S.W.A.L.K.

Amanda is thirteen years old. Her head is full of day dreams, fuelled by her daily diet of romantic teenage magazine. But at home there is only secrecy and silence surrounding her elder sister Katherine; a stark contrast to the simplistic, rosy world of her soap-opera magazine. When Amanda's questions go unanswered, she turns to Patti, agony aunt and problem page pundit, who has an answer for everything-if you're young and gullible enough to believe her....

Amanda's sister Katherine is pregnant and getting married. To Amanda, it is everything a girl can aspire to: the ideal is relentlessly reinforced by the ever-persistent Patti, and the idyllic images of her teenage magazine. However, this picture does not reflect Katherine's feeling. She is growing increasingly uneasy about the direction in which her life is going. But she is powerless to prevent the plans her family are making on her behalf, or acknowledge that she does not want the child she is bearing.

Katherine is about to have her baby, but her doubts persist. At school a sixth-form feminist is activating a campaign for equality in the classroom. Although tempted to join them, Amanda is being increasingly pressured by Patti to aspire to the rosy romance depicted in her teenage magazine. In the meantime, her brother Michael arranges a date with her best friend, Polly. At thirteen feelings run high and it seems friendship can fade overnight. Amanda resolves to follow Patti's beckoning finger towards a relationship of her own.

Katherine's baby is born-to a united welcome. The feminist movement at school has gathered momentum, but it threatened by sabotage by the boys. Amanda's mother, frustrated and feeling her family have outgrown their need for her, attempts to get a job. She discovers that while she feels she no longer has a place at home, the outside world has no place for her either. Patti's presence has paid off and Amanda has her first date. Suddenly romance turns into sex and Amanda finds reality conflicts with the idyll which Patti promised her.

Amanda's conflict with Patti and her disastrous date persists. At school there is confusion about who sabotaged the feminist mural. Wherever Amanda looks she can see only despair... Katherine, marooned in her high rise flat... her mother, trapped in her respectable semi... her father trying to keep his boyhood dreams alive. And the whispering, cajoling Patti continues to haunt her. Can the futility of the dreams she promises turn Amanda's despair into a new determination?

The recriminations over the mural are resolved, but Amanda's personal dilemma is not. Her growing impatience with Patti turns to intolerance as she comes to understand where her romantic notions end-and the price that must be paid for them. Katherine reluctantly consents to her baby being christened. However, it is a capitulation, not just to the demands of society, but to the knowledge that her own youth has ended. Amanda for her part sees the careers officer at school. Instead of providing solutions, he causes her to question herself. She finally realizes that only she can provide the answers. In this sense too, her youth has ended. This fact is confirmed when she destroys all her romantic teenage magazine and Patti is relegated to the dustbin where she belongs.