Stolen Girl Read Free

Lauren but it was toolate. Huge tears pricked in the corner of her eyes. They swelled up into big droplets and escaped down her cheeks, dripping onto her school jumper. The knitted top soaked them up, sending the royal blue wool a darker shade of navy. Soon, a damp patch of tears had formed upon her chest.
    A boy noticed Lauren’s tears and came running over to finish off the job. He hovered in close but shouted out loud enough so the rest of the children could hear.
    ‘Watch out,’ he hissed, ‘Here’s peg legs. Hey, everybody, it’s peggy legs!’
    The girls were at the other end of the playground but they heard and came running over to join in. Soon more and more children had circled us. They were like sharks and now they’d seen her tears, they were going in for the kill. I clutched Lauren close as she began to sob heavily onto my shoulder.
    ‘Peg legs! Hey, it’s Peggy!’
    ‘Peg legs, peg legs!’ they chanted over and over again.
    Lauren buried her head deep into my shoulder as I begged them to leave her alone. I felt utterly helpless. I wanted to stick up for her but I knew I couldn’t take on the rest of the school. Instead, I just held her in my arms and told her everything would be okay. But I knew it wasn’t, and it never would be. ‘Peg Legs’ stuck and haunted Lauren throughout her schooldays.
    It was stupid because I knew Lauren, and I knew she ate more than anyone else – she was just naturally slim. There was nothing she could do.
    ‘I’m skinny, just like Mum,’ she admitted to me a few days later, the bullying still preying on her mind.
    It was break time and we were bored, sat on the playground wall. I could tell by the way she spoke and bounced her heels off the brick wall that she’d thought of nothing else since.
    ‘Mum tells me I’ll be grateful for it when I’m older,’ Lauren said, glancing down at her own body. ‘She says I’ll be slim when everyone else is fat. But I don’t want to be skinny, Katie…’ the words caught as a sob deep inside her throat, ‘I just want to be normal.’
    I looked over at my best friend and thought how tired she looked. She was tired of the constant bullying, tired of being called the same names over and over again.
    ‘I know,’ I agreed, but I didn’t. Not really.
    I wanted to eat dinner alongside Lauren so I could protect her from the bullies, but because I took in a packed lunch I had to eat my food in the classroom. Once, Mum had let me stay for school dinners, but when she found out I’d refused to eat anything because I didn’t like the food, she wouldn’t let me stay again. But Lauren stayed for school dinners, which meant she had to eat in the main hall. It left her wide open to the bullies and their cruel remarks. Every lunch time, the girls would position themselves so they could watch poor Lauren as she consumed every morsel of food. She hated them looking over at her – it made her feel self-conscious. I think they wanted to try and see what her secret was – why she didn’t put on weight like everyone else. We both dreaded dinner times because we hated being apart. Despite my protests, Mum always gave me a packed lunch so I wasn’t allowed in the hall with the paying kids. Instead, I’d sit alone at my desk with my sandwiches and a bag of crisps. Now and again, Mum would pop in a treat to cheer me up but it never worked because I hated being so isolated – I hated eating alone.
    I wasn’t the only one with a packed lunch but the other children would sit on a separate table to me. No one wanted to sit next to or be seen with me, no one other than Lauren.
    Lonely and left out, I’d watch the clock, willing the next half hour to hurry up and whizz by so that I could meet my best friend in the playground. I’d watch the minute hand tick by, working its way around the clock face until it was time to leave. As soon as I could, I’d zip up my bag and run outside to be with her. Lauren was the only one who knew what it was