My Fight to the Top Read Free

exactly what she wants, she’s going to go far in life, mark my words.’ My gran knew. She was like a white witch. She used to read everyone’s tea leaves and she must have seen the future in mine.
    I wasn’t like everyone else my age. For starters, I didn’t have the usual pin-ups that my other friends had, like Madonna and Spandau Ballet. No, above my bed was a picture of Richard Branson. I wanted to be him – a success. I would watch
Dallas
and
Dynasty
with my sausage supper on my knees and I thought, One day, I’ll have that sports car. One day, I’ll have that big house with the sweeping staircase. One day, I’ll be able to look after my mum and dad.
    So when I was ten, I decided I wanted to earn money. I persuaded the newspaper shop on our street that I could deliver the papers. There were a lot of them but I was determined – I started off my rounds in the evening after school, then I did the Sunday papers, and then I delivered the
Daily Record
in the mornings. It was too much for one girl to take on by herself so I decided to hire a load of other kids. Pretty soon I had 17 teenagers working for me. I’d give them the streets and I’d take a cut of their earnings. Can you imagine, a wee ten-year-old bossing around all these teenagers? My gran was right, I was different!
    Of course, it wasn’t too long before some of the kids wanted more money. A few of the boys asked to meet with me up the back of the Dyke, the name of a wall in the East End. The boys were standing on the wall, looking down at me.
    ‘We are three years older than you. We are going to take your paper round off you,’ one of them started to say. I can’t tell you how angry I felt. Just because I was a girl, just because I was younger than them, how dare they? No way were they going to bully me. I folded my arms across my chest.
    ‘Don’t you even think about coming on my patch,’ I blasted. ‘I started the paper round. If you want to start your own paper round and not work for me any more, fine, but you’re not taking over the East End, this is mine.’ The boys started getting aggressive, but I was having none of it. ‘I’m not going to even argue with you. This is business. And I’ll push you off that dyke right now.’ I couldn’t help myself.
    Their jaws just dropped. They’d never seen anything like it. I walked off feeling victorious.
    My first of many victories.

2
PASSION AND DETERMINATION
    I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.
    ‘ W here do you think you’re going?’ one of the girls from my school shouted as she pushed me in the back. I’d had enough of her bullying. I swung around and pushed her away.
    ‘Stop it right now,’ I warned her. The next thing I knew, ten teenagers from the same gang appeared out of nowhere. They formed a ring around us and started chanting.
    ‘Fight! Fight!’
    We looked at each other but neither of us really wanted to fight. The boys had worked themselves up in a frenzy, though, and wanted to see us tear pieces out of each other. I edged away but they pushed me back into the ring.
    One of the boys went for me, kicking me to the ground.
    Smack.
    Another boy joined in. The pain exploded in my body.
    Smack, smack, smack.
    I didn’t stand a chance against all of them. They kicked and punched me until I was left unconscious. The next thing I remember was waking up in hospital with my mum and dad beside my bed. I was in so much pain I couldn’t move. My face and my whole body were black and blue. There was a man from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) standing at the end of my bed, asking my mum questions. Mum explained to the officer how she had found me.
    ‘I went up Duke Street to pick Michelle up from Thompson Street primary,’ Mum started to tell the officer. Through my swollen eyelids I watched him take notes. ‘But she wasn’t there, so I came back along Bathgate Street and all the kids came running up to me shouting Michelle’s name. I