Red Ink by Julie Mayhew

spotty and should thank his lucky stars he gets to hang around with Ian otherwise his head would be forever down a flushing toilet. The laughing dies down when he opens his gob. He hasn’t got the same influence.
    The explosion inside me has gone. I’m cold. The only bits of me left on fire are my ears. Both of them. Mum says if your left ear burns, someone is talking lovingly about you. If it’s the right, it’s spite. So that means Ian loves me and hates me at the same time. He doesn’t. He totally hates me.
    I turn back to face the glass double doors of the science block. I catch a glance at my reflection, make sure I don’t look like I’m crying. I tip my head forwards. Long, bushy hair is good for hiding behind. I keep threatening Mum that I’m going to hack it all off but I only say that to upset her. Really I want to grow my hair long enough to sit on.
    I can see Chick’s face out of the corner of my eye, looking almost as shamed as me.
    “Prick,” I mutter, quietly so no one else can hear. I don’t want a fight.
    I pray Chick will start blabbering on about San Jimmy-wherever again and its rubbish lack of a beach, but she’s gone dumb. The whole line has gone whispery quiet. Me and Chick stand there, hunched over, waiting for the firing squad.
    Then it comes again, like I knew it would. “Meh-lon!” Chirpy like a doorbell. Ding-dong.
    I focus on the white scuffs around the toes of my black ballet pumps. I concentrate on not crying. Crying would not be cool.
    “Oi, Melon! It’s rude to ignore someone when they’re talking to ya.”
    The shoes are really interesting, I tell myself, the shoes are really interesting.
    “Melon! I’m fucking talking to ya. Where’s ya fucking manners, man?”
    “Turn round, Mel,” Chick hisses. I can’t look at her.
    “Melllll-ohhhhhn!” Ian is squealing it now, like an opera singer.
    I obey. I turn my body. Last thing I do is let my gaze meet his. His eyes are brown, too brown. They’re black and sticky.
    “Yes? Can we help you?” Ian does his posh voice.
    I try and stare him out.
    He pouts at me, pretending to be a girl.
    Nothing about this is even slightly funny yet Lucy Bloss goes solo and bursts into shrieky laughter. Everyone looks at her for a minute, which is exactly what she wanted, so she milks it. She clamps a fingerless-gloved hand over her mouth and rolls her eyes at Emily Winters and Dionne Agu. Then she forces out a few giggly hiccups for extra effect. She is so fake. I mean, who wears fingerless gloves in the middle of March?
    Ian smiles at Lucy. This means they are probably going out together again. They make up and break up the whole time so it’s hard to keep up. And anyway, who can be bothered to waste their time trying to keep up?
    Ian is mouthing my name, feeling his chest, pretending he has boobs.
Mehhhh-lllonnn
, his lips go. His tongue makes a meal of it.
Mehhhh-lllonnn
.
    I’ve lost count of the number of times I have asked Mum why she gave me such a stupid, stupid name. Every time I ask, I get The Story. I get whispering at seeds, I get yellowstriped armyworms, I get laying hands on warm fruit. I don’t get answers.
    Before I get The Story, Mum will usually go: “Why you ask about your name today,
peristeraki mou
? They make fun of your tits at school?”
    I hate the way she says ‘tits’ – it’s so porn mag, so throw-away, as though nothing that worries me is important to her. My name is important. The size of my chest is important. The two of them work together to ruin my life.
    The last time I asked Mum about my name, I was trying on bras. I have prayed every night since I was eleven that my boobs would stop growing. I’ve had to buy a larger bra every year since then. I thought if I asked Mum at the exact moment I was trying on some new, ridiculous cup-size she would realise what she’d done. She would immediately say sorry for naming me Melon and our next stop would be Deed Poll. Some hope.
    We were in the changing rooms.