Life Is What You Make It

I’ve just woken up. It’s two o’clock in the morning. It’s raining, and I’m freezing cold. Oh yeah, one other thing. I’m lying in the gutter. I don’t know how long I’ve been travelling; only that it feels like weeks. I am starving, as I haven’t eaten since, well . . . I don’t really want to think about it. Across the road, there’s a sign. I’m in a town called Brighton. I guess I’m just going to have to find somewhere to stay. After about half an hour, I come across a sign for a care home. I walk up to the front door, but I don’t ring the bell. I just can’t do it. Instead, I lie down in the porch, pulling my coat tight around me.

I’ve just been pulled into the office. Someone found me on the step, and has brought me in. There are kids just starring at me in bewilderment, as though they’ve seen a ghost. Well I suppose I probably look like one. The office is a very small room, but I can already feel my spirits lifting. There’s a window that looks out over a garden. The walls are brightly coloured, and there are kids’ paintings on the walls. I’m sitting in front of a desk, covered in unorganised clumps of paper. There’s also a computer, much better than the one I used to have. The person sitting behind the desk has a friendly smile, although she looks very concerned. She tells me her name is Katie, and that she is in charge at this home. She asks me whether I have any parents, if I’m lost, and why I was sleeping on their doorstep. No way am I telling anyone what happened. No way. I hear myself mumbling something about my parents being dead, and that I’ve run away. Well, that much is true at least. She tells me everything will be all right. Whatever. My life will never be all right now.

I can’t really remember what happened after that. Just that papers were filled in and signed, and that I now live here. I suppose I could get used to it. A girl came up to me and asked my name. Hers is Tanie. Well at least I have a chance at making new friends. I’ve been given my own room. It’s very boring, but I’ve been told I can decorate it. It looks out over the garden, like the office did. It has stopped raining now, and the sun has come out. I’ve had my first proper meal for weeks. It was gorgeous. Jeremy is an excellent cook! He has a vegetable garden and everything. Well, I think I’m going to like it here.

I’ve been here two weeks now. The school I go to is as boring as ever. I’ve made some friends there though. Lizi, Jo and Toby. People started picking on me to begin with, because I don’t dress or look ‘normal’. So what if I have an eyebrow piercing! Anyway, I’m in the café now, where everyone hangs out. They make great chocolate milkshakes, and Kevin, the manager is really cool. Someone has turned the radio on in the background, and I hear the familiar sequence of electronic notes as the news starts. I stand up and head for the door, but it is too late. The newsreader starts talking about the mass murder that took place in a rural village a couple of months ago. I try to block it out, but the memory comes flooding back.

I was out in the fields with my cousin when I heard the first of the gun shots. We thought it was the hunters again, from the manor house the other side of the forest. They never bothered us, except to rob us of the little money we earned for rent. But then I saw them in the distance, walking in a line through the field towards our village. One of them fired, and it hit my cousin square on her forehead. I ran, knowing that he was dead. I raced towards my village, yelling and screaming, but nobody believed me. They came out of their homes, moaning that I was disturbing them again. Even then I was the outcast; I was the girl who caused all the trouble, who played the pranks, the Untameable One. I ran to my family, urging them to go with me, to leave the village. I screamed that Alex was dead, that they had killed him, but they just sighed and shook their heads, thinking we were playing yet another wild game. I gave up and ran, stopping at the top of the hill, knowing that it would be my last view of the place I called home, of my family and friends. I was filled with anger to see them going back inside to continue preparing their lunch, or go back into the shops to continue spending their now worthless money. I wiped my eyes, turned, and walked away. I knew nobody would survive; I had seen the murderous look in the Lords’ eyes, witnessed the deadly aim of their guns, and sensed the terror that they sent before them.

That was when I started my journey. I found out I had been travelling for six weeks, drinking from the rivers, taking any food I could find. When I arrived at the home, I was on the brink of death. But unlike before, people had faith in me, they believed in me, knew that I could make it. I realised that adults could be trusted, that friends could be relied on, that there was always somewhere for me to go. That’s the most valuable thing I have learned. Life is what you make it. I have lost my family, but have been given a new life. I have a new family now, one that appreciates me. Although my old life will always be a part of me, I know that I must move on and make the most of what I have.

Unfortunately, life is anything but a fairy tale. You can hide from your past, live for today, and pray for tomorrow, but for some reason it will never go your way. I had forgotten my teenage trauma, until the day after my 19th birthday, when a familiar face ran into me at the station. I recognised the vacant eyes, sleek dark hair, and the mouth that used to curl at the edges when he tried not to laugh at my jokes. I felt a shiver run down my spine as I looked into the eyes of my fourteen year old brother. My heart stopped for what seemed like an age, and I was almost knocked flying by the rush of people running to work, the merged comments, ‘late’ ‘missed the train again’ ‘coffee’. My head began to spin and I felt myself collapse right there on platform nine. He glanced at me and in his eyes I recognised the feelings of fear and loneliness that were once very much a part of my life.