SHIFTED.✔

3

Don't you just hate it when an adult tells you your teenage years are the best years of your life? I figure, once you become a parent, something turns off in your brain. Delusions are formed making you only remember the ten per cent that is great about teenage life.

I didn't want to become a teenager.

I didn't want to become a woman.

I stood in the bathroom that night with tears streaming down my face. Mum was sympathetic. Kerry was smug. Mum gave me a whopping big pad, Modess Extra Long, to put into my underpants. It stretched from my navel to my tailbone. I was horrified.

"It's just for tonight.She touched my face, and smoothed hair behind my ear to try and ease my anxiety, as she said, "I don't have anything else."

Kerry rocked from one hip to the other, flipped her hands out in front of her and groaned, "Mum, you can't make her wear that."

Mum turned on her. "What do you suggest, Kerry? I don't have anything else!"

"What about one of my tampons?"

The look on Mum's face turned from serene to horror. "She can't use one of those. Not yet."

Kerry grunted again and stood with her hands on hips and her feet set apart. "Ah, that's right she's still a baby."

"Go away, Kerry. You're not helping."

When Kerry left, I asked Mum what a tampon was.

"It's a...well...it's for periods," she stuttered.

I cocked my head to one side. "Why can't I use one like Kerry said?" It all seemed very secretive to me. I could see Mum trying to work out how she was going to explain tampons, and why I couldn't use one just yet.

"I'll be back in a minute," Mum said and returned holding a small white cylinder out to me. "This is a tampon."

I looked at this thing, so different from the pad, and thought it would feel very uncomfortable lying in the crotch of my underpants. Then she explained how it was used.

"Ugh! No way. I'm not doing that," I gasped in total disgust.

My period issue was put on the back burner when my sixteen-year-old brother, Jake, came home. He was caught throwing rocks at a house that was being built in the new estate.

Jake had a way of getting dragged into these things. It was like he didn't have a mind of his own. He knew it was wrong, but for some reason he was drawn along this path.

We were eating dinner. Dad was already angry because Jake hadn't come home. When he answered the knock on the door his whole face changed. It looked like a shadow crept across it. A policeman was standing there with Jake, who had his head hung.

"Mr Johnson?"

"Yes..." I could hear Dad's deep throaty reply. I knew immediately Jake was in trouble. "What's he done?"

"He and a couple of his mates have been in the new estate. We picked them up after they smashed some windows throwing rocks," the policeman said.

We watched Dad grit his teeth. The shadow on his face was now a looming storm. "Get inside, Jake. I'll deal with you later," Dad said.

Jake scurried to his room like a mouse from a cat, except Dad was more your tiger variety.

Of course, as every drama did at our place, it erupted into something huge.

Dad drank a fair bit, like most of my friend's dads. As the years had gone on his drinking increased. He didn't cope very well with fatherhood, let alone the dramas of rebellious teenagers.

The policeman spoke to my father for quite a while. Dad closed the door; the sound of the lock clicking into place, like the timer on a bomb. He strode to his wardrobe and pulled out his old army reserve belt, and then went into Jake's room; the thud of Jake's door closing behind him ominous.

"I don't work all fucking day just so I can throw money down the drain paying for your fucking games!"

We heard the belt slash down, and the crisp clear sound it made when it landed on Jake's body.

We heard Jake scream with each stroke of the belt and Dad's angry voice, "You fucking arsehole! You fucking dickhead! You're no fucking son of mine!"

Mum was at the door, hammering it with her fists. We waited in our room, curled up on Kerry's bed. Jed squeezed between us, his small hands clenching my arm every time the belt snapped.

"Bernie! Leave him alone!" Mum yelled. "Bernie you bastard! I swear to God if you hurt him! Bernie...!"

Then it was over. The sudden silence more terrifying than the sound of Jake's cries. We listened as the door, banged against the wall, and every sound magnified. Dad's heavy breathing. Jake sobbing. Mum cooing to him. I knew she would be cradling his head against her breasts rocking backwards and forwards. She had done this, many times, over the years. I wondered how Jake continued to do what he did, because the punishment only got worse.

After the lights were out, we heard Mum and Dad fighting. She hissed at him and told him if he ever did that again she would leave him.

I refused to go to school the next day. There was no way I was going to wear one of those surfboard pads under my uniform. Mum looked despondent and exhausted. She gave into me and came home that afternoon with smaller pads called 'Thins'. On Wednesday, I had no choice, school was waiting for me. The kids saw the difference in me. Especially the boys.

My best friend in the whole world, was my cousin Shane. I told the girls I was going to marry him one day. I wouldn't kiss him though, I had added.

He liked the things I liked. World Championship Wrestling, Matchbox cars, fishing for guppies, digging for old bones in the quarry and playing Red Rover.

"Ah come on, Charlie. We're one short, and you're faster than most of the boys," he pleaded.

I stayed on the bench under the year seven building and shook my head. "I don't feel like playing today. I've got a sore foot," I lied.

By Friday Shane wouldn't come near me. I guess he could tell I wouldn't play. I was wearing my school dress, rather than the usual Friday sports uniform of white T-shirt and black shorts. I'd put these clothes on that morning, and when I looked in the mirror, I could see the pad. There was no way I was going to wear those shorts. My small skinny bum just didn't have enough fat to help hide it.

I looked at my image for a long time and noticed my small buds of breasts were visible through the white T-shirt.

Mum caught me crying. "What's up, Charlie?"

I gasped for breath, trying to fight the tears. "You can see my boobs too!"

She looked at my reflection. A mystified flicker of uncertainty gnarled her face. It melted into empathy. She caressed my face and whispered, "Looks like my little tom boy is turning into a woman."

That just made it worse. I cried harder and pleaded, "I don't want to be a woman. Shane's gonna hate me even more. It's ruining my life!"

She cuddled me close. "I'm sorry, Charlie. You're a girl sweetie. You can't stop it."

I so desperately wanted to be like Jed.

To stay the same forever.

Copyright © 2017 by Donna Fieldhouse. All rights reserved.

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