Sunburn

Starting fresh is always tough. No mater where, no matter who you are, it’s never going to be easy. Even if you’re not the only one, even if you’re starting with a whole group of people, it’s difficult. Because nothing’s sure. You don’t know quite how to behave, or quite what you should say. Who you should talk to, who to avoid… it’s a minefield.

Starting fresh in a new school, in a new city, in a new county in the last year of compulsory education… well, that just makes it harder.

I was furious with my father for uprooting us like that. My mothers family were all back in Tunbridge Wells, where we’d left. My friends were all there. He’d given us no consideration when he’d decided to take the new job, as usual. We were just expected to go along with it.

There was nothing I could do. Well, of course I could stay with my mum’s family, but I’d miss my mum. For some reason she loved my dad. Truly loved him. She would hate to be more than thirty minutes away from him for more than a day.

So move to London it was.

Geographically, it was nothing. Socially, even a little culturally, it was a move almost halfway across the world. Well, it felt like it.



All things considered though, the new school wasn’t really bad. The students were more welcoming than the students at my old school would have been, something that surprised me. It was almost like they were competing with each other as to who could be the nicest; who could win me for their group of friends. It was a little disconcerting, I’ll own, but it was better than being ignored, or teased, or hated and alone.

My form class were especially nice- something that I would later learn was specific to that form. They got a lot of new students in that class, at least one every year, a boy proudly told me. For all that, they were close knit.

On the first day, I got told by six different people from six different groups that I was welcome to join them at break or at lunch if I wanted. I ended up going with whoever asked me just before class finished- it was easier than trying to search through the crowds for the face of someone I barely remembered the name of.

Everyone seemed pretty relaxed around each other, too. The year eleven group at my last school hadn’t managed that, even though most of the people had known each other for years on years on further years. No one seemed to mind the group of emo kids sitting in the corner of the playground, or the chavs slouching round like their muscles were dying, or the indie kids strutting like they owned the place.



In fact, there only seemed to be one person who wasn’t accepted into the happy family.

I didn’t realise at first. She made it hard to notice to the unpractised eye. She was in two of my lessons, and she kept her head down in them. She held herself confidently, and she always seemed to be content, although a little lost in her own world.

It took me three days to realise that the only people she spoke to, ever, aside from a couple of emos in our Art class whose company she didn’t seem to enjoy much, was our teachers.

It came as a shock to find that out, because she was honestly beautiful. Alternative, yes, which could have been a bit of a problem back in conservative, anglican Tunbridge Wells, but which deterred no one in North London. And she was an amazing artist.

But everyone steered well clear of her.

I didn’t find her name out until the fourth day, when another boy- Will something- came over to the table we sat at with the emo couple and a few other kids to talk to her.

“Jessie, will you model for me?” he asked casually, leaning against the table like they were best of friends.

She shrugged and set her pencil down before following him off into a closet. No one else noticed, or if they did, they didn’t care.

I decided to ignore it too, and returned to my own work.

She came out ten minutes later, pulling down her shirt. Downright suspicious. But still nothing was said. Probably this was a regular occurrence.

But then I heard the whispers.

“I just don’t understand why he even talks to her,” one girl muttered. No names were mentioned but they didn’t have to be, not even for me. “I wouldn’t go near her.”

The girl was ignored by her friend, but I could see Jessie stiffen. Not for long, but long enough.



The week drew to a close, finally. It didn’t drag unduly, but I was glad when it was over with because it meant that I had survived. I was no longer new. Everything the school could throw at me had been thrown.

My mother seemed to sense this when I arrived home on Friday, dropped my bag onto a floor and myself into a chair with a relieved sigh.

“How did it go love?” she asked, standing up.

“It was alright. Surprisingly okay,” I replied, and it seemed she sighed with relief too. She was always worrying about me getting bullied although I honestly don’t know why. I’d never been bullied in my life, and I wasn’t about to start just because I was in a new place.

“Do you want me to make you a cuppa?”

“That would be perfect,” I said, sighing once more and sinking as far back into the chair as I could go.

I listened to the song my mother had softly playing rather than ruin the mood she had going by turning on the telly. I’d never admit it to her, but I kind of liked the old songs she played; Don McLean, Simon and Garfunkel, hell, even the Carpenters. I guess it was because she’d been playing them for so long that they felt like a part of me, like Arthur and beyblades.

She came back in with the steaming mug of tea and a few Rich Tea biscuits.

“Thanks mum,” I said, taking the plate from her and setting it down on the floor.

“So tell me all about the school. Made friends?”

“A few, yeah. Well, I think so. You never can tell.”

“That’s true,” she agreed. “But as long as you’ve found people you’re comfortable with for now, I guess that’s good, right?”

“Yeah. It’s good.”

“So,” she said, grinning suddenly. I knew that grin. It never meant anything good. “Anyone you’ve got your eye on?”

“Mum!” I exclaimed, embarrassed more than anything else. She always did this, and it always provoked the same reaction. “No, mum, I haven’t! I’ve only been there a week, I just about know enough about the kids to nod to them in the hallway.”

“That’s a shame,” she murmured, ignoring my outburst. “Oh well. You’ll find someone,” she beamed happily at me.

I shook my head at her, knowing she’d never back down, and buried myself in my tea.