The Foils

Chapter one

CHAPTER1

I started moving my feet to the song left, forward, left, right, back, forward, slipping my shoes along the wooden floor. A chorus of clapping filled my ears the dance becoming more and more, faster. Although this was no dance this was fencing. My grip of the coil tightened as Hanna soared the silver metal at my torso. I dodged a squeal of gym floor erupting from under me like a basket ball players. The song I had been listening to through my head phones changed to ‘A kiss with a fist’. My stand still position changing to a more stretched one. I prodded my coil to Hanna’s as she tried again to poke me. I stopped it with mine. Then I plunged it into the side of her left hip where she bent the wrong way and gave me my winning position. The blue handled coil flew out of her hand as the two swards gave a parting clink noise. The cheer of claps and yelling increased and my earphones dropped out of my ears sweat dripping from my nose behind the white mask. ‘Well done Piping!’ Coach Jenny roared getting my nick name wrong as per usual. It was Pip P-I-P not hard to remember not hard to spell. My name though, was Rose Piping I hated that my parents were basically hippies never quite able to grasp that this wasn’t the 70’s this was me trying to be somewhat normal. Oh and if you’re wondering why I didn’t go by my first name it was ‘cause I hate roses and flowers and well anything pretty I guess. I haven’t got the real genes that run through my blood because I was not one tiny bit like my family. Speaking of; I hadn’t called Pixie My older sister to get her to pick me up yet. I sighed. Another two hours to kill. At school. Philip ran down from the staged chairs to take hold of Hanna’s hand kissing her cheek, ‘you ok?’ he asked gently. She smiled tucking wet blond hair behind her pointy ears her mask in her hand. Hanna had been trying to be like me since, Philip was a friend of mine and her boyfriend; though I never really talked to him until he started watching me practice, but of cause Hanna had to be with him and wanted that much more attention. So she joined. I had to admit she wasn’t bad but still... she wasn’t great. Philip turned to me hand gripped in Hanna’s-who stood slightly behind him, ‘You did really well Ros-’

‘Pip.’ I cut off, ‘Sorry Pip. You did very well. Well done for winning,’ he grinned ear to ear, showing white teeth, under his thin pink lips. I dipped my head a bit. ‘Philip! I need to get home! Drive me? My ankles kill.’ Hanna squirmed tugging at his hand. ‘Yeah, I’ll see you around Rose.’ He said getting basically dragged away by the hand. ‘It’s Pip.’ I said quietly. So much for sore ankle, I rolled my eyes. ‘Yo Pip! My winning man, my best bet, My never-let-me-down girl!’ I slapped hands and fists with Mike my best friend and Greg my other mate. ‘You killed her down here! You waiting for Pix?’ asked Greg who had a crush on my sister, ‘You bet.’ I said taking a big slug of water. I heard him say a little ‘yes’ in victory as I started walking to the change rooms shaking my head with my own grin.

The change rooms were always empty, near three people to four were ever seen, me as one of them. I didn’t care stripping down in front of other people, we were all girls, we all wore bras and most wore under shorts, so I always changed no matter who was there. Though just after slipping my red and white stripy singlet and slipping skinny dark blue jeans on I went to my sports locker. That was enough to scare me. The smell was almost as bad as it was, the thing looked like bile that had been lapped up by a dog, shat, then puked on again. But lying in the bloody pool of guts and fly’s was the head of Kelly Wills. I didn’t like her. But I also didn’t scream until now. When you see a picture on Google of a photo-shopped head unattached to the body and paint like blood dripping you shrug but in reality you scream. ‘Fuck Pip, what the hell?’ I could hear Mike say rushing in. ‘Pip?’ He pushed me behind him and saw her as well. ‘Holly shit!’ A tear fell from my eyes Mike cradled me. ‘Help!? Coach!?’ He said loudly. Everything sped up from there and became nothing but a blur.