Saturday 10 March 2012

Me and when I'm not allowed to have a good time



I have a role in a school play as a Sultana (wife of Sultan rather than wrinkled currant-type thing) - don't ask as I remember very little about my Thespian experience.  My 'Sultan' is from the year above – not typical passion material as he is very keen on physics, but he makes me laugh like a drain, steals my pencil case and  spends a lot of time pushing me off chairs (such are the inexplicable courtship rituals of the young). 

Term ends and I am parted from this fascinating creature.  Living in the countryside is a bit of a pain as we don't live in the same village and transport is limited.  He can not phone me, as for some reason, my parents don’t have a telephone (we also have a black and white TV unlike everyone else I know).

One day Mum holds up a crinkly envelope and says, 'Who is writing to you?'  
I wonder if it might be an answer from the agony aunt in my ‘teen’ magazine giving advice on how to stop your mother steaming open your letters?  But no, it is from Jerry inviting me to a gathering at his house which I am informed is ‘in aid of nothing, but having a good time’.

Sounds good to me, but Mum obviously doesn’t want me to have a good time and strictly forbids me from going. Her main reason being that she knows just what 'having a good time' means - I find this very hard to believe. (She may have had a point - I was probably about thirteen or fourteen).

I am distraught, slam doors and sulk.  I phone Jerry from the phone box and announce I am not allowed to  ‘have a good time.’  He comforts me saying that it won't be long before school starts again and we can see each other.  I am not comforted - this is a tragedy of epic proportions.

I sit at home that Saturday night glaring, but as Mum and Dad had gone to the pub my glares were wasted on them.  I then look mournfully out of the bathroom window in the direction of Jerry’s house and concentrate really hard on making him think about me and hope he isn't having a good time.

Eventually the Autumn term starts.  I return to school sporting that fetching combination of knee-length grey woolly socks, a skirt that should be on the knee but is rolled up revealing lots of mottled thigh.  I suspect it was accessorized with a slightly too short fringe - Mum would have been busy with the nail scissors the night before.

I go into the classroom where Jerry can usually be found and find him sitting on one of the huge cast-iron radiators that heat the school.  Sadly he is not alone; he is snogging (I will not dignify his actions with anything as delicate as kissing) a girl called Susie from the year above him.   Such public displays of affection are rarely seen at school (or in the hours of daylight in Oxfordshire).  I am not amused, actually I am furious - all those evenings of thought transference wasted when I could have been watching TV.

I decide to play it cool - in my dreams.  I get very red in the face and shout at them, ‘You'll get piles!'
I am then mocked, for the rest of the term by the boys in his year, as the girl who thinks that (what can I safely write here?) ‘physical congress’ gives you piles.  It didn’t matter how often I repeated ‘cast iron radiator’ they still laugh.

2 comments:

  1. There was no justification for giving you that title. They should have called you "the girl who thinks snogging gives you piles". I doubt Jerry was in love with your rival. Or you, for that matter.

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  2. Don't think love came into it at all! But the average teenager doesn't want to admit to seemingly base emotions...

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