Fiction: Group 4
"Yes," the middle-aged woman turned away.
There were eyes burning into her back.
Their stares and their silence had been deafening. Sophie made the
painful walk to the classroom door.
It squeaked open. Sophie had slammed the door behind her, the last
five minutes forever burned into her mind.
She had heard the rumble of talk as soon as she closed the door.
The teacher's impatient shooshing noises,
her heart still pounding, cheeks still hot and the shuffle of the soles of her shoes on the tiled ground.
Her
feet brought her down the stairs to the sick room where she said she wasn't feeling well.
"Mum, why do we live here?"
The words came out blunt and Sophie's mother seemed to still. "Because we don't have enough money to
buy a larger apartment." She turned away to chop up some vegetables for their dinner.
"But then why do some people have more money?"
Her mother put down the knife.
It pained her to watch her daughter grow, becoming more aware of the conditions in which they lived. She
could not afford better for her, for them, and for that she blamed herself. Their home was a constant
reminder of her failure.
"Sophie-" she sighed.
"All we ever talk about in class is that the wealthier are getting wealthier and the poorer are getting
poorer.
That's all they ever say.
They never say why."
"They were-"
Her little girl was so grown up now.
A loud whip-like crack seemed to echo in the tiny flat as Sophie slammed her book shut.
"It's not fair, Mum!
It's not fair how I have to work so hard and they have everything done for them.
That
no matter what they'll get to go to university in some fancy place like the UK or America, all because
they're loaded.
What about me?
What about us, Mum?
What about all those kids out there who aren't
going to make it just because no one cares about us?"
"It's not like that, Sophie!"
Her mother turned to her, eyes ablaze, glazed over and on the verge of
tears.
"They do care; it's just that they don't care enough.
They don't-"
Sophie sneered.
"They don't know what's going on, that's what.
They think we're some joke."
Where had her fairytale loving, innocent child gone?
Neither mother or daughter moved.
Neither said anything.
In the background, a baby screamed and a
neighbour sneezed loudly.
People could hear them but the teenage girl who'd spent her life in that sub-
divided flat didn't care.
She couldn't care.
Not when there was so much more to the world.
Not when her
past could influence her future so greatly just because her family had gotten the short straw.
"Not everyone's lucky."
Sophie turned away and stared at the cover of the book.
Her mother went back to her chopping and the
normalness of such an action struck a chord with Sophie - how old her mother looked, woman who had
supported her, taught her to be nice to others and treat them as her equal.
Her mother who had aged more
than ten years, hands rough from all the work.
The book's wrinkled cover almost seemed like scars, the
