The Dumped Club

13- Known Secret

Unlocking my front door, I stepped into the hallway and slammed the door behind me. It smelt of chocolate chip cookies and the lily cotton candles Mum had bought from Wilkinsons.

"Hey Darling," Mum greeted from the kitchen. "Did you have a good day?"

"Yeah, it was alright. I had a nice afternoon but I felt really bad for Faith."

"Poor thing. Tell her that she can come round anytime."

I hung up my coat and went into my bedroom. Martin was curled up on my bed, watching a cartoon on Mum's phone, with the thick layers of bandages and plasters wrapped around his forehead. We didn't speak, he just looked at the screen and I started clearing up around the room.

With Amy's GSCE's coming up in three months our room had taken the form of a tornado of clothes, books, pens and random scraps of paper. I hadn't had the time to help her clear it up and she couldn't be bothered to do anything when she wasn't lying down, being a lazy mule.

I spun around in one spot, throwing things in directions before I heard a shout coming from the bathroom.

"Hope! Can you bring me the clothes to the bathroom?"

I looked around, trying to see where her clothes were when I saw the ripped skinny jeans and black crop top she only wore to parties. Then I got the whole picture. I grabbed her clothes furiously and stomped over to the bathroom.

I slammed the door open and my sister's shrill scream echoed in my ears.

"Knock will you?" she shouted. She was lying in the bath on her stomach, just like a turtle with her butt sticking up in the air.

"Amy what happened to your bum?" Martin asked. I turned around to see him standing a foot away from me and Amy gave a second shrill scream. "Do you need us to call a doctor? Muuum! Mum! Something's wrong with Amy!"

"Hope, Martin! Get out before I murder the both of you!" Amy shouted at us and I glared at her before leaving the clothes on the toilet seat and exiting the bathroom.

"Martin, what were you shouting about?"

"I was trying to ask why Amy-"

I closed my palm over his lips and dragged him to his room. I remembered when Amy had just hit puberty Mum had forced us all to take quick showers because we were running out of hot water and Martin had asked Amy about the hair under her arms and stuff. I had wanted to face palm when Amy replied that we'd both know when we grew up because she was eleven at the time and treated me like I knew nothing about growing up and being a "teenager". Well, she was right but I felt pathetic because Amy was always arguing with Mum and us, and going into moods which she blamed all on her "hormones". I didn't understand at the time but I get now.

I can see the reasons why Amy came home crying or having panic attacks or having a blazing row with either me or Mum. She was put under so much pressure during her preteen years and neither Mum or I could understand that. She would want me out of the house when her friends came round and even wanted Mum to move Martin in our room so she could have her own room. She cared about what everyone else said.

And it didn't help that one moment she was stuck in a child's body and the next she was stretching across the bath in her old shorts and shaving her legs the night before school.

"I'm leaving!"

I jumped off Martin's bed and went to see what was going on. Amy was sliding her feet into a pair of flats and swinging a crossbody bag over her shoulder.

"What do you think you're doing?" Mum demanded.

"Mum I know you grounded me for like two weeks but I need to go round Jessica's. It's urgent!"