Read Online Mira in the Present Tense by Sita Brahmachari - Free Book Online Page A

flying. I mean, as if, with that pad stuck inside your pants and the ache in your belly.
    In my mind, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Millie was going to be first, just like when we started wearing bras. Up until now Millie has always gone first with everything. This is how I imagined it. Millie would start her periods and I would follow maybe a couple of months after. I wouldn’t have wanted it to be too long after, just enough time for Millie to have become a specialist in all things period-y. We would have had one of our random sessions round at hers when no one else was in, like we did the time when we were trying to work out what bra size we were. It turned out there wasn’t a size small enough (!), but we still tried on her mum’s silky bras while Millie started up a commentary about how the “fashion note” of the season was to wear your oversized bra on the outside of your clothes.
    â€œPrada is so last year! Proudbra is this season’s must have item.”
    Then, as we heard Millie’s mum coming in, we practically died of laughing trying to undo the catch on the bra I was wearing, and stuff all the underwear back in her drawer before we got caught.
    So, in my head, Millie and me would have had a laugh about the whole period nightmare and, by the time I got to the stage of packing my bag, I would definitely know what I should be using (and how to use it), because Millie would have told me. Instead I just feel a bit sick worrying about the whole thing.
    â€œAre you ready, Mira?” Mum shouts up the stairs. “It’s nearly half past eight. What are you doing up there?”
    What I am now doing is dabbing some of Mum’s foundation onto my enormous spot, but the make-up just makes it a million times more obvious, so I end up washing it off.
    Just one last thing I say to myself as I stare at my volcano-sized pustule in the mirror…I close my eyes and beg Notsurewho Notsurewhat to please, please, please make Jidé Jackson be off school today so he doesn’t see me like this. For a moment I think about trying it on for another sickie, but then the letterbox clanks and Millie makes my mind up for me.

    â€œAll right?” asks Millie, her owl eyes zoning right in on my zit.
    Millie is far too polite to comment. I should tell her right now. This is the moment I should tell her, and then, when she starts her period, it would just be like the bra thing all over again, but the other way round, with me helping her. Except it won’t be like that. This is so unfair of me, but I feel a bit annoyed with her for not being able to help me out. It’s not her fault that I’ve started first, but in a way I feel as if she’s let me down.
    â€œAll right,” I say.

    There is a Notsurewho Notsurewhat after all! At morning registration Miss Poplar announces that Jidé and Ben are out at some sporting event. At least that’s one less thing to worry about. Maybe the pustule will have shrunk by tomorrow.

    Each time I go to the loo, I am convinced that someone will hear me unzipping my bag and unwrapping the pads. I swear suddenly the acoustics in the girls’ loos are of a concert-hall standard. Just undoing the stupid pads, each wrapped in its own “discreet envelope” cover, makes so much noise I have to flush at the exact same time as I open the packet and tear off the sticky strip. It works if you get the timing right.

    At lunchtime registration Miss Poplar calls me over.
    Just my luck that it’s my day for her to inspect the teacher’s notes in my planner.
    â€œMira, is there any particular reason why you’ve been late for just about every lesson this morning?”
    As she’s supposed to be the specialist year-seven tutor you’d think she might have guessed.
    â€œSorry, miss,” I mumble.
    Maybe I should tell her, because every few minutes I shift around on my seat and look behind me to make sure I