Alice Heavyside

Alice Elizabeth Heavyside was born in Barrow in 1989. Alice is often told by people to ‘not put herself down’ when she tells them her last name.

She began writing at an early age, when some of her scrawlings looked like letters of the alphabet. Alice wrote her first poem at the age of thirteen. It was about a hammer killer. She then started writing stories.

When Alice started university she took up writing again. The problem with this was that she did more writing than university work and she failed the first year. So she embarked on a new degree; a creative writing degree. It was here that she rediscovered her love for writing stories with darker subjects- ninety year old rapists and sadistic fairytales with no happy end.

Her more recent stories are plucked from her own life. Little snippets of herself are given away in these pieces. Rather than dredging them down as ‘something to be taken seriously’, she hopes they are the kind of stories to make you smile.

Mooning The Moon

His peach glowed against the flames

which were whipping it.

‘Just warming my bum up mate.’

Liar. He was pulling a moony.

A man walking by tutted.

‘Shouldn’t you kiddies be in bed?’

Each crackle hypnotised me more.

Someone laughed.

‘I’m going to have to go home now.’

Smoke covered my clothes and hair,

burning my nostrils.

She will say, ‘What’s that smell?’

I push on the deodorant can

and cover my whole body.

Her nose wrinkles, ‘You smell like a brothel.’

Scott the Plushophile

I hated life at 13. School was hard. My two best friends, Nikki and Jenni, had bombed me off to lez off with each other- literally. In between being a loner desperately searching for friends, I was getting harassed by four or five boys from my year. I didn’t understand why they’d chosen me over massive, smelly ‘Curry-Ann’. But at least she actually had friends- even if they did have just as bad hygiene as her.

            It all started on a non-uniform day. I’d really thought about what I was going to wear. I’d picked out a pale pink vest top with darker pink roses; basically because it made my boobs look really nice and big. I’d also chosen my brand new navy jeans, laced with silver thread. I thought I looked well fit. I was all out to impress the boys.

            So when I’d heard Scott say:

‘Wow, you’re getting a big girl now!’, I wasn’t sure what he was on about. He’d never spoken to me before; so I thought I’d succeeded with my outfit and I took it as a compliment, thinking he was just saying that I had massive tits. That was until a couple of days later, when he’d searched me out again and kept calling me ‘tree trunks’. I was devastated when my mam told me that he was referring to my legs.

            And it carried on like this and more boys joined in. I was constantly told ‘it was because they fancied me’. I still don’t understand how that can be true. Especially as the insults kept getting worse:

‘That make-up you’re wearing ain’t stopping you from being a minger!’

‘boulder knees!’

‘fatty!’

But the worst times were when they jumped to the side as I walked by them because I was so ‘fat’ or when they pretended there was an earthquake each time I took a step. It really hurt me. I believed I was disgusting and that no one would ever want me.

            At first I shouted back.

‘Fuck off dickhead!’

‘teddy shagger!’ (a rumour had gone round school that Scott had been caught fucking his teddy)

‘you’ve got no pubes!’

But they weren’t even insulted. And so it carried on. I took people’s advice and ignored them. Still it carried on.

            Then in the summer when I was 14, everything changed.

 Scott died.

He’d died of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome- basically cot death, but in an adult. I was with a new friend, Lauren, when I found out. She cried. I felt a bit strange. I felt very sad for his family but overall, I experienced a massive sense of relief. I felt a nervous elation. He could no longer ruin my life.

            A lot of girls I knew were curious about his funeral. They claimed they were his friends. But really they wanted to know what a funeral was like. I doubt they even remember the date of his death, and I’m sure they don’t know where his grave is- that’s just how good friends of his they were. I was encouraged to go to the funeral by the curious girls:

“His mam wants us to dress up in going out stuff, ‘coz that’s what he liked doing best. You should wear your new short tartan skirt!”

They made me feel guilty for not wanting to go. I spoke to my mam about what they were doing.

“Alice, you didn’t like the boy and you don’t want to go, so don’t go.”

Then I spoke to my sister:

“They just want to know what it’s like to go to a funeral. You shouldn’t worry about it, Al, they’re just immature little girls.”

So I refused. Why should I have gone to the funeral of someone I didn’t like? He had made me detest myself. After all, I wasn’t sad that he was dead, and I didn’t want to have to pretend I was by going.

            When I got back to school after the summer break, things were much different, in an easier way. I got no stick off anybody now that the ringleader had gone, and I enjoyed school. Well, as much as a teenager does.

            When we left school two years later, I was shocked and horrified when I opened the Year Book by seeing a two-page spread dedicated to Scott:

‘We Will Always Miss You Scott. Rest in Peace XXX’

I couldn’t believe it. No one liked him, not even his cronies. Most of the teachers thought he was an idiot too. Why two pages of his leering face? Especially as it was now two years since he’d died, and he had basically been forgotten. The most ironic part of it was that the girl who put together the Year Book was also badly bullied by him. Was she an idiot? Just because he was dead didn’t stop him from being a dick.