MUM, PLEASE GIVE ME A BREAK
By
Ron Shillingford
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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Mum, Please Give Me a Break
Copyright © 2011 by Ron Shillingford
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Hanna burst into tears after weighing herself for the third time that day as her mother glared disapproval.
“You’ve put on six ounces, bitch. What you been eating?”
“Nothing I shouldn’t mum. I swear I’ve been good.”
“Don’t lie. I found a crisp packet in your school bag, remember.”
“That was last year. I haven’t had even one crisp since.”
“Get upstairs liar. No dinner tonight. Make sure you lose it by tomorrow.”
Hearing the commotion, Hanna’s dad Graham walked into the kitchen for another peacemaking mission.
“What now?”
“The little fat cow has put on six ounces.”
“But Pauline, she’s only fifteen and still growing. Anyway, look how thin she is.”
“I’m not having a lazy, obese child in my house. Bed, bitch.”
“She doesn’t deserve that. Let her have at least some fruit.”
Pauline paused before picking up an apple from the fruit bowl and cutting it in half. She wrapped one half in cling film and gave the other to Hanna.
“Now get out of my sight.”
Hanna walked slowly upstairs with the apple.
“And Hanna.”
“Yes mum.”
“Don’t forget your sit-ups.”
Grateful for the morsel, Hanna hoped the apple would stave off her hunger pangs until morning.
She could hear her parents rowing downstairs as she obediently completed her two hundred sit-ups and two hundred press-ups for the day.
Becoming an international fashion model was Pauline’s passion for herself as a youngster. When life got in the way and she didn’t make it, that ambition was passed on to Hanna to obsessive levels. But she just craved a normal teenager’s life.
Graham disapproved, so did Rory, their eighteen-year-old son, but Pauline’s willful nature dominated the household.
At five foot nine and only seven stones, there wasn’t a spare ounce on Hanna yet Pauline was never satisfied. Weekly boxing, swimming, athletics and personal fitness classes ensured she stayed under weight, plus a daily monitoring of only one thousand calories.
The regular deportment classes were tedious and unnecessary, Hanna thought, but what Pauline wanted she always got.
“We’re a team, Hanna, like Manchester United and we’re going to be the champs.”