The Little Prisoner by Jane Elliott

Tanya again once I’d made it clear that if they did they would be bothering me as well. I daresay they were wary of me, aware that I came from a family that was known for its violence. The training in aggression that Richard and Mum had given me had actually come in useful for once. I think being well liked by everyone helped too, as no one had any reason to fall out with me.
    Tanya and I used to do everything together and she would come to our house to knock for me in the mornings so we could walk to school together. Sometimes Silly Git would give her a hard time when he found her in the house, swinging her round by her ponytail until her feet came off the floor, for instance, which was something he used to do all the time to me, pretending it was all just fun. Another time she arrived proudly wearing a big new clip in her hair and he simply snatched it off her head, dropped it on the floor and stamped on it.
    ‘You don’t have to knock for me,’ I told her after one of these incidents, ‘just wait on the corner till I come out.’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t care.’
    One evening we were due to go down to a fair together. Tanya came to knock for me at the time I’d told her, but Richard deliberately kept me hanging around for an extra hour and a half doing my chores, so she had to wait. It was a long walk to the fair and I was told I had to be back in early, so we had hardly any time there. Tanya was really fed up about it and asked me why Richard acted so weirdly all the time. We had become so close by then that I decided I could tell her the truth. She was the first person I’d told since Hayley. She was obviously shocked, but didn’t get silly about it and I was glad that I had decided to take her into my confidence.
    A few days later Mum had gone out unexpectedly and Richard had decided to make me do him a favour in the front room after school. He was just getting into his stride when there was a knock on the front door.
    ‘That fucking cunt Tanya’s at the door,’ he said after peeking through the curtains. ‘I’ll get rid of her.’
    He went out into the hall and I heard him going to the door and opening it.
    ‘She ain’t fucking here,’ he snarled.
    ‘Oh, right,’ I heard Tanya say, ‘so where is she?’
    ‘She’s buying a toothbrush over the Parade.’
    He slammed the door shut and came back into the front room. ‘If you do it good,’ he said, ‘you can go out and find her afterwards.’
    I found Tanya a little while later sitting in the churchyard near the Parade.
    ‘You’ve just come from there, haven’t you?’ she said, nodding back towards the house. ‘I knew you weren’t over the Parade, that’s why I’ve been sitting here. He didn’t even have the decency to do his flies up.’
    I could just imagine how horrible she must have felt as she sat amongst the graves, knowing that he was doing that to her friend.

I   was quite a late developer, very skinny and undeveloped, and I didn’t have my first period until I was fourteen. I remember the moment exactly because I was round at Granddad’s, cleaning his stairs, when it came. I rushed home to find Mum and bumped straight into Richard.
    ‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.
    ‘I need to talk to Mum,’ I said, trying to get past, unable to bring myself to discuss anything so personal with him.
    ‘What do you want to talk to her about?’ he wanted to know. I was never allowed to talk to Mum until I’d told him what it was about. I guess he was always wary I might let one of our secrets slip out.
    ‘It’s girls’ stuff,’ I said, hoping he would get the message and back off.
    ‘Oh right,’ he said, not only immediately seeming to grasp what I was on about but also seeming to be incredibly concerned. ‘Get in there then, young lady,’ he said, pushing me towards the living room as he yelled for Mum to come.
    They laid me down on the sofa and the boys were sent to get pillows to prop up my head and my legs. ‘Go