So, I begin my journey once again, and I get that awful de-ja-vu feeling. You know? When you feel as if you have been somewhere before? I am walking at a most unnatural speed, and my heavy breathing seems to echo off the walls of distorted trees. Flashes of multicoloured light skip between the gaps in the wall. The lights can only be recognised as vehicles because of the wind that brushes past and the screeching sound they make at the deceiving junction along the road. This second journey has a somewhat different out look to the last. I wonder if it means something. I wonder if…
‘It’s alright. You just take your time. We don’t mind!’
Drat! I’ve arrived! There they all are, leaning like broken fence posts against the wall. The sound of each of their sweet girly voices sends a shiver up my spine. I decide to answer in a way that is not native to my vocabulary.
‘Look! I’ll take as much time as I want, because that is what you do! So don’t start lecturing me about time keeping when you aren’t the masters of it yourself!’
Ha! The look on their faces is picture perfect! I’m going to carry on and see what happens.
‘Every morning I stand here on my own while you lot walk and chat like dithery old women. One morning when I am late won’t make a difference. Will it? Oh sorry of course it will, because I am not playing by your rules am I? The rule is that ‘You are all allowed to be late and I am not’! Isn’t it?’
I feel great! I walk straight past ‘my friends’ without making eye contact. It is now that their bottom jaws reach ground level. They cannot believe that my mouth is capable of emitting such harmful and offensive words. I storm on the rest of the 15 minute journey to school, which is sharply reduced to 10 minutes by the speed my legs are moving at, they resemble water wheels when the water is flowing its fastest. I am like a raging bull, ready to fight anything that stands in my way, (well almost anything). The school gates loom on the horizon and I notice some of my other ‘friends’ standing there. I rush over and drag them into the grounds so that the people I left behind me do not catch up. They have a bedazzled and confused look on their face but I just tell them not to ask and I might tell them later if I am in the right state of mind.
All through form I ignore them, you know, ‘them’, and I sit as far away from them as possible, but so I still have someone to talk to and can do my homework for Chemistry at the same time. I can tell that they are gossiping about me and for all I care they can because after all the truth is sometimes not best kept under raps! I yearn for the bell to ring so that I can be released from their glaring eyes and at last be rid of them for the rest of this most enjoyable day.
First it’s Religious Education which at times can be boring, but today I am not bothered, as long as they are out of my sight for a while (during which time I can console myself) I will be happy. RING!!! At last there are the welcomed chimes of the school bell. I grab at my things and rush out of the classroom so that ‘they’ don’t have a chance to approach me.
It’s now break time and R.E today was a more irritating lesson than usual, as we had the duty of helping a supply teacher let us do things in the lesson that we would not usually do. Things like listening to the radio and talking while we work. The aggravation that was put to the teacher was of high standard, as we have a few sweet talkers in our class and they have had many run ins with supplies and know how to twist them round their little fingers. Well anyway, the noise from the class has compounded my problem of ‘the friends’ because I am now more angry and agitated than I was before I was made to endure the hour of madness. I walk around aimlessly each break time and today is no exception, no aim and no gain to my wandering. I talk to my ‘other friends’ but not too much because my mind is on other things. I am pretending to listen to their banter but I am really less interested than a complete stranger. Yet again my brain ticks over and I yearn for the bell to ring because I am bogged down with boredom! My head feels heavy with the stresses the day has already brought me. It feels like an immensely unstable construction has just given way on top of my head. I carry my lumber to my next lesson greatly resembling a baboon with a head ache.
I find my chair in Chemistry not realising I am in my most hated lesson in the world, I don’t know how I have managed to not realise this yet but I am soon awoken when the teachers face looms round the door frame. Some of my other classmates are also unbeknown to the teachers’ presence, and as if this whole thing were a pantomime I want to scream ‘He’s behind you!’ But I retain my voice as it will probably be the biggest and most embarrassing mistake I will have made in my whole life. I prepare myself for the lesson from hell.
The teacher has begun his talk on scientific nonsense and I begin to feel very tired but I refrain from letting my eyelids make contact with each other. I am made alert once again when I hear my name being called. Oh no, he is going to ask me a question as he always does and yet again I do not have the faintest idea what the answer is. I feel like I am in a puddle of quick sand and I am getting smaller and smaller. ‘What do you get if you add Sodium to Hydrochloric Acid?’ I try and figure out in my head what the answer can be, it is usually a mixture of the two so I cut up the words with imaginary scissors in my head. I can feel the eyes of everyone else in the room burning through my skin. I pick one of my new words and say it hoping to say it right, but with no great deal of hope inside me. ‘Correct! Well Done!’ I can’t believe it, I got it right, and it was a total fluke! I should try this more often. But. Oh no. I just thought. He might think that I have now greatly improved and give me one of those silly certificates that you get in the junior school. If he does I will have to get up in front of the whole class and be commended for my efforts that do not even exist! Maybe if I do not hand in my homework, he will think otherwise? But no, I don’t want a detention. I can’t even begin to think about spending an hour on my own with my worst enemy! So much for that option, so much for my only option! Brilliant! Well done you’ve done it again, a pat on the back… Stupid, completely stupid that’s what I am. I have managed to stoop to a below low level by mucking up everything, AGAIN! I can’t help it; it must be a curse or something I have because my brain and mouth co-ordination never fails to amaze me. Well unless that is I mouth off at my friends (which must be some sort of erratic malfunction in my speech centre).
It’s the end of the lesson and I am becoming increasingly worried. I am sitting on the edge of my seat as if I am waiting for the sixth and final correct number to drop from Camelot. I watch the teacher with eyes like a hawk and I watch his every move as if waiting for him to collapse so I can pounce. He meanders round everyone in the class but when he eventually reaches me he does not say anything (to my great relief). He moves towards his filing cabinet, opens it and pulls out CERTIFICATES! No! My worst nightmare has come true. I am to be humiliated and paraded in front of the whole class like a pampered poodle at a circus! Why does everything happen to me? I begin to think of how many times I have been put through tortures as bad as this one and see if I have one that could beat it on a scale of 1-10 in humiliation. I have a list of about 20 now and still there is not one to even contend, never mind beat ‘the certificate’.
‘Right class, stop working. I want to finish a little earlier today as I have some certificates to hand out to some of you.’ After this remark, I can once again feel the piercing laser rays penetrating my skin. Yet again people are starting at me; they must know that I will be getting one. I walk around the room putting my things away closely resembling a prehistoric human with my back arched and my arms just about reaching the floor because I know what fate has in store for me. Why did I think about the answer to that silly question? Why did I not just say the first ridiculous thing that came into my head? Here we go the grand presentation. Deep breaths. In…out…in…out. That’s it, keep going. ‘Right class, there are some people in this group that I think have done extremely well in the last few lessons, and you are all actually beginning to catch up with my set 5. But being a top set, I would have expected you to excel from the beginning. Anyway these are the people I think deserve a certificate. If I read your name I would like you to come to the front, collect your certificate and form a line at the front of the class.’ Great not only am I going to have to go to the front of the class and collect my ‘certificate’ I am going to have to stand and look into the eyes of my peers. I hear the names of people being called out and I see them standing there, but I do not hear my name. Hey, maybe my luck has changed. I don’t think I am going to get one! Yes! ‘Thank you everyone. Now, I have a special certificate to award to someone who I think has done exceptionally well, she has put a lot of effort into her work and has always strived to do better.’ Then, my name is called… My face shows an expression that you would accept to be worn on someone that has just been given news of their cats’ death. In my head I call the teacher every name under the sun and I pull a smile onto my face so at least he thinks I am pleased to be awarded for my efforts. I except the certificate and pull a face as I walk back to my chair. At last I am allowed to leave the room after what feels like a lifetime. I just about run to the door as if it was my last day in Park Hurst High Security Prison, and in my head I am saying ‘Let me out!’
Third lesson is English were I feel more at home. I am trying to unwind and let out my rage of both my friends and ‘the teacher’ but so far it is not working because I need to scream but I decide not to in the middle of the classroom, for reasons I am sure you can figure out yourself. Thoughts once again cloud my mind. I am sitting at this desk doing work which I hope will help me in the future. I think that I should not take a future and education for granted because some people do not have these opportunities and have to live life in muck and grime. I have now enhanced my anger further. See what I mean about having some sort of curse? I can’t do anything right! Every thought that enters my head makes me even angrier!
Lunchtime at last. I am going home so at least I will have an opportunity to unwind a little before having to endure another 2hours long, hard slog of work and probably humiliation. I savour my food (as I always do) and I pester my mother for something else to eat (I have to settle with two rich tea biscuits with a nice hot cup of tea). Hunger and anger are not a welcomed concoction (I advise you not to try it. The side effects include argumentative behaviour, cravings for food, wild emotions and parental distress. I suppose the last one isn’t too bad). Although I have a great opportunity to unwind over the dinner hour I find it very hard because the time passes so slowly and it is hard to ignore my mum rushing around preparing for her afternoon of work.
I am now in my fourth lesson. Its maths and I know that I am going to be bored to death with all of the additions, subtractions and other mathematical paraphernalia that is to be fed into my brain.
So after yet another lesson on my 1, 2, 3’s I trundle to lesson five, eagerly awaiting the end of the day so that I can totally relive myself from the stress and strain of this hell hole. This lesson I am again learning my 1, 2, 3’s and my A, B, C’s, but in a different language (as if learning my own language isn’t hard enough!). The school must think that because you have learned another language you are immediately going to book yourself on the next flight to that country and get hands on experience while showing off your educational talents. I am sitting here staring at all four walls and trying to count the countless cracks that need to be filled and all of the holes that need to be painted over. The teacher has noticed me and is approaching me in that Miss Trunchbull fashion ready to give me a lecture on paying attention because it will help me to communicate with people if I visit Germany. I really want to just go home and flop on my bed but I know I can’t. The bell? The bell? In my head this is what I am saying over and over again and I am rapidly becoming close to sounding like Quasimodo the bell ringer from the Notre dam tower. Then I hear it. RING!! These bells are the pain in my life. I am sure they wait until I am nearly at breaking point before they decide I have suffered enough and ring. Anyway it’s home time now. I rush out of the gates with about 100 other pupils and it is a bit of a squash because you find it hard to fit 100 people through a gap in a fence that is 2 feet wide. I am walking alone tonight because as you know my friends are no longer my friends. Because I am on my own I begin to wonder many things to myself. But I will not bore you with a list (don’t worry)!
I have arrived home to an empty house. I am on my own until 5o’clock today because my shadow is at his friends’ house for tea and my mum and dad will not get in until around 5o’clock. I turn on the television to see what is on. As usual nothing worth watching, so I trundle up the stairs with my school bag and see if I need to any homework to complete for tomorrow. I see that I have, so I get out my pen and start to write a whole load of rubbish about some country somewhere in the world that I never even knew existed. I haven’t really got a clue about what I am doing and so I go on the internet and search for some information on the country in question. I am sitting clicking away and 5o’clock looms, and I am totally oblivious. I therefore jump as the door opens and closes with an alarming bang, followed by a bellowing ‘Hello’ from my mother. I go back down stairs to greet her and then go thorough to the kitchen and boil the kettle for a cup of tea.
Once we have had our cup of tea, my mother puts our dinner in the oven. She asks me about how my day was. I don’t tell her the truth because I don’t think my ears are up to listening to the feed back I would get. I just tell her about my lessons and how well they all went (which is of course a lie), and she replies with an ‘Oh well that’s good then.’ This is really the answer I was hoping for. My mother then tells me about her day, and as usual she is not happy about the way the place is run and that so-en-so is annoying her again and that she is thinking of quitting, even though she knows she won’t.
For the rest of the night I occupy myself with the TV remote, flicking through the endless number of sky digital channels, not finding anything at all worth watching on any one of the millions of channels. I am slowly sinking into the chair as if I were in a puddle of quicksand. After my finger gets tired of flicking and I cannot sink any lower into the chair, I decide that this boredom buster is not going to work. I walk slowly up the stairs into my room and lop onto the bed. I then switch on my radio which is situated only a few inches away from me, which is an advantage because it means that I do not have to awkwardly manoeuvre my body to reach the ‘on’ button. My ears get a shock from the noise when I do eventually turn it on, so I turn down the volume. About five minutes has past and once again I get bored with this method as no interesting tunes have emerged from the studio archives, so I move onto my computer again and continue a game I was playing a few days ago. This is a little more rewarding as I am on the computer for almost an hour and a half. This is the longest time this evening that I have sat occupying myself. Amazing!
Darkness eats up the sunlight and as the sun disappears on the horizon I decide that I will turn my television on again and watch some of the evenings viewing. I watch 3 programmes which are not particularly interesting and at about 9:30 I change into my pyjamas and climb into bed to watch the news and whatever else is on. So here it is. The end of the day. I couldn’t call this a normal day, but the twists and turns, ups and downs, added a little excitement. Don’t you think? Well, I settle down at about 10:30 and I close my eyes and return once again to my favourite dream world to end the day peacefully and in the comfort of my own home.
