Funny Easy going Georgie

59 pushed me back into the corner by punching me in the shoulder, and as I raised my hand to fend off the blow she grabbed my minnie and squeezed tightly.” p.50; ch.3. One day Carmen comes up with the idea of giving Clare a lesson on bed wetting by deciding not to let Clare have all her dinner. She claims that it will help Clare keep her bed dry. When I asked my mother where my dinner was, she said that if I were to eat it, it would go through too quickly and I would wet the bed. She then picked up my orange juice and drank it in one go. Then she put the empty glass back down on the table in front of me. Youll have a dry night tonight, she said. Briscoe, p. 49; ch.3 This is also considered as physical abuse because it prohibits Clare from having her right to eat dinner and causes her to be hungry. Clare’s bed wetting is the major cause for abuse from her mother, but it is not the only reason that her mother has to abuse Clare. Every time she is not satisfied with Clare’s work, she will just hurt her. Once, she asks Clare to prepare a chicken for cooking, Clare removes the feathers from the chicken, but she misses some feathers. Carmen is not happy with her work, so she gets angry and she slashes Clare with a knife. Just then, she pressed the point of the knife into my wrist and drew blood. ‘And why will you remember?’ she said. ‘I’ll remember, because I’ll remember.’ She pulled the knife across my arm. Beads of blood rose up from the track of the knife and a straight line of flash opened up. Blood dripped down the side of my arm and all over the plastic table cover. Briscoe, p.73; ch.5 Because the physical abuse frequently happens, it slowly becomes a sort of bad habit that Carmen does to Clare for no good reason. Briscoe writes, “By the 60 time I was seven, my beatings were as regular as ever.” Briscoe, p.15; ch.2. Beating Clare simply becomes some sort of a joke or intermezzo in Carmen’s daily life. One other time, while playing with Clare’s brother’s new remote- control toy plane, Carmen decides to hurt Clare simply because she is not pleased that Clare has stepped into the room. As I entered the room, my mother turned the plane and deliberately flew it in my direction, it sliced my left cheek as it zoomed past. The plane turned, flying back towards my mother, then turned again in my direction. My mother lowered it as it approached me. Again it sliced my left cheek. Blood poured from the wounds. My brother laughed – he thought it was funny. Briscoe, p. 86; ch.6 Even when Clare wants to do something good for Carmen, Carmen would always be against Clare. When Clare is instructed to clean the house, she goes downstairs to make Carmen a cup of tea first then hoover the stairs. When Carmen does not see Clare cleaning downstairs but she sees the tea Clare has made for her, she starts becoming angry. Carmen says, “Do I look as if I want a cup of tea? Look at me good. Do I look like I want you, Miss Piss-the-bed, to make me a cup of tea?” Briscoe, p.184; ch.11. The abuse does not stop with that expression, but continued with a torture. She dug her nails into my nipple and pulled me towards her. The pain was such that I imagined my nipple coming off in my mothers hand. The tears welled up in my eyes. As they splashed onto my hand, it began to sting. There was already a criss-crossing of raised skin from contact with the split-split stick. I used my left hand to wipe my face with my Peter Pan collar. My collar had a speck of blood on the lace. I decided not to wipe the other side of my face. The pain was unbearable and I was sinking fast to the floor. Briscoe, p.187; ch.11