New Story - With new ideas and directions to hand. I'm writing this and posting it straight onto Steemit - You can not get more exclusive than that! 24

Ash glanced in the mirror as she was brushing her teeth. Her hair fell into her eyes and she stopped brushing. ‘I look like a girl!’ she thought. “That’s not going to be good…” she spoke past her toothbrush.

She stripped off her t-shirt and took dirty towels from the bath in preparation.

Five minutes later, she cleared all the hair from the bath where she’d dropped it all as she shaved it using her dad’s electric shaver. Dumping the hair in the small bin under the sink wasn’t an option, she knew she’d get in trouble when her mum saw it and the longer she could leave that, the better.

She put the hair in her bin, pulled up the carrier bag she used as a bin liner and hid the hair at the bottom of her other rubbish.

It had pulled a bit in places and it hurt in others due to the bruising from the beating. She’d almost yelled out at times, and she’d had to go back over it once or twice to get tufts that she’d missed, but her growing hair was no longer the problem it had been, and she wouldn’t be mistaken for a girl because of it. Though, she could be mistaken for a cancer patient, maybe…

She put on her t-shirt and grabbed her hoodie from the floor.

On a whim, she looked in through the living room door just before she left the house. Dad’s wallet was on the floor by the side of his chair and she scooped it up. Only twenty or thirty quid in the wallet – if she took some, it was bound to be missed.

She folded the wallet up and put it back exactly as she had found it.

She turned to leave the room and she saw her mum’s bag on the sofa. Mum had been out and had obviously dropped her bag and left it when she went to bed. Everything was spilling out onto the sofa, including three crumpled tenners. “That’s sixty quid you owe me now, mum,” she said under her breath as she pocketed the tenner.

If previous nights out were anything to go by, her mum would just think she’d spent more than she thought, or she’d lost a tenner – if she missed it at all, of course.

Ash dawdled on her way to Justin’s. She was worried about losing her job with him if Mike said anything. Yeah, it was a crappy job but where was she going to get fifty quid a week at her age? She played with the crumpled tenner in her pocket as she walked, but she didn’t allow herself to become distracted, she kept a wary eye out for anyone following or watching her.

She pulled her hood up around her face and though it looked like she had her head down, her eyes were constantly watching. The hood gripped in places because of her shorn head and she grinned at the sensation. “Oh my word, Mum is going to go spare when she sees this,” she said.

The bruising on her face had finally developed fully and though it made her feel sick if she caught her injuries by accident, she could now touch her face to feel the puffiness of the wounds. They felt a little less swollen than they had and she thought that was a good sign.

She looked up to see Robin waiting to meet her at the bottom of the steps. “We’ve got trouble,” he said.

Ash’s face fell, she went pale beneath the bruising and her stomach flip-flopped.

“That Mike-guy?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“He paid my dad a visit last night. He knew about the attack and now he knows I’m a girl. I’m going to get the sack.”

Robin couldn’t say anything. He knew she was probably right and to say anything different would be a lie and give Ash false hope.

They climbed the stairs as though going to the scaffold for their own execution.

Robin was just as despondent as Ash and the flight of steps took longer than usual to climb.

Ash looked in through the window from habit, and Mike glanced up at the same time. The grin on his face spoke volumes. He knew that she’d deceived Justin and he also knew she was in deep shit.

“Oh fuck, that means I’ll probably get the sack too, for lying to Justin,” Robin said.

“I’m really sorry,” Ash said in a miserable tone. “I should never have…”

“Nah, it’s my own fault. I got you the job and it was me that told him you were a boy. You only went along with it and let him carry on believing it.”

“Yeah, the times I’ve almost said… ‘nah, I’m a girl,’ when he said ‘lad’…”

Robin snorted. It wasn’t quite a laugh, they were in too much trouble to be able to laugh, but he had found her comment amusing.

Robin went into the living room first. Mike sat on the sofa.

“Morning, lads,” Justin said.

They both mumbled, “Morning,” in response. Heads down, they looked guilty before the ‘trial’ had even begun.

“OK, Mike, they’re here. What did you want to tell me that was so damned important that you dragged Rob out of bed early and got me up without breakfast?” Justin’s voice had an even tone, but Ash could see his fists were clenched and his jaw looked tight.

“You got anything to tell him?” Mike said. He turned to the kids to look them directly in the face as he asked.

What he couldn’t see was Justin behind him, mouthing ‘no’ and shaking his head.

Robin and Ash looked at Justin, then at each other and though they may have brightened inside, the situation was way too serious to show it.

They shook their heads and kept their eyes lowered.

“OK,” Mike said. “I’ll tell him.”

“This young lad,” he said, trying to grasp hold of Ash’s sleeve. “Is actually a girl.” The triumph in his voice made Ash cringe. The truth was finally out. She dared to glance up at Justin. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking of the revelation.

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