You Only Get One Life Read Online Free PDF

and it was only my friendship with Liselotte and thoughts of my beloved horses that kept me sane.
    I felt different and wrong for so long that my school years now seem like one great fog. The others whispered about me and even when I wasn’t there, I could tell by the way that people looked at me when I came into the room that they had been talking. It was endless. The laughter rubbed me raw, along with their delight when they could tell they’d got to me. I remember running away from their malicious giggling in the playground, falling over my own gangly legs and scraping myself badly when my jeans tore at the knee. The laughter became hysteria as I picked myself up and painfully made my escape again. It was particularly hard going home in the winter: the kids would kill me with icy snowballs on the way back. They waited for me and every day it was the same shit. We all moved on to the same schools in the neighbourhood so it never got better, even as I got older.
    The teachers knew what was going on. It’s not like today when something like that would be treated with great seriousness. Now parents would be called in, meetings would be had. Back then, you just had to get on with it: you fall down, you stand up, you move on. We know how mean children can be, but in those days adults simply weren’t interested in understanding how bad it was, they didn’t listen to us.
    Classes often shared the same room and I remembercoming in and moving a boy’s bag to hang up my satchel on the hooks that lined the wall near my desk. He was with the class going out and saw me move his bag. ‘She’s going to fucking get it,’ he said to his friends. My heart immediately started racing and as soon as school finished, I raced out of there as if my life depended on it – which it did. Six boys tore after me and I ended up in some apartment block banging on a stranger’s door. Fortunately, I was let in by a kind lady who called my parents for me. It was a rare rescue from the regular daily beating, and it was only after that incident that I finally moved school, away from Liselotte and I had to start again.
    I suffered from psychosomatic stomach pains, but when I got home I’d still eat at the appointed hour of 6 o’clock and clean up the house. ‘How is everything?’ my parents would ask. I’d tell them school was fine. We didn’t talk much more in the home than I did with the teachers – I didn’t have that kind of relationship with my parents or my grandmother. My grades were always good so they never suspected anything. Jan and I would usually have to go to our rooms after supper. We didn’t have friends over and I remember having to ask my mum before she’d give me a goodnight kiss. That’s just how it was in my family.
    So if it was me who was being asked to be a model there had to be a catch. I thought I’d have to strip or be in some kind of pornographic magazine. ‘I’ll have to ask my dad first,’ I told her and that became my standard response to any offer of work until the day he died. It made me feel safe. Besides, I did want time to check it out. I didn’t want to give the other kids at school a fresh chance to laugh at me if itturned out to be bullshit. Having been called ugly and stupid for so long, I had a highly-developed sense of self-preservation when it came to opportunities for looking even more ridiculous than I did already.
    ‘I understand,’ said the woman, ‘and in the meantime here’s a brochure that will tell you all about what we do. Call me when you’ve spoken with your parents.’ She smiled reassuringly again and then disappeared into the Copenhagen crowds. I wasn’t used to feeling so excited and for a moment I felt suspended in unreality before the world started to turn again and I became aware of the background noise in the square. Surely the rest of my class from school were hiding around here somewhere and they were about to jump out and tell me that it was all another joke at the