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Over The Top: Flat Out

I can go for weeks without food but never feel hungry.

I can fall down a long flight of stairs and not get hurt.

I'm fit and healthy.

And Dad spends a lot of time with me.

I'd better explain.

Five weeks ago I was bottom of the class. I was the pits. All the boys were better than me at everything. And all me girls were too. I was miserable. I worked hard. Sometimes. I really tried. But it didn't do any good. I just wasn't cut out for school I was made to be last in everything! "Stupid girl!" the boys said, "You're so dumb!" "Can't you even do up your shoe-laces?" the teacher said kindly, but I could feel her scorn. "If you can't skip, you might as well turn the rope" the other girls said. I felt so bad about myself I ate sweets. Whole bags of them. Packets of jelly crystals. Slabs of butter. Sometimes I'd see myself in the mirror. Puffy cheeks, pimples, flabby arms. I was gross. That made me feel even worse about myself so I'd eat more sweets to try and feel better. Sweets were my only comfort, but they made me bigger, so I'd feel worse, so I'd eat more sweets ... it was like a snake chasing its tail.

Five weeks ago I was trying to tell Dad about how I was feeling, I mean how my inside self was feeling. He hardly ever listened to me, and today was no exception. Mum was living somewhere else with another man, so there was just Dad and me, and he never stopped long enough to hear what I wanted to say. We lived in the same house, but we led totally different lives. He worked on his special top secret science projects, and I went to school. We hardly ever saw each other except when we passed in the room.

He was smart and I was stupid. That was what most people thought anyway. Maybe they were right? I decided to try and prove them wrong.

One day I hid in the boot of his car. It was the only way I could get into the place where Dad worked. I wanted to talk to him so bad. He thought I'd gone to school early so he went to the car and started it up. I heard him talking to himself. He was saying a list of things he needed to do for the day. He didn't even mention my name.

He drove through the city for a while. I could hear it outside. Cars, trucks, motorbikes, and the smell of petrol fumes. It was horrible, being stuck inside the boot of the car where it was so dark and stuffy.

Dad drove to the complex where he worked and stopped at the gates. I heard a buzzer go as a guard let the gates swing open. We went through the high security gates and stopped in an underground car park. I waited until Dad had got out and walked away then I climbed out of the boot and looked around.


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