THE QUACK

From a young age, I realised my brothers weren’t as excited about my Polly Pocket empire as I was. So, I figured out that if I wanted any social life at home, I would have to be just like them.

I became what society would call a ‘tomboy’. I wasn’t the cool Kiera Knightly, Bend it Like Beckham type, though; I wasn’t good enough at sports for that. No, I just wore my brother’s old t-shirts and climbed trees like some feral child.

When all the other girls were dressing up as Cinderella, I was dressing up as Robin Hood. In fact, for a time, the green Robin Hood dress with the tatty gold belt was a daily staple until my Mum chucked it out.

As I went into my teens, I mimicked my brother’s music taste, learnt to skateboard, and I could work my way around a Halo battlefield.

But then I turned 13, and things got a little difficult. I started to want boys to like me in a different way, but the only way I thought this would happen was if I was just like them. So I carried on wearing my boy jeans and listening to Green Day.

Then, one summer day, a week before starting Year 8, I was in University Parks with some friends. Some of the cooler girls were having a water fight with a group of Magdalen School Boys. My friend Jessie told the boys she didn’t want to get wet as we approached them. However, one kid, Johnny, a pale man, approached the blonde with a pinched face and thought it would be ‘good banter’ to throw water at the girl who had explicitly asked not to get wet.

Jessie squealed as the cold water splashed on her new River Island top, and Johnny, for a moment, looked very pleased with himself.

Now, I picked up many life skills when growing up with brothers, one being that the quickest way to solve a dispute is to physically attack your opponent. I did just that. I went up to little Johnny and kicked him hard in the shin.

I waited for his attack back, but it never came. He just stood there with an open mouth as if he had never been kicked in his whole life. From his reaction, and from the reaction of his friends… and my friends… I quickly realised that this probably wasn’t how I should be dealing with boys from now on.

And so I steadily navigated the rest of my teens, experimenting with different looks as a trial and error of what I should be. Eventually, I got a boyfriend when I started wearing skirts and stopped talking about wrestling.