Judith van Dijkhuizen

The evening crawled by. I couldn’t stop thinking about the party. I knew Dad wanted me to go, but he was at Steve’s end-of-term do. He’d be back really late, and Mum wasn’t going to listen to him then.

All those older boys. I didn’t know anyone else who had a brother the right age. I might miss getting a boyfriend...going out with him all over Christmas...falling in love... I could see my life branching off in two directions. One: stay at home, and put up with the girls in my class going on about boys, maybe for years. Two: go to the party, meet a boy, go out and do exciting things...find out what sex really felt like...tell everyone at school... Even if I had to climb out of the bedroom window, I was going. I wondered how far down it was.