Country Love

xii

 I scrub at the toilet with all my heart and soul. I keep telling myself that doing this is worth the car ride to the port. A few hours have passed when the man tells me that his daughter is here. Before leaving, I take one last look at my handiwork, beaming at the spanking clean tiles and latrine bowl.

I am captivated by Violet, who introduces herself as her father's daughter. Among the girls my age, she is probably the only one I like. She too, is not like other girls. Perhaps we feel such a strong bond because we are birds of a feather. Upon discovering that she's a Kerri Smith fan, I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to her. We exchange phone numbers and she wraps me in her warm embrace before I embark on my marvellous journey to London.

To my embarrassment, my eyes are leaking. No one has hugged me like this in a long, long time and this girl I met an hour ago, someone I barely know, is mending the gaps in my heart. I never realised how lonely I felt after my parents kicked me out of my house because they loved a horse more than they loved me. Sometimes, when I looked in the mirror, I would see my parents in my aquiline nose, my eyes, the shape of my lips, or the colour of my hair, and it would feel as though their loveless gaze followed me everywhere.

Now I stride forward confidently with my cruel parents' face adorned on my head. I approach the nearest ship, and get onto it. A confused man stares at me, a fishing net tangled in his hands. "Your ship stinks," I tell him with honesty.

"That's because it's a fishing boat," he tells me.

"I didn't want to sit with this smell all the way to London anyway," I wave at him as I get off. I decide to sail to London on a larger ship. The next one I get onto is packed with boxes, but I manage to find a man squatting among them. "Do your ship go to London?" I ask him.

"It does, but you can't go unless you're cargo," he says.

"Please, sir, I really need to go to London, and they kicked me out of the airport, and-"

The man looks troubled. "You can't come with us. Go find a cruise ship if you want to travel." I have been too hurt by people's rudeness to cry anymore. I have just accepted the fact that I'm too good for anyone else to understand me. Instead of having a breakdown, I spin on my heel and get off the ship. I ask for directions to a cruise ship, and am finally pointed to a big white vessel, with a line of people standing outside. I lug my four suitcases behind me as I hurry to the front of the line.

"One ticket to London, please." I tell the man.

"Get into line," he says, without looking up. Anger builds up inside me at the unfairness of this world. Don't these people know everything I have been through? How can I stand in line with these commoners? I need this ticket more than they can ever. But the man refuses to even look at me, so I have to go to the back of the line and wait for my turn.

When my turn comes, I take out the wad of cash I had stolen from Brad's hay and throw it at the man's face. "Give me my ticket, man."

"It doesn't cost so much-" he begins but I'm not interested in whatever he has to say. "I said give me a ticket!" I almost scream, and the man finally hands me a piece of paper. I knew Brad's money would be enough. Every time Chad gives him his monthly dollar, he stashes it in the hay, and forgets about it the next day. I had to dig through layers of the new hay before I found the forgotten stash at the bottom. Of course Brad never spends it; he wears the same white t-shirt and jeans everyday.

What had surprised me was the roll of hundred-dollar bills I found at the very bottom. Brad must have brought that money from home. I was sure he wouldn't mind that I had borrowed it to get back at Chad.