the boys would pick on you for being too 'brash'. It wasn't your fault your parents had raised you to not take any shit. With your fathers line of work, he wasn't around an awful lot which mean you and your mother had to do a lot of things yourself. Which you, of course, didn't mind but it did mean that a lot of people would be confused and usually straight up rude.
They'd say things along the lines of, 'Whys a women doing this' and, 'Are women even capable of doing that', and so on, when you and your mother were doing the simplest of things.
Anyway, when you joined the school in Small Heath you found that being a girl with her head held high and strong arms wasn't easy.
One day you were minding your own business under the oak tree in the corner of the playground, reading Oliver Twist, if you remember correctly. When out of nowhere a group of kids made their way over to you; three girls and about five boys, all looking irritated.
"Wot ya doing, girl?", a boy with a scarf on asked you.
You rolled your eyes, turning to look at him as you put your bookmark in your book, "I have a name, you know?".
The boy scowled, "I don't care".
'What do you want?', you asked again, looking at the rest of them, "I'm busy".
A girl took a step forward, her hands behind her back as her plaits fell in front of her shoulders, "Just wanted to know why you're such a freak?".
