“How different from us.” *
By Angharad.

Mollie Hawthorne, with an ‘e’ was fourteen today. She was having a party in the evening and she was looking forward to it with an anticipation she had never thought she’d feel again.

She bustled about the school with impatience, too excited to sit still for long let alone concentrate on boring chemistry or history. At fourteen what is history, something for old men to talk about? Mollie also had some history, although it was more recent than anything she was taught in school and more painful than anything before or since.

She concentrated on today and getting home, so she could get out of this awful school uniform, with it’s grey skirt and blazer and into the new skirt and top she’d chosen for the festivities. The scooped neck of the top showed the hint of the promise that one day might arrive, but until then she wore enhancer bras like many of her friends.

She remembered the arguments they’d had when she brought the clothes home, her mother’s eyes had nearly popped out on stalks.

“You’re not seriously going to wear that?”

“Of course I am, Mummy, let me show you.” She ran up to her room and changed her bra for a plunge one, into which she inserted extra padding boosting her small breasts into a noticeable cleavage. She adjusted herself and the bra to maximise the effect, then trotted down the stairs to show her mother.

“Da da!” she said loudly as she entered the room.

“You are not wearing that!”

“Aw Mummy, don’t be such a wet blanket, Jenny has one just like it only in blue.”

“It barely covers anything, your belly button is showing and since when did you have cleavage? Is there something you’re not telling me.”

“Cleavage? This is nothing, wait till I can afford boob surgery.”

“Till you can afford what?” Her mother looked shocked.

“I’m saving for plastic surgery.”

“Why, you are beautiful enough as you are.”

“Huh! I’m not, Father Christmas forgot my chest when he delivered the rest of me.”

“I told you, it was a stork who delivered you, although she was carefully disguised as a midwife.”

“Yeah well, every year for the past couple of Christmasses, I’ve asked Santa for a decent set of boobs, and so far he hasn’t delivered. Miserable old fart.”

“Mollie, that is quite enough of that sort of language. You are thirteen years old, who knows how big your breasts will grow. Just wait and see.”

“An’ if they don’t, will you give me some for my birthday or Christmas?”

“Why don’t we discuss that after we’ve given nature a chance to do it’s stuff?” Mrs Hawthorne was blushing.

“In the States girls have boob surgery as young as my age.”

“Will you stop referring to your breasts as boobs, it’s common, and I really don’t care what they do in America.”

“Well I do,” she burst into tears and ran up the stairs, slamming the bedroom door behind her.

Karen Hawthorne sat at the kitchen table and fretted. She understood why Mollie was upset, but big boobs weren’t everything and in fact could be a nuisance rather than an asset. Sadly, Mollie was too young to appreciate that yet.

This was the third time in as many weeks that Mollie had mentioned plastic or cosmetic surgery. Karen had shown her an article in one of the women’s magazines about Page 3 model Jordan, who had had several operations to increase her bust size and now regretted it. In fact she had had surgery to reduce the size of her breasts. Karen wondered how Jordan could stand upright before without falling on her chest, she certainly couldn’t fall on her face!

“One day she’ll understand!” she told herself, without actually verbalising, ‘If I don’t kill her first!’

Upstairs, tears over Mollie was texting her friend Jenny. ‘Wirkd ok, wear urs on fri. Lol, M, xxx’

‘Ok. Sluts rool! :) Luv J. xxx’

The constant battle between parental respectability and offspring pushing the boundaries was wearing the parental tempers somewhat. Mollie usually won but she had to allow her mother to deny her then change her mind. It was a tried and tested method.

Back in school, Mrs Jameson, the English teacher was waxing lyrical on Shakespeare and Mollie was twitching with excitement. She looked at her watch, another half an hour, she’d never sit still that long.

“Mollie, do you have a problem?”

“Me Mrs Jameson, uh no, I don’t think so.” She felt her colour rising and so was the temperature, she was actually sweating, a little droplet ran down under her arm. She disliked the English teacher who always seemed to know that Mollie disliked literature although her marks were adequate if uninspired.

“What do you think the witches are saying to MacBeth?”

“I don’t know Mrs Jameson.” She got even hotter and more embarrassed.

“Perhaps if you paid a little more attention, you would know, Mollie.”

“Perhaps Mrs Jameson, I just find his language difficult.”

“Admittedly it is a bit different to the way you barbarians desecrate the beauty of the English language, especially with your text messages. What moron that invented nonsense-speak?”

“But if Shakespeare were alive today, he’d be having his characters texting each other.”

“Would he, God I hope not!” With that the teacher put her book down noisily on her desk and picked up the pen and wrote on the whiteboard:
‘2b or nt 2b
dats d ?
wevr tis nblr in
d mind 2 sffr d
slngs n aros of
outrajus 4tune’

“Somehow, Mollie, I’m rather glad Shakespeare died when he did, rather than see this. I can’t honestly see Hamlet sending a text or Juliet sending Romeo one, can you?”

“I don’t know Mrs Jameson.”

“Well come down here and try,” she held out the marker pen to Mollie.

Blushing furiously, Mollie walked out to the front of the class. “What would you like me to do, Mrs Jameson?”

The teacher dictated in whispers to Mollie who had to write it up in texting on the board. Her hand was shaking with the pen but she did her best:
‘Bt sft wot lite thru yndr wndo brkes.
It’s d east n Jult s d sn.’
“Thank you, Mollie. As you can see class the poetry is somewhat lost with the use of the modern idiom of texting. So be thankful that Shakespeare didn’t live to use a mobile phone. Disgusting things”

“Please Miss may I have mine back?”

“At the end of the lesson, Natalie. I told you before, or should that be, B4? I also warned you, and that goes for all of you, if I catch anyone using theirs during one of my lessons, I shall confiscate it for the rest of the term. Is that clear?”

A mumbled affirmative came back from the girls of her class.

Mollie trudged back to her seat, she was now sweltered, the old witch had shown her up yet again, and on her birthday. Damn her!

Eventually, the longest half hour on record was over, Mollie spoke briefly with her friends and ran off home. It suddenly occurred to her that she had been close to getting detention for her lack of concentration. If that had happened it would have been disastrous. She needed to get home to help with the party arrangements and get herself changed.

It was only going to be a small affair with three other girls coming, but they were staying over, so she made sure that her bedroom was clean and tidy and that any hairs from Boris, her cat, were vacuumed up.

Her mother had been baking cakes and making trifle and other delicious foodstuffs for days. They had three flavours of ice cream in the freezer, there were half a dozen types of lemonade or juice.

Mollie rushed home and nearly knocked her mother over. “Do take care dear,” she said, “I nearly dropped the egg rolls.”

“Sorry Mummy, what would you like me to do?”

“Calm down and then go up and take a nice bath and wash your hair, then give me a shout and I’ll help you style it.”

“I love you,” she said hugging her mother.

“I love you too darling.”

“Have we heard anything?”

“No he hasn’t phoned nor sent anything.”

Mollie shook her head. Her father had left a couple of years before, they didn’t get on together and Mollie had blamed herself, not helped by the incident of her twelfth birthday. She felt sad, but that was life. It had taken her therapist over a year to help her understand what had happened between her father and her. She wasn’t sure she understood now, except she felt better about herself and less angry with him. Now it was a sort of chronic sadness which she tried not to dwell upon.

Seeing the sadness in her daughter’s eyes she hugged her again, and said, “It’s not your fault you didn’t get on. As the adult the onus was on your father, he chose not to accept it.”

“It would be nice to hear from him,” Mollie said thinking out aloud.

“True my darling, but we have other things to deal with this evening, so let’s get on and deal with them. Up you go and bath.” She patted her daughter on the bottom and steered her towards the stairs.

“You don’t think he’d do the same again do you?”

“No I don’t,” agreed her mother, at the same time thinking, if he does it will be last thing he ever does!

Mollie went up and began to run the bath, popping some bubble bath into the water. Five minutes later she was laying back and relaxing in the warm, frothy water, listening to the almost ‘fizzing’ noise the froth made. A quarter of an hour later, she pulled the plug on the bath and washed her hair under the shower, remembering to use a conditioner after the shampoo.

Her mother had thick blonde hair, her father was darker and she had his colouring, her dark mane falling down beyond her shoulders. She rinsed out the bath, the bubble bath didn’t leave a ring, and wrapped herself in a bath sheet and a smaller towel around her hair, turban style.

After drying herself, she popped on her bath robe and combed out her hair, then she called her mother. Karen came and dried and styled her hair, putting it up with some spiral curls she made with the curling tongs.

Mollie sat there in awe, it wasn’t very often that she had her hair up, she felt soooo grown up.

“Can I paint my nails Mummy?”

Karen looked at the clock, “Okay sweetheart, but be careful and don’t take too long, keep your makeup simple, less is more, okay?”

Mollie nodded without having much idea what her mother was talking about. If what she said was true, then her top which was skimpy, should be more too. She giggled to herself.

She dressed in her skimpy top and a short skirt, she thought they looked ‘wicked’ and she carefully outlined her eyes with a very fine line of dark brown, then painted a coat of mascara on her lashes. A touch of very pale lip gloss and her makeup was finished, She shook the bottle of nail varnish and carefully applied two coats to each nail, waving her hands about to help it dry. She waited five or ten minutes to make sure, then gave herself a squirt of her favourite ‘smelly’.

Finally, earrings, necklace and a few bangles completed her look. She admired herself in the mirror. She thought she looked okay, but just in case the mascara was waterproof or as they described it, ‘tear proof’. She hoped she wouldn’t find out.

The time seemed to fly by and Mollie revealed herself to her mother. The looks of disapproval had softened. Karen shook her head but knew that a scene was not a good idea. The one two years ago had caused such a painful memory for both of them, that Karen decided as it was Mollie’s birthday, she’d let her wear it, but she wasn’t happy.

“You’re going to wear that skimpy thing then are you?”

“Jen has got one very similar, it’s what girls are wearing at the moment.”

“I’ll let you wear it because it’s your birthday, but I’m not happy about it. You look far too old in it and too available.”

“Oh Mummy, thank you. I promise I’ll behave and won’t run a bawdy house.”

“A what? Where did you hear that?”

“In history, it was about the only interesting bit, the press gangs caught men coming out of bawdy houses. The teacher had to tell us what they were.”

“Which was?”

“Don’t you know Mummy?”

“I know perfectly well what a bawdy house is, I just want to make sure you do.”

“It’s a house of ill-repute, a brothel, a cat house a…”

“I think that’s enough don’t you.” Karen was blushing, maybe Mollie did understand more than she thought.

The table was set and Karen back down from changing, she looked tidy but deliberately understated in her dress, wearing a nice top and trousers, tonight was Mollie’s night.

Two of the girls arrived practically together. Kylie and Annette met in the street outside and walked up to the front door together. Mollie answered the door and gave each of her guests a hug, they in turn gave her a card and a small gift. Mollie’s face lit up with each one. She was nearly an adult, but she still enjoyed the childlike anticipation of gifts and what the wrapping may contain.

She took her friends in to meet her mother, but as they had both met her before it was more an act of politeness than anything else. They left their overnight bags in the hallway.

“Where’s Jenny?” asked Annette.

“You know her, likes to make an entrance,” commented Kylie at which the three girls giggled. It was true, Jenny was a show off and attention grabber, but for all that, she was also well liked by the group.

“That girl doesn’t have a watch!” sighed Mollie, rolling her eyes.

“She’s got at least three of them, but they all run on Jenny time,” reflected Annette.

“She’ll get here eventually, who wants a drink?”

They opted for the fruit punch that Karen had made, there was a little alcohol in it, so they felt daring drinking it, although they had all had more alcohol elsewhere, and got into trouble for it.

Ten minutes later and still no sign of Jenny, and no text or phone call. Mollie began to worry but tried to concentrate on her guests. She had decided to wait until after the food to open all her cards and presents, so she could share the fun with her friends.

“I like the outfit,” said Kylie enviously, "my mum won’t allow to me to wear anything like that."

“Mollie isn’t outside the house either,” said Karen firmly, to dirty looks from her daughter.

“Let’s eat shall we?” said Mollie and they all went into the dining room where the covers were lifted off the food, and from which Boris had been excluded. He sneaked in with the girls however, and planted himself just in Mollie’s eye line. She looked at him and winked, he in returned wrapped his tail around her leg and rubbed himself against her. ‘Cupboard love’ she thought to herself, what Boris thought, he kept to himself except for a nearly inaudible ‘purrp’, which he hoped was quiet enough not to get him shooed out by Karen.

They all tucked into the piles of food, Boris receiving little titbits of chicken and fish from all of the girls. Karen had decided to ignore him, as she knew she’d have protests if she kicked him out.

The door bell rang and Kylie offered to answer it, “I’ll let Jen in, she’s really late.” She went to the door.

On opening it, it wasn’t Jenny but a man who stood before her. “Hi,” he said, he had flowers in his hand and he seemed to feel he should enter. So Kylie let him, she felt a little confused as to what to do.

The man looked at her, “You’re not Mi.. I mean Mollie, are you?”

“No, I’m Kylie one of her friends.”

The man seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Who is it, Kylie?” said Karen her footsteps sounding as she walked to the door. Then as she entered the hall her voice became harsher, “Okay, Kylie, I’ll deal with this.” She sent the girl back to the dining room and closed the adjoining door, even so they heard her voice ask aggressively, “What do you want?”

The girls all looked wide eyed as something unexpected had happened. Then they saw Mollie shed a few tears.

“Who is it?” asked Annette.

“My bloody father,” sobbed Mollie, “he’s done this before, I wish he’d leave me alone.” She sobbed on Kylie’s shoulder as they girls had an impromptu group hug. “I hate him.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have let him in.” said Kylie with tears in her eyes too.

“We’ll help you,” said Annette, sniffing back her own tears, as they all hugged tightly.

Muffled voices continued outside the door and Mollie had flashbacks to her birthday two years before. She sobbed and shuddered.

Two years before her father had come to her birthday unannounced as he had today, but then he’d created such a scene and caused her and her mother so much upset, that they’d felt a need to move house. She had never felt so embarrassed in all her life and it had affected her in all sorts of ways as her father caused all sorts of ‘dirty linen’ to be washed in public. Surely he couldn’t do that to her again. Claiming he was doing it for her sake, but she agreed with her mother, that he was doing it for his own. Rather than try to enter her world, he was insisting she live in his, and she decided she wouldn’t ever, she’d rather die.

She’d spent more than a year recovering from the trauma with the help of her therapist. Last year she had dreaded her birthday, but it had passed without incident. This year, just when she thought she could have a normal time like everyone else, and he was back again. Stirring up all the old memories.

She told him she hated him and didn’t ever want to see him again, but it wasn’t true. He was her dad and she loved him, even though he didn’t seem to love her -- or he would understand her needs as well as his own. She wasn’t old enough to realise that we are all captives of our emotions, although she had certainly seen its effects.

The front door shut loudly and the three girls jumped. Moments later, Karen came into the dining room and smiled at them. “Right let’s get this party going,” said her mouth, but her eyes looked sad.

Kylie put on some music and Annette poured them all a new drink. Mollie hugged her mother. “It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay,” said Karen to her sobbing daughter.

“I thought he was going to do it again,” sobbed Mollie.

“He said not, he’s brought you some flowers and has a gift for you.”

“I don’t want it.”

“We’ll talk about it later. Enjoy tonight. What happened to Jennifer, it’s not like her to miss out?”

“I’ll go and phone her,” offered Mollie. She returned fifteen minutes later. “Jen’s mum is in hospital, with appendicitis. She’s been so worried that she forgot all about the party. She said she’s looking after her dad and her little brother.”

“I hope you asked if there was anything we could do to help?” said Karen.

“Not really, I was too upset by you know ----”

“Okay, sweetie, who’s for some ice cream?”

Later, when the three girls were lying in their sleeping bags in Mollie’s bedroom, Annette asked what the problem with her father was?

Mollie lay silent for a moment, tears in her eyes again. Should she tell her friends and have to bear any consequences in school, would they then have to move again, or could she trust them?

“Do you really, like need to know?” she said with difficulty.

“Not if it’s like, that bad,” said Kylie supportively.

“Is it ‘cos you used to be a boy?” said Annette.

Mollie burst into tears.

“ ‘Cos like it doesn’t matter to us, we all know you’re like as much a girl as us.”

“How long have you known?” sobbed Mollie.

“A year or so, one of the boys like used to go to your old school and told Jen’s brother.”

“Why didn’t you like tell me?” Mollie was now quite distressed and Kylie hugged her.

“We didn’t think it was like important. You’re our friend and we like, love you.” Annette joined in the hug and they all shed a few tears.

“Does everyone know?” asked Mollie a little later.

“I dunno, if they do they don’t like, say anythin’,” shrugged Kylie.

“If they did, they’d like have Jen an’ us to deal with,” said Annette.

“Thank you,” said Mollie and hugged her friends tightly. Maybe this time she wouldn’t have to move house and start again, this time she had friends to help her who accepted her for what she was now, not for what others had thought she ought to be. Maybe her birthday had been the best yet.

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* Quoted from an anonymous rhyme about the Headmistress of the North London Collegiate School and the Principal of Cheltenham Ladies’ College, c 1884, the Misses Buss and Beale respectively.