Schoolgirl Secrets

Chapter One: The Spy Knows All

Jenifer Carrick is your average twelve year old girl. She has dull, brown eyes, shoulder length, dirty brown hair and uneven teeth. She wears navy blue baseball boots, scrappy denim jeans with several holes in and a mucky polo t-shirt, occasionally with a red hooded jumper over the top if it's cold. But Jenifer is such a stubborn girl that even if it's minus five outside she will insist on wearing a shirt. Her little sister, however is mummy's little angel. Miriam Carrick is six and missing her two top front teeth, which she is very proud of. She has long, waist length, shiny black hair which she keeps tied back in a high ponytail with spangled hair grips and bobbles. Her eyes are midnight blue and her fingernails are perfect, straight, long and clean. The complete opposite of Jenifer's. Miriam usually wears pretty little frocks and patterned tights. Cute knitted cardigans and mini high-heels. Jenifer does not approve...

Miriam has always wanted to grow up to be like her sister. Definitely not in appearance but in character. You see, Jenifer Carrick is a spy. Whatever she may call herself, secret agent, adventurer, discoverer. She is a spy. Well, actually she is a detective but she tells everyone she is a spy. It is her secret identity. Every day without fail; the neighbours see the scruffy little girl from number sixteen playing around on her dirty metal scooter. Always accompanied by that odd little brown Jack Russell terrier. And, tagging along annoyingly, is the cute child called Miriam.

Now, on the foggy, chilly, British Monday morning our story starts; Jenifer's mother is shouting up the stairs.

"Get down here this instant Jenifer Carrick!" bellows Mary Carrick. Mary is a formidable woman, with a strict face and long brown hair tied up in a tight bun. She wears formal clothes, a.k.a boring old suits and skirts, and huge high heels which clop around on the wooden floors.

"I don't want to," shouted Jenifer.

"I don't care!" screeched her mother, very loudly.

"Nor do I!" hollered Jenifer, equally as loudly.

Mary stomped up the stairs, holding her long black skirt fussily above her ankles like a medieval queen. She clipped and clopped into Jenifer's small bedroom and gave a shriek of disgust. There were piles of dirty clothes everywhere, even on the bed, which was unmade and covered in pencil shavings and half-open books and notepads. The wooden desk in the corner was littered with crumpled up pieces of paper and ripped comics. There were chocolate stains all over the rug and posters and ripped wallpaper all over the walls and the ceilings. The three shelves lining the widest of the walls were covered in stuffed animals, model trains, empty photo frames, apple cores, sweet wrappers, old rotting sandwiches, broken scissors, pages of books and lord knows what else.

Mary staggered where she stood and clutched the doorframe for support. As soon as she did this she exclaimed loudly and quickly withdrew her hand, which was covered in a sticky, brown concoction of caramel, glue and what looked like disintegrated used handkerchiefs.

"Jenifer!" Mary hollered. "What on earth... How dare... Oh my!"

"My experiment," said Jenifer dully. "You just ruined it."

"Oh! Ooh. Jenifer, ooh," spluttered Mary. Then her furious face snapped back into action and she glared at her elder daughter.

"Jenifer you stupid girl!" she shouted. "Don't you care? Don't you realise that having so much rubbish and junk around you is unhygienic?"

Jenifer shrugged, leaned back against the shabby walls.

Mary's arms flopped to her sides in exasperation and she sighed like an angry rhinoceros.

"No. No I'm sorry, but this is unacceptable," Mary said, shaking her head. "Either you clean up this room this instant in the half an hour before school or, or... I'll confiscate your scooter and you won't be allowed out for a month!"