Susan Francis - Butterfly Porcupine

For Mum

Proceed with caution, but dont be put off. After all, bristles aside, the porcupine is a harmless creature.

June 2009

It had been an emotional evening for the girls, since they knew they would probably never see each other again. Tasha wondered how it was that she was the only one not crying. She felt sad, but she didnt cry easily. The night of her high school graduation celebration was drawing to a close. In America its called junior prom, but this was happening on the Caribbean island of Trinidad, which was Tashas home.

Her friend Stella had suggested they all wear pale pink prom dresses. Tasha winced, but she didnt protest, knowing she would be outnumbered. She wondered if in the five years they had known her, they had noticed that she never wore pink. Ever since she had been a little girl she had had an aversion to the colour pink not so much because it was a girly colour, although that was part of it, but mostly because of the predictability and conformism associated with it.

When she complained to her mother Pearl about it, Pearl helped her come up with a compromise. Instead of a prom dress (the 1950s style, tight at the bodice and flaring out at the skirt with net underneath to create volume), she wore a long flowing evening dress. She did compromise, as it was close to pink - it was amethyst, her favourite colour.

When Tasha arrived, she was pleased to see that she was not the only one who had rebelled. Lisa, another of her friends, was wearing ivory and had avoided the 1950s look as well, going for a 1920s drop-waist number instead. There were no signs of objection to either girls deviation to the plan, and they even received compliments.

It would have been a perfect night if only Natalie had been there. Despite Tashas attempts at persuasion Natalie, her closest friend, had opted out altogether, and she missed her.

After three difficult years, followed by two glorious ones, Tasha was graduating from the girls Catholic school she had attended in the islands capital, Port of Spain. The school, run by the Carmelite Sisters, was in Belmont next to an orphanage, also run by the nuns and close to the convent where they lived. Tasha, whose full name was Natasha Wood, had become close to her group of friends over the years. They were an unusually large group; 12 altogether.

Tasha and her older brother Eugene had been born in London, UK. When she had been eight and Gene 11, their parents had divorced. Three years later the children had moved to Trinidad with Pearl, who had wanted to return to the country of her birth.

Eugene hadnt been happy about that idea, but Tasha felt differently. When she had been younger and still living in London, they had visited Trinidad many times during the school holidays and had been treated like royalty by family and friends. It seemed to her that even strangers made a fuss of them, so she thought it would be like that all the time.

Of course the reality was entirely different. Both kids struggled to settle in, though ironically Gene handled it better than Tasha did. He adapted and made friends. It was harder for Tasha, since she was shy and not very outgoing.

In the first three years she went through an unhappy phase. Many of the local kids took an instant dislike to her, mocking her English accent and accusing her of faking it in an attempt to sound superior. She wanted to fit in and be like everyone else, but she was an outsider and never managed to make friends with any of the kids in the neighbourhood. Instead she developed a love of books. She loved to escape into the imaginative world of the authors.

Things were a little better when she started school, where she made a few new friends. The girls in her form divided themselves into three groups, two rivals and one neutral. Tasha, Natalie and Lisa were part of the neutral group (although for Tasha, indifference to the other two groups would be a more accurate description). The two rival groups were led by Stella and Tanya, both popular girls and both with loyal disciples in tow. It seemed to Tasha that both Stella and Tanya needed to be the centre of attention and demanded this of their friends. They also constantly seemed to be in competition with each other, so Tasha preferred to distance herself from them.

She also observed, and experienced first-hand, just how mean some of these girls could be. They seemed to look for opportunities to mock and ridicule others. For Tasha it was her accent, which she didnt mind so much. What really bothered her was the way they made her painfully aware of the fact that she didnt wear a bra; she had no need for one yet, since she had nothing to fill it with. When they teased her about it, she tried not to let it show just how much it bothered her.

She later discovered that she wasnt destined to be eternally flat-chested she was just a late developer. Things started to change in that regard when she was 14, and by the time she was 15 shed caught up with and even surpassed many of the other girls. At first it was a relief, as the teasing stopped. But then, to Tashas dismay, things seemed to go from one extreme to the other. Now her boobs were too big for her slender frame and medium height. She felt out of proportion, and she hated it. Most of all she hated the unwelcome attention and comments made by the boys from the Catholic boys school down the road.

The dynamics changed over the years and in time a bond formed between the girls who had remained in the same class from the beginning. Some girls left the school and others joined, but the group of 12 (Stella and Tanya included) shared the same classrooms for the duration of their time there. By the time they were in the fourth form the girls were socialising with each other outside school, going to parties, trips to the beach and having sleepovers where they would share secrets. By then life was good for Tasha.

Gene, now 20 and studying computer science and engineering in Boston, had come home for his sisters graduation. Many of the girls brothers and cousins attended too, but no boyfriends, as having boyfriends was not allowed. Not that they didnt exist, but that the girls parents and the Carmelite sisters did not know about it.

Tasha didnt have a boyfriend. She had never even kissed a boy, although some of her friends had. Ironically, unlike her friends parents, her mother was quite liberal and open-minded, so she would not have had to hide a boyfriend from her. Pearl trusted Tasha to make the right choices.