Читать книгу Skin Deep - Laura Jarratt - Страница 7

Ugly people don’t have feelings. They’re not like everyone else. They don’t notice if you stare at them in the street and turn your face away. And if they did notice, it wouldn’t hurt them. They’re not like real people.

Or that’s what I used to think.

When I was younger.

Before I learned.

When I was small, my mother used to take me shopping with her. Thursday is market day in Whitmere and she bought her fruit and vegetables from the organic stall there. The stallholder had a purple-red birthmark running the length of his face and across his mouth. It made his bottom lip stick out, all swollen and wet like a lolling tongue. I wished Mum would buy our food from somewhere else because I had to try to forget his face whenever I looked at the vegetables on my plate or picked up an apple.

He couldn’t speak very well either. I assumed he wasn’t all there in the head. Somehow not looking right made me think his brain was as wrong as his face. I could never stop staring, fascinated by how my stomach turned and how worms crawled along my spine when he sucked back on that flabby lip in a nervous tic. Mum told me off for it when she caught me.

She thought I was being helpful when I washed the fruit and veg for her at home. I never had the courage to tell her I was trying to wash him off them.

Once I asked her if we could buy our stuff from another stall. Why did we always have to go to that one? And she explained what organic meant, about pesticides and fertilisers and protecting wildlife. But she finished with, ‘Besides, some people need our support more than others.’ I never asked again, but I thought it was stupid because ugly people don’t have feelings.

I know better now.

That’s why on a warm day in early September, I wasn’t there for the school photo. I was sitting on the canal bank instead. The Orange River we called it because of the iron deposits in the soil that leached out to stain the water a murky rust colour.

I’d skipped school for the first time ever. Mum would’ve written me a note if I’d asked her, but then I would’ve had to explain and see the understanding come into her eyes. See her blink to hold back tears.

I checked my watch. The girls would be in the toilets now doing their hair and make-up, squealing about how bad they looked. As if. Then they’d line up on the staging in the hall. Best faces for the camera.

Oh, they’d notice I wasn’t there. But nobody would ask why. The teachers would be relieved because when they hung the photo in the school foyer, one face would be missing. I bet they’d even ‘forget’ to ask me for a note.

Ugly people don’t have feelings. We’re not like everyone else.