No More Butterflies - Chapter One

If Emma had been less absorbed in her day dreaming she might just have heard the faint, tell-tale crunch of rubber on concrete.

“Just what exactly do you think you’re doing?” A familiarly inflexible voice crashed into Emma’s solitude, making her jump violently as her heart seemed to stop beating momentarily.

Spinning around she came face to face with Mike Parker, her extremely angry looking father, who was staring malevolently at the half-smoked cigarette, not very well hidden by the palm of her right hand.

The thought of arguing with him flashed briefly across her mind but she dismissed it immediately, what would be the point, it would only make matters worse. In fact, it would make matters doubly worse as disagreeing with him publicly, albeit with no-one around to overhear, would incur far more painful punishment than the stiff talking to she would no doubt have to endure as it was. He always won anyway, even when he was wrong. He would neither listen to her argument nor amend his judgment no matter what she said. An opinion was not valid unless it was his, she had learned this at a very early age and so generally kept her thoughts to herself, thus minimising the risk of finding herself homeless as both her older sisters had at a rather premature stage of their mid-teens. And so she kept her eyes on the ground and awaited his no doubt profuse displeasure.

It was a cold, crisp morning at the end of November. The sun was shining, thinly but valiantly in a cloudless blue sky, and Emma Parker had been walking to school.

Emma was no supermodel, she was too short for a start at a little over five and a half feet. She had an unremarkable square face, neither beautiful nor ugly but rather pretty in an ordinary, girl next door kind of way. She had shoulder length, light brown hair which had a persistent habit of curling outwards at the bottom regardless of how she styled it. But it was her eyes which presented her with her main selling point and they matched perfectly, almost in size as well as colour, with the enormous expanse of sapphire blue sky above her head.

This was Emma’s favourite weather but as she walked this particular morning she was so submerged in her thoughts she had been unaware of the sounds of his tyres cycling up behind her. This was remarkably unlike her as she was usually acutely aware of the dangers of smoking on her way to school as she had been caught out in precisely this fashion before. In her world, or more precisely her father’s world, repeat offending was generally not recommended and for this reason she was usually much more careful.

“Put it out!” He hissed, anger and contempt dripping from every syllable.

Mentally chastising herself for her lack of alertness she hastily threw what remained of the cigarette on the ground and crushed it under her heel. She then automatically reached into her pocket and produced the remainder of the packet which she dropped lightly into his already outstretched hand, taking great care not to allow any of her skin to touch his. He failed to notice the subtle and yet, to Emma, very distinct slight and Emma enjoyed the fleeting moment of satisfaction this minor victory awarded her. She had done this same ritual several times before. She knew she would get the cigarettes back later when her mother hid them in the attic. Quite why her mother never threw them away was a mystery to her, and why she seemingly chose never to notice them disappear was even stranger.

It was, however, not a mystery which Emma had spent much time analysing. For her part it meant she did not have to find more money to buy a new packet and she was well aware that there was no way her mother was ignorant of the fact that it was her who took them back, as by now there should be at least half a dozen packets in her hiding place in the drawer at the back of the attic. This was, after all, the mother who knew exactly how many biscuits were in the tin at all times, and God help anyone who pinched one, unless of course that someone happened to be Dad.

Emma was distantly conscious of the mountain of trouble she could well be asking for, knowing full well that her mother was more than capable of apparently accidentally letting her father know about the ultimate fate of each of these confiscated packets of cigarettes. She was also acutely attuned to the likelihood that her father gave this contraband to her mother to hide, precisely so that Emma would find it and effectively steal it back. The twisted logic of this possibility was only beginning to dawn on Emma and she had yet to work out why he would feel the need to go to such lengths, at the end of the day he could, would and did punish her on a regular basis for every real and imagined indiscretion. He therefore had no real need to create such a trap and subsequent punishable situation. The inner workings of the mind of a control freak such as her father would be a conundrum Emma would find it difficult to claim to have any understanding of for many years.

“Sorry Dad... won’t do it again.” She mumbled dutifully, this was a line so well used it had long ago ceased to mean anything.

“You’d better not, how many times do I have to tell you? Smoking is banned! How dare you disobey me?” He glared at her as he spat the words out although Emma was very aware that neither of these questions were in fact questions and any attempt to answer them would result in his unmitigated fury. However, no sooner had he started than, very abruptly he stopped.

Emma knew he could not possibly have finished, this was merely his opening line usually and so she risked a furtive glance up from where her eyes were glued to a slightly odd shaped dent in the tarmac.

To her immense relief she spied the reason for her father’s obvious reluctance to launch into his usual tirade, a couple with a small black dog had wandered to within earshot. There was no way he would ever risk anyone hearing how he actually treated his daughters, he would never do anything to undermine his image as the good father and husband which the vast majority of people who thought they knew him believed him to be. Emma knew she was safe for now and couldn’t resist the tiny smile which showed in her eyes if not exactly on her lips, that would have been positively suicidal.

“You’d better get off to school, we’ll talk about this later.” He said gruffly and with a scowl he got back on his bike and rode off in the direction of his work.

“This is going to be some birthday!” Emma thought sadly as she set off slowly towards school. She wondered idly whether her father would ever credit her with a mind of her own and marvelled at how he could never seem to grasp the fact that banning things is not a very effective strategy when dealing with teenagers. Growing up watching her sisters fight with him she had hoped that by the third attempt he would have learned by at least some of his mistakes. He’d banned both of them from smoking too but seemed unaware of the fact that it was probably precisely this ban which had caused them and now her to cleave to the nasty habit in the first place.

The reason she had been less than alert this particular morning was because she had been mulling over the dilemma presented to her by her boyfriend, Jack.

Today was her sixteenth Birthday and yet already the dreaded ‘S’ word had reared its ugly head. At least it was an ugly head from where Emma was standing. Of late the whole issue of sex and all its related activities had taken on a far more sinister role in Emma’s life than any sixteen year old should even be aware existed. She was struggling to understand what was already happening without the added complications of having to think about what Jack wanted.

Jack was eighteen and really could not understand her reluctance; after all they had been going out together for almost three months now. But then, he had done it before so it was no big deal to him. He had said she could have it for her birthday, like it was something she had always wanted! Well, today was her birthday so it really was decision time.

Still deep in thought Emma rounded the corner into the school gates where she was pleased to see Fiona, her best friend, waiting for her.

“Happy Birthday!” Fiona yelled excitedly as she ran down the path towards Emma.

“Is it?” Replied Emma sullenly, a sad almost defeated look on her face.

“What’s up?” Fiona was immediately concerned.

“Well, you mean apart from the fact that your big brother wants me to go to bed with him? My Dad’s just caught me smoking, again!” Emma replied with a heavy sigh.

“Oh No, not again, what will he do this time?” Fiona asked wrapping an arm round Emma’s shoulder in her usual protective manner and propelling her forwards through the crowds towards their classroom.

“Same as always I suppose, lecture about doing as I’m told over dinner tonight then ignore me until I grovel enough to satisfy his overgrown ego.” Said Emma with another unhappy sigh, although inwardly she was worried that this time he might take a different and altogether more violent approach. It was not like him to allow so many incidences of the same offense without resorting to some form of corporal punishment. However, there were some things Emma was not ready to divulge to anyone, even Fiona.

“How long will that take?”

“It depends on how desperately I want him to speak to me really. I could sort it all out tonight by going crawling to him, or it could drag on indefinitely if I decide to be as stubborn as he is.”

“I guess it’s indefinitely then, knowing how stubborn you usually are!” Fiona said with a little giggle.

“No, Mum will intervene in a few days and tell me I shouldn’t be so cruel and disrespectful and ungrateful to Dad and I’ll have to give in.”

“Isn’t your Mum ever on your side?” It wasn’t really news to Fiona but she was incredulous nonetheless.

“Nope.”

“Oh well then, to hell with all of them.” Exploded Fiona with a grin. “Open your present and stop being miserable, it’s your Birthday, you have to be happy.” With that she gave Emma’s shoulders a squeeze.

Emma accepted the change of mood gratefully, Fiona was usually good at cheering her up and vice versa, it was probably one of the reasons they had become such close friends almost from the first day they had met when they had started secondary school.

They had reached their form room by this time and finished collecting the necessary books from their lockers when moments later the bell for the first lesson rang. As Emma and Fiona headed off in different directions Emma suddenly remembered Jack.

“Fi?” She yelled over the heads of the rest of her classmates.

“What?” Came the disembodied reply.

“Is Jack coming at lunchtime?”

“Yes, back gate at half past. See you later.”

Read Chapter 2 from Friday 26th May

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