Fast Girl

FAST GIRLA novel of today and tomorrow, a novel about belonging and alienation and a girl who wants more than life has given her so far. On the run from a children's home and contemplating suicide, the fifteen year old is drawn into the dark and dangerous world of outlaw biker gangs and realizes she is going to have to reinvent herself if she wants to survive and shake off her past. A past that has left her scarred both emotionally and physically. She is adopted by the gang living on the edge of the city on a deserted baseball diamond. The bikers are called the HEADPOUNDERS and they christen the scar faced girl SPITFIRE. The Headpounders empower her, allowing her to make something of her life. They gave her a sense of belonging, of looking out for other people. They become the family that was taken from her when she was eleven. With them she learns to fight and steal, even kill. She also learns to love. In the city there is another gang called the PHANTOMS. She falls for one them, a rebel called REBOP and they become lovers. Rebop has his own demons though and as the tension between the two gangs turns into open war she tries to warn Rebop of a surprise attack by the Headpounders but he is cornered. She just manages to get away not knowing if he is dead or alive. While on the run she meets a lonely kindhearted rancher called TRAVIS. He is a deaf mute and sentenced to a life of loneliness because of it. While living with him she must confront a terrible secret from her past as she revisits her childhood and the painful memories it holds and on the way home on the Greyhound she has her epiphany. She realizes then the road to redemption is hard and long, more so when one of her old friends from the gang, a woman called MUDHONEY, finds out where she is living. She may have some information about Rebop but will not tell her unless she agrees to help her. What Spitfire finds out is truly shocking, and life goes full circle for the girl on the bridge after a truly heartbreaking