weekend when I was allowed to go home and check on my Dad, or I had to go home to get my Dad out of trouble again. Jamie would do what he could while I was away but my Dad was very stubborn and angry, he really didn’t want helping, I think he just wanted to die to be with Mum. Jamie even came to the boarding school on visiting days from time to time when he was able to. That helped a lot because by the time I was about 14 he had grown into this tall, blonde, 16 year old hunk and had even punched the ringleader of the bullies to try to get them to leave me alone. It didn’t work in terms of the bigger bullies, but suddenly people who had stood on the sides, not helping me but not hurting me either started to talk to me about Jamie. I didn’t say much at first, convinced that they only were doing it to lull me into a false sense of security before jumping on me with hobnailed boots.
It didn’t work like that though fortunately, some of the people just stopped trying to get me to talk about him but a couple of girls instead started inviting me to their rooms for movie nights and stuff and I made two really close friends. The bullying did carry on but it was much easy to deal with now that I didn’t feel so alone. My two girlfriends Kellie and Marie even stood up to the bullies from time to time, when they could. If they couldn’t they would stand near me and talk loudly about Jamie, discussing how tall and strong he was, that he worked out two hours a day (I never saw him lift more than a beer glass personally!), that he was really fond of me and also that they couldn’t wait to see what he would do to anyone trying to hurt me next time he came to visit. Some of the stories were so outlandish that it was all I could do to keep a straight face and some sounded biologically impossible. I think my favourite was when they started talking about him plucking out the victim’s body hair all over and then reinserting it with a blunt needle.
I was immensely grateful to those girls, they made things much more bearable the entire time I stayed at that school.
Jamie was more of a help at home though than in the school. He would go round to my Dad’s house and do jobs when he was out or passed out. Dad never mentioned it to me so I am not sure if he was aware and just didn’t care or had never even noticed. It was nice coming back for holidays then even if there wasn’t any food in the house when I got home. He would always be there to meet me and we would usually have a picnic with the food from school, at least until I had wrangled enough money from Dad to do a proper grocery shop. If Dad was particularly out of it, I thought that I had to make the food from school stretch for several days. The first time that happened though Jamie took me back to his house to meet his Mum, Jenny. She was so thrilled to see me, hugging me and even crying a little that it was almost embarrassing until Jamie told her to knock it off. I understood though, I had lost my Mum so that she could keep her daughter and while she was overjoyed to still have little Casey she was also distraught that I was now motherless, especially as everyone was becoming more and more aware of how neglected I was at home and everything.
She decided that if I didn’t have a Mum to look after me, she would step into that place and started cooking almost straight away. She fed me often in the holiday when I was growing up and Casey became a little sister to me. She also sent me food packages to the school overflowing with cakes, sweets, pastries and chocolate, which were lovely and I really enjoyed able to share them with the girls on movies nights. Unfortunately it also meant that I had plenty to snack on when school became tough.
By the time I was 16 years of age I weighed 16 stone and was called Ele by most of the people at school (short for elephant of course). As soon as I was able to leave school I was out of there not even letting the door hit my arse as I
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