Over the past several months, I have been working on a charity book project entitled 'Pay Attention to Black Thread'.
The purpose of this book is to raise money for Carer's Trust, an organisation that support young carers in the UK.
Here is a paragraph from their site to briefly describe what a young carer does:
"A survey carried out in 2010 by the BBC estimated that there are 700,000 young carers in the UK.
Young carers are children and young people who often take on practical and/or emotional caring responsibilities that would normally be expected of an adult.
Some of the ways young people care for someone are:
Staying in the house a lot to be there for them
Helping them to get up, get washed or dressed, or helping with toileting
Doing lots of the household chores like shopping, cleaning and cooking
Looking after younger brothers and sisters
Providing emotional support or a shoulder to cry on"
I have had the pleasure of working with a member of the Carers Trust team to ensure that this story is reflects their work and the children they care for.
Below, dear readers, is a sneak peek at the first few pages of 'Pay Attention to Black Thread'. I will be self-publishing the book in February (date to be confirmed) and would love your support in promoting it to readers. The book is aimed at readers aged 9-13, but I hope it will appeal to a broader audience too. Carers Trust are excited to promote this venture via their own social media, so between us we should be able to raise some much needed funds.
Thank you!
P.S. If you would like to get involved with the promotion of this book, please contact me at rosiehigh87@gmail.com.
In the few seconds before she
slams me against the toilet wall, I think, “Who sews a white button onto a
white shirt with black thread?”
Irene Blakely’s fluorescent
pink hair is always piled on top of her head like a flowering cactus, and she
is just as prickly.
Her
eyes have that hollow look, like she is somewhere else entirely, but then, in a
flash, they’re trained on you like a sniper. Recently, I have become the
target. Whenever I pass her in the corridors, I expect to find a red dot on my
forehead in the reflection of the windows.
Irene
is tall, muscular and broad. The three ‘must haves’ for a textbook bully. The
tops of her arms and legs are unusually thick for a 12-year-old. She’s a beast
at discus, shot-put, and javelin. Basically, anything that requires hurling an
object.
Mr. Self,
the P.E. teacher, loves her during Athletic season. He practically dances at
the sidelines when her javelin spears the winning distance. I have to say that
I question his decision to arm her with weapons throughout the summer months,
but the glory of winning is just too tempting for him.
To be honest, the only weapons
Irene needs in this black thread moment are attached to the ends of her arms.
They
threaten me, four pork sausages and a chipolata, clenched into two stone fists.
I wait patiently for the impact.
There
is no one else around. The girls who were polishing their cheeks with blush and
reapplying ruby lips scattered as soon as Irene bulldozed through the door. I
stare at the smear of lipstick on one of the mirrors, left by one of them as
she had appreciated her reflection from a vain distance.
To my
relief, Irene’s fists lower slowly to her sides. She glares at me, turns, and
locks herself in a cubicle.
I don’t
wait to see if she lights a cigarette or commits some other school offence. I
slip from those toilets at a run, launching myself into the throng of kids on
their way to next period, like a salmon rejoining the shoal in the battle
upstream.
That’s exactly what school is:
a constant battle upstream.
Exams,
status, homework, attainment grades, effort grades, fashion dos, fashion
don’ts. Thank goodness for uniform, I say. Although, if your skirt isn’t six
inches above your knees, you might as well turn up wearing a pair of knickers
on your head. Days of the week ones, at that.
Personally,
I think it looks ridiculous to have a bulging wad around your waist line from
the rolling up of your school-appropriate skirt. I’d much rather hide my knees.
I have
one of those funny bump things that happen to the unfortunate during a period
of excessive growth. A ‘knee boob’. Well, I might as well have one somewhere,
because they’re certainly not on my chest.
Sometimes I leave school at the
end of the day utterly exhausted. All I want to do is go home, crawl into bed
and read my book. But I can’t, because that’s not what my mum has in mind.
She
wants me to talk to her, and one word
sentences are not acceptable. I have to string words together, I have to use
inflection, expression, even gestures! And then I have to do my homework. As if
a whole day of school isn’t enough!
After
homework, we eat dinner, and then I have to wash up while my sister dries.
Then, and only then, can I watch TV or dive under my bed covers with my latest
book.
I’m
telling you, after five days a week of that routine, this salmon is pooped.
For the rest of the day, as I
concentrate on blending in like a smudged pastel, I can’t shake the image of
that black thread and what it was trying to tell me. Maybe I’m weird, but it
just doesn’t seem right.
Whenever my waist fills out yet another inch and one of
my shirt buttons decides it can’t cope, my mum sews it back on with white
thread. It just makes sense!
Apart
from being the wrong colour, Irene’s button thread is also too thick. It’s been
forced through the button holes, making each one look like a surprised little
‘oh’.
“Pay
attention, Rebecca,” my teachers snap at me in French, Maths, Science and Art.
I am, I think. I’m paying attention to black thread.
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