Computer Games_(1)

Mandy Wilson sat miserably in the passenger seat as her mother Carol’s car followed the big removal lorry out of London. “Oh for heaven’s sake, cheer up,” exhaled the older woman. “Mandy, we’re going and that’s all there is to it.” The words merely made Mandy slouch lower in the seat and fold her arms ever more tightly across a curvaceous chest until it hurt. “You can be such a little baby sometimes,” Carol observed.

Mandy replied with a customary snarl borne of frustration and helplessness. The reason for her dark mood had been set in motion six months back when, totally out of the blue, her mother announced that boyfriend Alan had asked her to move in with him. “Mum, you can’t leave me here on my own,” Mandy had protested, knowing full well that Alan’s house was some 250 miles away in coastal Devon.

Carol’s subsequent hesitancy spoke volumes. “Erm, look honey, I’m putting the house on the market. When it’s sold, either you can come with me or, if you want to stay, fine, you can find yourself a flat in London. You are seventeen after all, Mandy.”

Mandy remembered how her face had dropped as if the bottom had been ripped out of her world. Find a flat? Fend for herself? She’d barely lifted a finger around the house, growing up. The revelation was all too much to take and she’d cried herself to sleep for days after, whilst in more lucid moments plotting an alternative to moving away. Yet the idea never came to fruition and it was inevitable therefore that when Carol eventually moved, Mandy would have to go too. With her friends all that distance away, it felt like seventeen years had just been wiped away without trace. It had to rank the worst few months of her young life. “The sea air will do you the world of good,” mused Carol from the driver’s seat, eliciting an even darker scowl from her distraught daughter.

Mandy had heard every line before – a hundred times over. “You’ll soon make new friends.” “In six months time you’ll forget you ever lived in this horrible city.” “You don’t know till you’ve tried it.”[/i ]”Blah blah blah.”

Her mother, it seemed, held the last word on painful clich? All Mandy could think of was how much she’d miss her friends, the local lads, the places she hung out and a way of life she’d grown accustomed to. “You’re so damned selfish, mother,” she mumbled under her breath.

“Oh I’m the selfish one, am I? Blah, blah, blah…”

Quickly Mandy turned off. She’d heard enough, more than enough. Frankly she hated the woman for doing this. Two weeks maximum and she was going to come back to London, to live on the streets if need be. No doubt she’d end up a prostitute and drug addict and die horribly before the age of 21. That’d teach her mother, the selfish cow. Carol had heard the retorts too, a hundred times over. “If you spoil this for me, Mandy, I’ll never forgive you,” she chided.

Mandy sniffed disdainfully. Why, oh why, hadn’t her mother found some nice local man after dad had died? Why Devon? Why so far? Although it was part of the same country, it felt like the other side of the world, and it might as well be. “They have the internet in Devon,” Carol advised. “Alan says Toby has a computer. I’m sure you can keep in touch with your friends.”

Mandy issued a scowl. Instant messenger, she imagined, was as pale an imitation of the real thing as her complexion. Best described as an emo, she was jet black haired and pallid of face, a sun dodger. She wore a ring through her nose, a stud in her chin, had a tattoo of an eagle on her shoulder blade and a dagger close to her appendix.

Yet, Mandy was an incredibly pretty girl, with high cheekbones, hazel eyes full of expression and a wonderful little heart-shaped mouth that craved to be kissed passionately. In another life she could easily have been a catwalk model. Blessed with a sizeable bosom, it was made to look even fuller on a slender figure. Her bum was peachy and nutcracker tight, highly spankable or in need of a good grope. Not that she wore the sort of clothes to show it off, her outfit of choice uniformly black like the robes of a high priestess, or ripped skinny jeans and a Panic At The Disco t-shirt. “I’m sure you and Toby will get along fine,” added Carol, eliciting a curl of the lip in her daughter.

Alan’s son Toby was twenty-one, a high achiever at university who Mandy had come to despise with a real passion. Every time she and her mother got into a row, which was often in the current climate, Toby’s successes and Mandy’s failures were thrown back in her face. It wasn’t her fault she’d not been able to stay on at school or settle in a job. All employers, it seemed, were prejudiced.

Mandy had met Toby just the once, at a Christmas get together. She went into it hoping to hate him and was not to be disappointed. He was arrogant, snobby, opinionated and self-centered. Worse, he actually tried to be nice to her. To Mandy it sounded like he was talking down to her. Clean cut, clean shaven and clean mouthed, he was all the things Mandy despised in a boy. Being naturally blond and a techno-geek made her hate him even more.