All the Little Things Sarah Lawton (red white royal blue TXT) 📖

as we begin to walk away from school. ‘What are we doing tonight, then?’ she says, our routine slotting back into place after the intrusion of Alex. I haven’t shared his name, I realise, as we take the path through the trees; I’m not sure if they know it or just prefer to call him Newboy, but I decide to keep it to myself, anyway. Like it’s mine, and a part of him belongs to me now.

The air feels cooler as we walk through the woods, gossiping about the day and what we are planning on doing later. Serena’s sister turned eighteen last month and will buy us cider if we want it, and we do of course but we need somewhere to drink it and are discussing options when Molly tells us that her parents are going to be away for the night, reviewing some hotel in Devon, and we jump on it immediately.

‘You kept that quiet!’ squeals Serena. ‘I’ll definitely have to get Sasha to get us some booze! Party time!’

‘I didn’t know until they literally just texted me,’ says Molly, looking pissed off. ‘They always do this – they just fuck off whenever they feel like it and leave me on my own. I’m only fifteen. I could get raped and murdered or anything and they probably wouldn’t even notice until my corpse started to go off and stink up their perfect house.’

We laugh at this, but it does have a ring of truth about it. Poor neglected Molly-wolly, all alone. I would give my right leg to be left alone by my mother.

‘You always stay at mine when they go away,’ I tell her, squeezing her arm against me, even though I don’t like the feel of it; like it’s just a lump of hot meat, thrumming arteries. ‘I’m sure your mum called mine all ready and checked. Maybe we can hang out at yours and go back to mine later.’

‘Well, we definitely have to have a party if your house is free,’ says Serena, stubbornly. ‘I have V plates I need to get rid of!’

‘Serena!’ Tilly shouts, before screaming with laughter. ‘Why are you always so obsessed with sex?’

Probably because it’s all we talk about. Chloe-the-vegan has been bragging for weeks about what she’s been doing with her boyfriend Dan, even though she’s only fifteen like the rest of us. I’m not sure if I believe her or not, but I’m not interested in going there just yet, even if anyone was interested in me. I can’t ever stop thinking of the videos we all watched on Molly’s laptop once, of the gross men and the women all shaved and slick and sweaty, screaming and grunting. Massive, thick cocks thrusting into them, every bit of them, while they whined and choked and got jizz in their eyes and all over their hair. It looked awful. I felt sick afterwards. I know all the stupid feminists say sex is nothing like porn, that it’s nothing like that in real life, but that just makes me wonder, what is it like? Why would anyone want to do anything at all like that? It looks disgusting.

‘Well, I’ll have to wait for Mr Right,’ says Tilly, in a huff. ‘I have to work at the shop tonight because Mum and Dad are going to the Lav for their anniversary, and Tris doesn’t have to do shifts now he’s got the job at the chicken factory.’

We laugh at her calling the pub the Lav like we always do, and then ask her what Tristan is doing in the factory. Last week he was on one of the assembly lines shoving dead, plucked chickens onto silver trays and into plastic bags ready to go to supermarkets. He has to wear a hair net over his horrible greasy hair and we take the piss constantly when we see him.

‘He has to stuff them!’ she yells, forgetting her mood. ‘He got moved off the packing line because someone got sacked for filming themselves drop-kicking the chickens and he’s been promoted to shoving stuffing up their arses!’

We all have to stop and find trees to lean on because we are laughing so much.

‘Stop!’ gasps Serena, ‘I’m going to wee myself!’ But this just makes it worse and we are crying now and I can feel my ribs creaking because I cannot stop thinking of Tristan in his hair net sticking fistfuls of stuffing up naked chickens all day long.

Eventually we calm down but we nearly lose it again when Serena cruelly points out that it’s probably the closest he’s ever going to get to fingering something female, and I can feel trails of tears sticky on my face, which reminds me briefly of those horrid videos again and I stop laughing. We are at my house now anyway; the rest of the girls live over past the pub, so I say goodbye and tell them I will text them later about going to Molly’s. I am already wondering what to wear.

Mum isn’t in the house when I get in and call but that’s not surprising. She told me she had a deadline today so she’s probably in the garden studio working, and I sauntered past without noticing. I run upstairs to my room and look out of the window. I can see her at her desk, see the blur of her arm skimming across whatever it is she is working on.

I take off my uniform so I can put it in the wash basket and then I flop on the bed in just my bra and pants. It’s so hot. I will need a shower or seven before I go to Molly’s.

I get my phone out of my bag and see I already have forty-seven notifications from our group chat, even though I’ve only been home for ten minutes. I scan them quickly. Nothing particularly interesting. Serena wants Molly to invite Matthew Grey because she fancies him. Molly has decided she doesn’t fancy Alex