Activist by Louisa Reid

Author:Louisa Reid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Guppy Publishing Ltd
Published: 2022-09-16T15:48:16+00:00

OCTOBER

MONDAY AGAIN

In every room

new invisible lines separate

Us

and

Them.

At breaktime

antipathy pops and crackles like wet wood, drifting smoke

of suspicion, making it hard to know

who’s a friend.

The girls gather round.

We take up space

in the common room,

as much as we can,

even if we’re outnumbered

three to one.

I speak first,

“Right, listen up.

Petition’s doing amazing, so

next steps:

we see March – show her what we’ve got –

and tell her we want the assembly as well.

That should make it real,

we’ll share the true impact

and educate that lot in the reality

of what it’s really like to be girls in this school.”

I elbow Lori, she nods,

opens her phone and

shows us the messages,

sent after the petition went live.

Which anonymous coward?

Jamie again?

Whores.

Fuck your petition.

We read text after text of

warnings,

slurs.

The language is explicit,

vicious,

all about attack.

Threatening my friend

with

rape.

I snatch the phone and hold it under Edward’s nose.

He reads, then

passes the phone to Mo,

who passes it to Luke.

“Report them,” Edward says.

I shake my head.

“What? And get the blame, get slut-shamed?

My phone confiscated?

Nope, don’t think so.”

I stand up and tell my friends, the room,

“You know what? This stops. Right now.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.