Stolen Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

over, pointing and laughing. Tears pricked at the back of my eyes – I could feel them coming and I didn’t want anyone to see, so instinctively I ran for the door. I heard Lauren’s voice calling me but I didn’t turn back. Instead I kept on running. I couldn’t stay, not after that. I ran and ran until I saw the lights of our front room. Isneaked in quietly through the back door and went straight up to my bedroom and closed the door behind me. Burying my head deep into the pillow, I sobbed my heart out. I listened out for Mum, but she was in the front room and hadn’t heard me come in. I was glad – I didn’t want to tell her what they said to me and how miserable my life was at school. It felt more and more like a prison each day.
    I never told Mum a thing – I was too embarrassed. Instead, I pulled off the stupid top and threw it in the bin. I’d loved that top – it had made me feel special and part of the gang – but now I wanted to shred it into tiny pieces because it was a reminder that I was nothing like them and I never would be.
    The girls had been right all along: I was different. But what I didn’t realise then was that it was this that’d mark me out in more ways than one – it would be this which would separate me from my best friend forever.

CHAPTER 4
THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN HAIR
    A s puberty really began to kick in, so my shape continued to change. I hated it because I looked so different compared to my classmates.
    Soon hormones were taking over and it wasn’t long before my honey-blonde hair began to dull to a horrible mousey-brown colour. I didn’t care but Mum wasn’t keen and she bought a special spray-in lotion to give my hair a ‘natural sun-kissed look’. Unfortunately, it did nothing of the sort. Instead of making me look like I’d been kissed by the rays of the sun, all the spray did was wreck my hair, turning it both the colour and texture of yellow straw. Still, Mum persevered. Perhaps she thought if I was blonde then I’d become more popular at school but she was wrong. The yellower my hair became, the more the bullying intensified. Soon, my usual nickname of Dumbo changed to ‘Mophead’. When my dark roots reappeared at the end of each month they produced athicker, darker stripe at my crown and the name-calling upped to another level.
    ‘Watch out, here comes Mophead!’ the popular girls would jeer every time I walked by.
    I begged Mum not to spray the awful stuff in my hair but she thought she was doing me a favour.
    I started at secondary and the nickname followed me across town and to my new school. Of course, the other children from the different intake schools took great pleasure in joining in and shouting it out on every occasion. I think they were relieved I was the target and not them.
    ‘Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Moppy Taylor!’ They’d all chant in unison, until the only person not laughing was me.
    Luckily, the girl who lived across the road from me and my former imaginary Steps band member, Megan, went to the same secondary school and so did Lauren. As luck would have it, Megan and I ended up in the same form group together. I sat close to Lauren that first morning, waiting for my name to be called out, praying they’d put us together, but it wasn’t to be. Instead, Megan’s name was called and we both had to leave Lauren to her own fate. When we met later that day at break, Lauren told us how she’d been put in a class on her own with all the primary school bullies.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured her. ‘We’ll still meet up every break and lunchtime, won’t we, Megan?’ I glanced over at my new friend, who nodded in confirmation.
    But I’m ashamed to say I was just relieved it was Lauren and not me who’d been thrown into the lions’ den. Poor Lauren, I felt so guilty – she was on her own, but at the same time, I was grateful it wasn’t me because life was hard enough.
    Having Megan in my form class helped a little but she