young Asian lad came out with a line which, even then to our 13-year-old ears, sounded as corny as hell.
‘My dog’s just had some really cute puppies,’ he said. ‘Do you want to come and have a look at them?’
‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’
‘Oh come on. We only live up the road. Where are you two from? Come on and have a look, you’ll love them.’
The more both of us said we weren’t interested, the more persistent he became. He was chatting, chatting, chatting but I ended up just repeating: ‘No, no I’m not interested.’ While Jennifer finally said, ‘No I’m not going to see them, I’ve got puppies at home,’ and took a step back.
‘Come on Jennifer,’ I said, ‘let’s go.’
With no warning he suddenly grabbed me around the middle and tried to drag me to the car. I was too shocked to scream but I was wriggling and fighting like mad. He might have succeeded in forcing me in through the open door but then Jennifer grabbed me and started pulling me away. He got hold of Jennifer too but by then I had hold of the fence and nothing was going to make me let go. Even at that age I was strong and wiry from all the sports I played at school, and I was hanging on for dear life.
We were both screaming, ‘Get off… get off us’ and the guys still sitting in the car were shouting ‘Come on, come on, get her in quick’. It was total chaos and getting noisier by the second but, amazingly, no other cars or pedestrians stopped to come to our aid. In the end our attacker realised that his friends were not going to help and, without them, he wasn’t going to win. He swore wildly at me, released his grip and jumped into the car as it sped off.
It had been the closest of calls, we were both shaking with the shock but thankfully we were both unharmed. We had not walked far from our school gates and there was a payphone right there so we decided to call the police. We had the car registration number and knew exactly what the guys had looked like, especially the younger one who had been the most dangerous. It was the one and only time that I have had to dial 999, and it was a complete waste of time: nobody answered the emergency call. Hardly able to believe it, I dialled the operator and blurted out that I needed to speak to the police. There was a short pause and then the operator was apologising profusely: ‘I’m sorry caller; I just cannot get a reply from the policeservice.’ In the confusion that followed, the operator offered to take down our details: ‘I’ll get someone to contact you as soon as I can.’ The last thing that Jennifer and I wanted, however, was to have the police turning up on our doorsteps: my parents would never have let us out again! I instantly hung up the phone and we hurried back home. To this day I regret that my emergency call was not answered. That young guy had been determined to get us into that car, his older friends had been anxious to get their hands on us, and I just hope that nothing ever happened to other women because they were not caught that day. The attempted abduction should have been salutary lesson to Jennifer and me but at the age of 13 we all believe we are untouchable and immortal.
And at 13, I was only really interested in the opposite sex in a ‘I ought to get a boyfriend’ sort of way but my friend’s obsession with sex – and my childish willingness to go along with her – were soon to cost us both our virginity.
CHAPTER 8
LOSING MY VIRGINITY
O n one of the many afternoons when she spurned getting the bus in order to walk home from school, Jennifer had met a man more than twice her age whom she felt was a promising candidate to take her unwanted virginity. She told me all about him the following morning at school: ‘Oh Miranda, he’s great. He’s called Ron, he’s 26 and he wants to see me again – and he’s got a friend, and he really wants to meet you too.’ The age of Jennifer’s latest conquest might perhaps have set
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