Before I was pregnant, I’d been counting the minutes until my fifteenth birthday. I’d always loved birthdays – loved the presents and the fuss of my own, special day. This birthday, in particular, seemed important. Secretly, I believed turning fifteen would change my life – I’d be one step closer to that impossibly magical number of sixteen, and finally over the misery that was fourteen. Fifteen-year-old me would be someone new – a girl with confidence and grace, one who could talk to anyone, or catch a stranger’s eye and make him wonder about me. A sexy, personal theme tune would play as I sashayed down the street, all eyes fixed on me. Beefy, white-t-shirted mechanics and young hotties in generic sailors’ uniforms would turn to stare as one, movements fluidly synchronised and choreographed.

At fourteen, you simply cannot be that girl, no matter how often you shave your legs. Eyeliner doesn’t help, either. I didn’t understand that the number made no difference. Confidence and grace take a long, long time to come (personally, I’m still waiting), and no amount of Max Factor Smoky Kohl will make them pitch up faster. Mothers have been trying to pass down this profound Zen wisdom to their daughters for untold generations; unfortunately, their scantily-clad daughters steadfastly continue to disbelieve them. They’re too busy rolling their smudgy, raccoon eyes.

So, I’d thought turning fifteen was a big deal. Of course, that was before. Pregnancy changed all that. September 6th started like any other day in many a first trimester: random gagging, followed by an intimate conversation with the loo and topped off with a small, redundant ginger biscuit for nausea. Which doesn’t work, by the way, in case you wondered. Still, a cookie’s a cookie and not to be sniffed at.

My family gave me presents that morning, as they’d always done, but it wasn’t the same. There was none of the excitement and goofy aw-shucks-ness that came with previous birthdays. It was all a bit of a let-down, even though I got the Revlon make-up I’d asked for ages ago. I suppose it was my first adult birthday – the one where you realise you’re not so important after all and the world doesn’t actually give a rat’s ass about your cake. No more Special Treatment for the Birthday Girl when you’re a grown-up. No gold star, no silver tiara. Just another day of scrubbing the toilet and taking out the rubbish. Or telling your teacher you’re pregnant. As the case may be.

Besides the whole issue of Being-Pregnant-At-Fourteen-Slash-Fifteen – rather a big issue, in anyone’s book – I was also dealing with rampaging pregnancy hormones. I was prone to sudden, irrational crying jags that could last for hours and send friends, family and little dogs diving for cover. I was impatient and sometimes cruel. I hated everybody and everything, and all I wanted to do was sleep, puke and eat cookies. A textbook case, in other words.

They say knowing you’re normal makes you feel better – I say PUH! Until you’re at least four months pregnant, normal doesn’t exist. You know you’re crazy and you know that no-one else in the history of baby-making has ever felt as crap as you do right now. And you really don’t care to be told that everything you’re feeling is perfectly natural and will pass soon enough. Of course you’re going to be a retching, oozing blimp for the rest of your life.

It was in this unstable frame of mind that I set off for school, even though the thought of smelly science labs made my head hurt. I gritted my teeth and tried to swallow the fits of rage that kept popping up whenever anyone said “happy birthday”.

I sat glowering and muttering grumpily to myself at the group table in class. The first period of the day was S.U.R.E. – Silent Uninterrupted Reading for Enjoyment, that is. Otherwise known as Sundry Unfulfilled Randiness for Everybody, depending on the time of the month and the table at which you were sitting. Busy, busy pheromones; no rest for the horny. Except for me, obviously. I couldn’t get within ten metres of a pheromone without feeling queasy.

Ms H was the most feared person in the school (except for the janitor, a mean, Jelly Tot-shaped man who wore nasty, grubby white lab coats over teeny little shorts, and Joey, the ghost in the Home Ec corridor). She had terrorised generations of unruly teenagers, her luridly dyed, reddish-purple hair and yellow suits the stuff of legend. Do not tangle with Ms H when she’s wearing yellow. It was a chicken or the egg thing, I don’t know which came first – the migraine-inducing outfit or the vicious mood. Either way, it was one of those things everybody knew. I want to say she was wearing yellow that day, but I can’t be sure.

I don’t know who it was, but somebody set her off. She must have thought someone at our table was chatting, that cardinal sin of the schoolroom, a transgression far worse than talking. Maybe someone had been, but it wasn’t us. We were reading innocently. Which is why I was so astonished when she lost it. Maybe she was contending with hormonal issues of her own. Whatever the reason, she descended on us like a purple-haired Aztec monster goddess. Eyes bulging, neck veins popping, bosoms swinging wildly from side to side. Ms H was furious.

“I don’t know what to do with you lot! There’s just no respect! You think you can do as you please! If you want to chat, you’d better get out and do it somewhere else!” she shouted. She ranted and raved for at least five minutes, arms waving and spit flying. It was totally unfair. We were hardly the “problem kids”; we were all reasonably well-behaved and could be relied upon not to start any fires or smoke dope in class.