I’m not sure teachers have all that much imagination. Perhaps they get bored teaching the same stuff over and over, year after year? But why (oh why) do they always give us the same assignment when we get back on our first day? So far, I have essays to write for English, Irish and French classes on various variations of ‘What I Did During my Summer Holidays’. Maybe the teachers are curious about what I got up to, but I doubt it. And I SO would not be putting in what I actually did or thought or said into school homework. The world has no business knowing my business.
No, these essays will all be based on the lies I can tell using the words I have learned in any of the languages. In other words, makey-uppy stories based on the vocabularies available to me,* so they shouldn’t take too long to write. And I bet you any money the same goes for the rest of my class. I base this on the fact there was a short, group groan every time a teacher announced the (same) essay as our homework. No imagination. Boring.
Now, if we were given an assignment to write our summer in mathematical terms, mine would be a sorry tale of sums not adding up. In fact, mine never add up to profit or money over. My allowance never stretches far enough. Good thing Mum tops up my telephone regularly as a treat. Actually, Dad does too (and sometimes even Gran),† so I’m usually contactable by phone. Hmm, yes, I know it’s not out of purely generous generosity. It’s so they can always be in touch and know my whereabouts – spying, in other words.
No one I know had majorly exciting hols this year. Well, Uggs was exiled to cousins in Cork for a few weeks. They put him to use on their farm and he said it was hard labour. He doesn’t want to talk about cows or sheep since, and has little enough to say about his cousins either.
‘I think they thought I was not only a city slicker but also as gay as Christmas because most of my friends are girls and I dress differently to them,’ he said at a Gang meeting on his return.
‘Yes …’ Dixie said, in a leading way, drawing the ‘yes’ out to tease him.
‘I don’t mind any of that, as you well know,’ he said, a trifle indignant. ‘I just expect a bit of accuracy and that wasn’t accurate.’
He can be a tad prim sometimes, our Eugene.
‘You should join us, Miss Quinn,’ a man’s voice tells me.
I have zoned out in Science class and I have been caught. It’s a good job we weren’t doing some fire-based experiment with Bunsen burners and pipettes, though that would have been exciting and I’d have been paying attention.
‘Sorry, Sir,’ I lie.
‘Might one enquire as to where you were?’
One might, I want to say, but this other ‘one’ won’t be telling.
‘I was just puzzling over an earlier point,’ I say.
I think Mr Ford forgets he’s teaching kids a lot of the time because he really wants to be a university lecturer. He has been known to ‘come to’ mid lesson and ask us which year we are. Then he looks all befuddled to realize he’s been telling us way advanced stuff.
If he really wants to know, I obviously bore easily and that’s so easily done in his class, unless we’re playing with fire and then there’s always some sort of mishap. The fire brigade should be on permanent standby any time we’re scheduled‡ to burn stuff in Chemistry.
Also, how has he not noticed that half the class is on the phone texting right now? Sheesh! And I get caught for staring into space. At least that could be counted as Physics in a way – space, you know? And time, and matter and, er, antimatter. In his favour, though it’s slim, he doesn’t give us an essay on our recent holidays.
I’m glad that we end the day with Art. I think it’s probably my favourite subject if I had to choose just one above the rest. I like making things. I’m not the greatest in the class at drawing or painting but I enjoy them. Miss Brown, who teaches us, has wavy, wibbly-wobbly hair and wears mad tights. Today she’s got a pair on with sunflowers all over them (she must be boiled with the heat). But, wouldn’t you know it, she tells us to do a project based on our summer holidays! Maybe it’s a plot the Oakdale High teachers hatched in the staff room to drive us insane?
I find myself in a group of five walking home. There’s the Gang plus Delia Thomas and the new girl, Maya. I get a mean feeling for a few moments, not wanting them to join us because I like the Gang as it is. I know this is foolish and everything changes and moves on but I don’t see why we should, not now anyway. So, I’m relieved (and a little niggly, guilty bit delighted) when we turn left for our streets and they turn right to go home.
‘They’re OK,’ Uggs says.
‘Yeah,’ Dixie agrees.
‘But not Gang material?’ I say, as if it’s a question but one that doesn’t need an answer. When no one answers, I have to admit that a small, childish part of me is relieved.
