The Secret Party

'I'm having a party and you're not invited, Speccy-four-eyes!'

If I close my eyes I can still hear the taunting voice this was said in; see the glee in her eyes. When you're eleven and the only girl in the class who isn't wanted, it does tend to stick in the memory.

It's not as if I had done anything to deserve it. She had just decided that I didn't fit in, and the others followed. I was dismissed as something less than them and not worth including. And the thing is, I believed them. If you're told enough times that you're nothing, then after a while you shrink into yourself, hide away from the hurt that they cause, and try to find other ways to survive.

In my case, it was books that were my escape. I read constantly. No matter what the subject matter was - fantasy, historical drama, boarding school tales - I devoured them all. I suppose in a way I was searching for answers, wondering if somewhere I would find a way to make things different. I wanted to know how I could change and make them accept me.

It took me years to realise that I wasn't that bad, that I did actually have things going for me. In my twenties I even began to like myself.

I had done well at university and got a job that I enjoyed doing marketing. And then last year a new manager was transferred in from a different branch. When I went in to meet her on the Monday morning it was as if the previous eighteen years had never happened. She tilted her head to one side, and looked at me through narrowed eyes, then tittered. 'Oh, it's Speccy! Didn't recognise you without your glasses. So you're one of my team, are you? Well, what are the chances, eh?'

I had sometimes wondered whether she ever thought of me in the intervening years and felt sorry for what she had put me through. Well, now I had my answer. Once a bully, always a bully.

It was small things at first. She would ask for a report to be handed in on Friday, and then change the deadline without telling me. Or I'd be given the most difficult clients and then get hauled over the coals because I wasn't meeting my targets. I became the scapegoat for anything that went wrong and within a few months was sidelined into administration as 'we think you may be more suited to a less pressured environment'. She expected me to type her letters and make her tea.

Appealing to those higher up didn't work; she had done the groundwork well and was as convincing as ever. Yet again I became that scared, bewildered child with no-one to turn to. But yet...

There was a small part of me that wanted to fight back; to give her just a tiny taste of the humiliation she had heaped on me.

A few weeks ago she called me into her office and ordered me to organise a 'surprise' party for her thirtieth birthday. Typical of her, wanting to be the centre of attention without appearing to others to expect it. She had it all planned out; her preferred venue and caterers, the DJ and decorations were all noted down in her brash handwriting, but it was up to me to do the legwork. And I did it, like the good little secretary.

'But make sure everyone thinks it's a secret they've got to keep from me!'

I've watched her swanning around the office, brushing aside enquiries about her birthday plans with, 'Oh no, I don't want any fuss!' or 'You know me, I'm the shy, retiring type!'

She left early today to go have her hair and nails done, stopping on the way out to make sure I still remembered how she wanted the evening to play out. I can picture her tonight, getting ready for her big entrance and the shouts of 'Suprise!' from her adoring friends and colleagues.

I'm the last one in the office this evening. I go round turning off lights and computer screens, checking the windows are locked, collecting the post from the out-tray.

The last thing I do before I leave is to walk into her office. I sit in her swanky executive's chair and pull out a piece of her headed notepaper. With her fountain pen, I simply write, 'I assume you won't need my formal resignation.'

I fold the note once, and write her name on the front, then prop it up against the pile of unsent invitations.