At least it wasn’t home, where I was on intimate terms with every inch of my bedroom walls and had to choke down dinner under Papa’s ever watchful glare. I put my elbows on the table one night and he almost had an apoplexy. Fun times. At school it was easier to ignore six hundred people who hated my guts. I clamped on my headphones, and rose above the threats and the smirks to a sound track of angry-girl music. Being chaperoned every minute of the school day was a big help, especially as one of the Year Nines on my lunch table told me that some of her classmates had put a contract out to have me pushed down the steps. It was like The Sopranos meets Bring It On . I’ve bullied enough people to know that the minute you show them that they’re getting to you, you’ve signed your death warrant. But if you can weather the storm, sooner or later someone who isn’t you will fuck up and the attention will shift. It was taking a long time. A week went by, then another one, and I could live with the shoulder bumping and the Diet Coke that someone poured into my open bag.
