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had that dirty look in his eye, but I was tripping out and I could feel my cheeks leaking and I knew it was going to end in tragedy. I stood and shot to the bathroom, my Third Best Friend still tagging the windows and I couldn’t even shout for help. I made it to the toilet and spewed all that punch out of me. It was like getting punched actually. I was still so dizzy and zapped of energy – someone or other helped me across the hall, or I fell asleep all by myself. I curled up in someone’s made bed; the covers were patterned with daisies but I didn’t give a shit. The bed felt so fat and comfy, though I could hardly sleep with my head whooshing and I dropped in and out of slumbers through the night. I dreamt up white boys and orange bubbles and white and orange flowers. Next thing I knew, there was a boy in the bed taking my flower. Or so he thought. My cunt was bone-dry, and he practically stabbed me to death. At first I imagined it was my boyfriend, and I swung my arms round his shoulders, completely dazed and off my rocker. I don’t know when it dawned on me I’d been violated. Afterwards I dropped straight back to sleep, one tit squeezed out my new bra and my jeans halfway down my thighs = uncomfy. I guessed there’d be all that sludge in there. At about midnight I could hear my Second Best and Third Best Friend slagging me off, saying they’d have to take me to the clinic and calling me a slag and a slut. I felt so shit, and I didn’t know what was up. I passed out again. I woke the next morning in a funny bed, the left booby still out and the undies scrunched and horrible. My Best Friends had kipped on the floor, and when I started stirring they shot up and rubbed their fuzzy heads. I felt sick and painful. I turned over in the bed, sorted out the bra and knicks, but my Third Best Friend started talking and it didn’t sound like I was allowed to sleep. And it was a Sunday, of all things. We fixed up our clothes and hair, then tried to find the Overfields Girl whose house it was and let ourselves out. There were a few boys sleeping downstairs in a heap and we got out through the back, jumping over the punch bowls and the bucket. I felt depressed as anything on the Arriva, getting off at the clinic just to make it worse. We were hardly talking to each other as we walked, my Best Friends all hungover and me probably all pregnant. I made a promise to shower the Virgin off me as soon as I got to Park End. Waiting in the clinic, it was my Second Best Friend who went up to the receptionist for the pill, and I bet she felt dead grown-up but she was a fucking virgin and all. I sat around but I wasn’t thinking about my boyfriend – I wasn’t thinking about anything really. Sighing, I swallowed down the pill then we made our way back home, through sunlight and trouble.

Chapter Four
     

Little Nicole
     
     

Eve
     
    I jumped the baby up and down on my knee. I had on the pink pyjama bottoms and Baby Nicole was kicking the hell out of me in her tiny socks, getting over-excited. I stopped rocking her then pulled a face, blowing her a kiss – she looked so sweet in her flowery dress with her bulky nappy under; you couldn’t imagine her getting shagged in a few years’ time or doing white doves. All the boys’d fancy her – even I used to wear dinky sandals and frocks believe it or not. Smoothing out my jammy top, I yawned then leaned into the sofa, trying to watch Friends over Nicole’s chubby cheeks. She was Mr and Mrs Davies’ daughter from next door, and she was hilarious, gurgling and smiling whenever the audience laughed on TV. I always wanted a little sister. Laura probably had a different outlook, coming into the living room in her bathrobe and shivering.
    You made tea yet? I asked, lying Nicole down on me. There were some pizzas in the freezer, but I couldn’t be bothered pulling off the wrappers and finding out how to cook them. Laura looked at me with total disgust.
    Naw, I’ve had mine, she