My name is Charlotte, Charlie to my friends, Johnson. I'm going to be seventeen soon, and have just started my last year of high school.

I am the third of four children. The oldest is my brother Jake. Then there is Kerry my sister. Jed is the youngest.

I honestly can't recall any great enjoyment in my life since I stopped sucking my thumb and believing in Santa. I was twelve. Yeah, I know. Twelve is pretty old to stop either of those things. At the time I loved living in that fantasy. It was only when Kerry, who saw herself as an adult at thirteen and a half, told me I'd get the shit thrashed out of me, if I went to high school still sucking my thumb, that I decided to beat the addiction.

It was a Monday, much like any other. I had cried myself to sleep like every Sunday night because I didn't want to go to school. The weekends were safe, full of pleasant smells; freshly mown lawns, pancakes and roast pork.

Kerry laid into me. She slapped my thumb out of my mouth. "Stop being such a baby, Charlie!"

"Can if I want to," I spat back. She lunged at me and caught her nails on the side of my face as the palm of her hand slapped at the thumb in my mouth. I grabbed her hair and screamed, "Leave me alone!"

We ended up on the floor pinching and punching.

"Get away from me you little bitch!" she yelled because I wouldn't let go.

My mother, poor woman, streaked from the bathroom naked. Her blonde bob still covered in shampoo. "Girls! Girls!" She pulled us apart by grabbing a bunch of hair at the back of our heads. "I don't need this carry on right now!"

The instant we saw her tears we stopped. Mum wiped her face with her hand. "Kerry why do you keep picking on your sister like this?"

Kerry glared at me and, in the superior way of all teenage girls, looked back at Mum. "I'm not picking on her. If she goes to high school sucking her thumb, the kids are going to beat the shit out of her. Then it'll be up to me to sort the crap out. I don't want to have to do that."

Mum frowned and tilted her head to one side. "She's only twelve, give her time."

Kerry thrust her head forward. "Twelve...Mum! Listen to yourself! She's twelve, not a baby!"

Mum reached out to touch Kerry's hair.

Pulling her head away, Kerry threw her arms up in the air and said, "All right! Not my problem!" She bent down and picked up her school bag. "I'm going." As she got to the front door, she turned back to look at us. "When it happens, and I say I told you so, don't expect me to stick up for her." She held her middle finger up, glared at me, and added, "I'm out of here." The door slammed behind her.

Mum, still naked, swept her hand down my thick blonde hair and said, "You know, Charlie, maybe she's right. Maybe it is time you gave up your thumb."

My nostrils stung. I felt like I had a piece of bread stuck in my throat. I couldn't look at her, so I focused on the floor.

"You've only got a few months of primary school left, and then the Christmas holidays before high school starts." She tilted my head up so she could look into my grey blue eyes. "At least give it some thought," she whispered and went back to the bathroom.

*

My father helped me onto my bike. He patted the school bag on my back.

"Look after your brother, don't take the same route. You know the rules."

He was a nice-looking man with dark hair who wore glasses, which always made him look angry. Jed and I were the only ones left in primary school. Dad worried. He wanted to keep us safe from any predator who might have been watching for children riding the same route to school every day.

We lived in a neighbourhood that was shared by middle to low-income families. It backed onto sugar cane fields.

Those fields were a place for every child in the neighbourhood to escape.

A place to get drunk, smoke cigarettes, ride the cane train bins and lose your virginity.

A place almost every child was drawn to in the afternoons.

The suburb was split by one long road, and streets ran across it. We called them upper and lower. The reason for this was the upper ends of the streets were on a rise. The fact that the lower ends attracted the poorer families was a mystery. Very few of these residents were buying their homes. They lived on one or no wage. Those who lived in the upper had two working parents and house payments.

It didn't mean you were luckier if you lived in the upper.

It didn't mean your life was more stable.

It didn't mean anything at all.

We took the main road; peddled through the streets past the 'Lady Help of Christian' Catholic Church, with its large Rain Tree in front. Then on past Mr Greek's fish shop, and along the foot path to the duplex where old Mrs Grundy lived. She greeted us most days, like she did every other kid, by suddenly stepping out in front of us. An apparition of a childlike soul made ragged by age and too much hard work. One hand twirling the hem of her blouse, the other pushing coarse wisps of grey hair away from her vacant dull sky eyes. She didn't flinch, as our bicycle tyres skidded to a halt, on the dead moss pavement at her feet.

"Off to school little ones?"

The same question every day. I would think 'Dah' but answer politely. "Yes, Mrs Grundy."

I'm not sure if she ever heard my answer, or if she even understood it, because she never replied, but the ritual continued and ended when she lifted the edge of her blouse to wipe her face. Her weary breasts hung from under the fabric. They were long and saggy like water filled balloons. Mrs Grundy never seemed to notice the titter of laughter, or wide-eyed stares of her on lookers.

Mum said she had dementia and we always had to be nice to her.

The first time it happened, Jed, who'd been seven, screwed up his nose and suppressed his laughter. "That'll be you in fifty fuckin' years, Charlie."

Jed was a minx. At least Mum said he was. Unlike any of us, who took after our blonde, blue-eyed mother, he had spiky black hair, brown eyes and freckles like our father. Jed wanted to be one of the big kids. He resented being stuck with me, and at every opportunity he followed the teenagers everywhere, jumped the cane bins, and smoked like a veteran.

Though his exterior facade gave the impression he was tough, Jed was more like a Pascal marshmallow. A crusty outer husk, dusted by sweetness, and filled with mushy squishy stuff that attached itself to you in one way or the other. You either loved him or you hated him.

I loved him. Most of the time.

Muggy, our neighbour's cat, hated him.

I could go into a detailed account of why Muggy hated Jed but I think it's self-explanatory. I will say, however, Muggy was nameless and dry when he first ventured into our yard, and met two-year-old Jed, who was grasping a tankard of milk and obsessed with dunking.

As I rode through the school gate, I screwed up my nose and poked my tongue out at Jed. I thought about Mum's words. I hadn't dared suck my thumb like I normally would, when riding to school, just in case Kerry was lying in wait for me somewhere along the way.

The day went on the same as most of my days until I went to the toilet at lunchtime. A telling red stain lay in the middle of my knickers. I knew all about periods. Mum had been very thorough. I quickly pulled my pants up. If I didn't take any notice maybe it'd be gone by the afternoon.

I knew different.

I left the toilet, pulling at the hem of my uniform, trying to stretch it down to my knees, hoping and praying none of the kids had seen the stain. when I was playing Red Rover.

So, there it was.

The beginning of womanhood. 

Copyright © 2017 by Donna Fieldhouse. All rights reserved.

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