Book of Lost Threads by Tess Evans Read Free Book Online Page B

Jessica, who tormented her with such refined subtlety that Moss longed for the predictable cruelty of the boy gangs. The other girls milled around behind Jessica and her three cronies. It was better than being out front in the firing line. Moss met the taunts stoically but wept secretly in her room at home. By this stage she had no friends and spent lunchtimes in the library.
    In childish desperation, Moss decided to buy Jessica a present, hoping to win a reprieve from the bullying. She saved up her pocket money until there was enough to buy what all the girls in her class coveted—a Magnetique Supa Gloss lipstick. She agonised over the colour and told the salesgirl it was for her big sister who was blonde and blue-eyed. She had it giftwrapped, and the next day she waited until home time, edging up to Jessica as they rounded the corner from the school.
    ‘I’ve got something for you. A present.’
    Jessica raised her eyebrows as she took the parcel. ‘A present? Let’s see. Come over here, everyone. Miranda’s given me a present.’
    When her audience was large enough, she struck. ‘Yeech! A lipstick! She’s a lezzo like her mothers. Yeech! She wants a big red kiss.’ And amid screams of laughter and exclamations of revulsion from the other girls she grabbed Moss’s tiny breasts and kissed her full on the lips. ‘Where else do you want to be kissed, Lezzo?’ she asked with a sly smile at her audience. ‘Come on, girls, who’s next?’
    Moss turned to run, but her arms were pinioned. The crowd began to slink away, but not before two more girls had kissed her and another squeezed her breasts painfully. Then Jessica opened the lipstick and wrote something on her victim’s forehead, before stepping back to admire her handiwork.
    ‘Quick! Miss Webb’s coming.’ The remaining girls melted away as the teacher turned the corner. She stopped and put her arm around the weeping girl who was rubbing a red smear on her forehead.
    ‘Miranda, what on earth’s the matter?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Was it Jessica?’
    ‘It’s nothing, Miss Webb,’ Moss gasped between sobs. ‘I just don’t feel well.’
    For several days, Moss was granted a reprieve. With Miss Webb hovering protectively in the background, Jessica lay low. Pale and peaky, Moss crept into class and scurried to the library in her breaks. The other girls kept their distance, and Moss felt sick and hollow and somehow dirty. She was ashamed of her mothers and ashamed of herself for feeling that way.
    These thoughts were too painful to leave lying around unattended. She might come upon them at just the wrong moment and they would trip her up, sending her sprawling helplessly as the contents of her head poured out into the unforgiving sunshine. Her face became watchful and grim, the effort to control her feelings begetting a stubborn will for survival. Moss was only thirteen and felt an aching need to protect her mothers. Nevertheless, action was required.
    ‘I have to change schools,’ she announced abruptly one night at dinner. ‘The teachers are picking on me.’
    Her mothers looked at her with concern. ‘Picking on you? The teachers? Which teachers?’
    ‘All of them. They hate me.’ And she burst into tears. The two women looked at each other as she jumped to her feet, knocking over her water glass.
    ‘I’ll go,’ said Amy, and went off to her daughter’s room, where she tapped on the door. Ignoring Moss’s ‘Go away,’ she entered and sat on the bed beside the sobbing girl, who finally blurted out the whole story. Amy sat stroking her daughter’s hair until her sobs subsided and her breathing became deep and even. She pulled up the covers and went back down to the dining room, unaware that Moss, who had been feigning sleep, had padded down after her and was listening at the door.
    ‘She’s being picked on because of us,’ Amy told Linsey.
    ‘Those little bitches. I could kill them! With my bare hands.’
    ‘She wants to start afresh at