Chapter 1
Suzie lay in bed, staring at the roof in her bungalow. Eighteen, just finished high school and supposedly free. I assume that my parents think giving me a bungalow at the bottom of the garden makes me free, she thought. More like getting rid of me, she kept going. She had everything she could possibly need, family, money, a good education and yet she felt trapped and alone. So much for friends, she went on to herself. She had been on holiday for a week or so and still had not seen any of them.
At school, Suzie wasn’t the top student but right up there. She had won Maths prizes in her last year, finishing up with 6 A's and 1 B in her extra subject. The extra subject was more of a hobby than a school subject. She loved to draw and design so she took Art as an extra subject. She soon found out though that art as a subject wasn’t just sitting around and drawing for the three years from grade ten to twelve. There was a theoretical element to it as well. This was the reason for the B grade. She excelled in the practical side of the subject but loathed the theory. She did however acknowledge the need for a wider base of knowledge, so she plugged away at it and the effort was sufficient for a B.
She had grown up with enough money to have anything she wanted but Suzie had always wanted to earn some extra cash. She had yet to find out why, but she had always wanted to be completely independent. She wanted to make a name for herself in her own right. However, one stumbling block was that she did not have her driver's licence yet. She could drive but she had turned eighteen during her final exams and decided to wait until she was finished before focusing on the test. That test was in fact next Tuesday morning at seven in the morning in a little town called Pinetown, about thirty minutes from her parents’ house.
With Suzie being interested in design, naturally family and friends got to know this, and a few had asked her to design little bits and pieces for them. Her uncle asked her to make a logo for his woodworking shop and YouTube channel. He was impressed and wanted to pay her, but she said no. She was sixteen at the time and did not think that he would use it. It turned out he did and told everyone on his channel. She knew nothing about doing this for money and forgot about it. Her Mom worked at a law firm as a conveyancing attorney and had done so for as long as Suzie could remember. When she started her own conveyancing practice, Suzie was called and asked to make a logo, letterhead, and sundry other stationery designs. It was a great experience for her but also fun for her. This was a great time that was spent with her mom. They did not often have 'mom and daughter’ time. Her mom's firm paid her some money which was a nice surprise. Suzie was glad she could help, and the money was nice to have.
Suzie used this money to start learning about website design in her spare time. At seventeen, this wasn’t the 'normal' thing to do. Most of her friends were out clubbing and getting completely legless. Cider was the cheapest and most effective way of doing this. Despite being rich and from the right areas, the school kids were still cheap. Well, you couldn't blame them! Suzie had her fair share of partying and drinking. She had a boyfriend, Joe, who was a little older and he had a car and a licence, so they always went out together. She would have a few and he would always stop at one drink. This was because of the strict alcohol restrictions in place. That relationship with Joe had soured and ended shortly before her final matric exams.
She dabbled in website design with an online learning portal called Udemy. On her third course, her instructor, Ryan, mentioned in the course that Fiverr was a good way to test out designing for money. Suzie was already skilled in design but needed a few small sites to design before she would be confident enough to continue with it. She registered with Fiverr and offered her services for a 'fiverr' and thought nothing of it. She did not think that it was going to be anything. It was about two weeks when she received an email requesting a website through Fiverr. Caught off guard, she was shocked and incredibly excited. It was a small company of engineers in Sweden that had just opened and needed a "digital presence," starting with a website.
Suzie easily knocked it up, however, when she requested logos or pictures etc., they said they did not have anything. Jumping on the opportunity, she offered this service to them for another five dollars. They agreed and within five days with some corrections, the site was up, and they were happy. She got remunerated as agreed and both parties went away satisfied. They paid into a PayPal account she had set up and she just left it there. Jurgen, one of the engineers at that firm, referred her to his school friend, Raphael. Raphael had a company that produced soap for hotels. He wanted to branch out into the digital world by selling the product online to bed and breakfasts and or Airbnb owners. Currently, she did not have the expertise to create an e-commerce store, but she took on the project anyway. She had made some connections she could trust on Fiverr and other freelancing websites that should or could trust to put a great website together with her.
School for Suzie was a mixture of fun times and rubbish ones. She had an all-around exposure to all aspects of school life. She excelled at academics, and she was active in sports too. She played second-team water polo but was a first-team swimmer. Water polo was aggressive, and she got no joy from ripping other girls' costumes off or having to get out of the pool with one boob hanging out. She felt most at home on the hockey pitch. She played school hockey for the first team, on the left wing.
She played all matches from start to finish. She managed to score three goals in the eleven matches they played around the province, and she went to the provincial trials but never made the squad. She was more focused on playing at club level. She played second team at her local club, ten minutes down the road. She was still only Seventeen years old, and she had plenty of time to rise to the top team. There were numerous provincial players in that team including two that had played over one hundred times for their country. She was eager to glean all the experience she could from being involved in the club.
