Read Georgia for Free Online Page B

cry, ring up Celia to collect her, make her promise she’d find another school. Yet even as she thought these things, she knew she couldn’t.
    Celia was talking on the telephone as she walked in the door. She waved, then went back to her conversation. Everything was just as it always was. The sun shining in the back of the house, lighting up a vase of flowers on the kitchen table. A smell of polish, a casserole in the oven. The prints on the walls, the thick, patterned carpet, chintz covers on the chairs. A spacious, middle-class home, a thousand times nicer than the one that girl must come from.
    Celia was at the telephone in a crisp blue summer dress with a white collar, carefully cut to minimize her wide hips. The kitchen table was laid with dainty china tea cups and a homemade cake. If she told her mother what had happened it would bring a cloud into this lovely home, a slur on all they had taught her.
    Georgia slipped upstairs and washed her face. She was flushed, but as yet there was no bruising. Ten minutes later she came back downstairs wearing an old pink dress she’d almost grown out of.
    ‘Hullo darling,’ Celia was in the kitchen making a pot of tea. ‘How did it go?’
    She loved her mother so much. She couldn’t bear to see hurt take the smile off her face or worry spoil even one evening together.
    ‘It’s a bit scary because it’s big,’ Georgia said, keeping her voice even and taking a seat with her back to the window so her mother couldn’t see her clearly. ‘I met a nice girl called Christine and I’m in form 1B.’
    ‘That’s good.’ Celia sat down at the kitchen table, stirred the tea and poured a little milk into the two cups. She cut the large cherry cake and placed a slice on a plate for Georgia. ‘That means you are actually in the Grammar stream then. What’s your teacher like?’
    ‘Nice,’ Georgia said, looking down at the cake. ‘Miss Underwood. She’s youngish. Real elegant and sophisticated. But we’ll only have her for registration and English, the rest of the time we go to other classrooms.’
    ‘What’s the matter with your face, it looks flushed?’ Celia’s eagle eye missed nothing.
    ‘I ran down the road,’ Georgia lied. ‘I’m just hot.’
    After eating the cake she went back to her room under the pretence of doing homework. Her bedroom was the prettiest she had ever been in. Decorated in pink and white, it had lots of shelves and cupboards, and Celia had even bought her a desk to do her homework on. It wasn’t a large room compared with her parents’ room next door, but it was on the front of the house and the window overlooked the heath across the road. Across the landing was her playroom. Even in her wildest dreams back at St Joseph’s she had never envisaged a room where she would be allowed to paint, dance, dress up and do whatever she liked.
    Her mother and father had taught her everything. How to speak properly and talk to people, how to dress, everything she had came from them, how could she burden them with worry about a bully?
    St Joseph’s had only taught her one thing that she clearly remembered. You had to stand up for yourself, or end up being bullied forever.
    The next morning she braided her hair tightly.
    ‘Why on earth are you doing that?’ Celia asked in surprise. ‘It looks so much better down.’
    ‘It’s a bit hot for school,’ Georgia replied. ‘There’s so many big windows, and I sit right by one.’
    There was no one guarding the milk crates at break and all day Georgia didn’t even get a glimpse of Bev and her friends. She hoped that was the end of it, but she would be cautious just in case.
    Once she’d said goodbye to Christine outside the school gates, she took off her blazer and beret and put them in her satchel. She rolled up her shirt sleeves and crossed the road.
    She saw the four third-years cutting across the playing field. The way they scurried along, heads bent close together, made her sure they were planning