What a horrible day. It started out OK, but it got horrible very quickly.
Here’s what happened. I got to school as usual, and I was catching up with Chloe’s news, because we were just back after mid-term, and her family had gone to their holiday cottage in Kerry for the week.
Then, right in the middle of her telling me about this gorgeous guy in the next cottage, I got this awful pain, down low in my stomach. It was like something twisting around the wrong way, and it made me double up, it was so bad.
I never felt anything like it before. I thought it was my appendix bursting, and if I hadn’t been in such pain I would have been imagining Dad rushing to the hospital where I was undergoing emergency surgery, and maybe even Mam flying home to be at my bedside.
Anyway, Chloe left me curled up in the yard and ran to get a teacher because she was sure I was dying, and by the time she came back with Mrs O’Keefe who teaches maths and geography I was able to stand up a bit, but I still felt pretty gross, and my back was starting to hurt too.
Mrs O’Keefe said I looked very pale, and wondered if it was something I’d eaten, and asked me what I’d had for dinner the night before. I told her bacon and cabbage, because I was too embarrassed to say lamb korma with potato bhajis and naan bread.
Then the pain in my stomach got bad again, and Mrs O’Keefe sent Chloe in to the secretary’s office to get her to phone Dad at work and tell him to come and get me. I was doubled up again like an old woman. Everyone around me was staring. I would have been mortified, if I wasn’t too busy trying not to die.
When I could move a bit, Mrs O’Keefe helped me into the lobby and sat me on a couch to wait for Dad. I had to sit crouched over with my arms wrapped around my middle, and my face was cold and felt sweaty, and that awful twisting feeling kept coming and going in my stomach.
The secretary made me a cup of tea, which I tried really hard to drink so I wouldn’t hurt her feelings, but it was weak and milky and not half sweet enough, and the most I could manage was two or three sips.
You’ll get an idea of how rotten I felt, when I tell you that the thought of missing double history, which was first thing after break on Monday, did nothing to cheer me up.
By the time Dad arrived I was feeling a tiny bit better, so we decided that he’d bring me home and we’d wait a while to see if I needed the doctor. It was only when I got home and went to the bathroom that I discovered what was wrong. At least I was glad it wasn’t my appendix about to burst all over the place.
I knew all about periods since fifth class. A woman came to the school one day and took the girls and boys off in separate groups, and showed us some seriously embarrassing posters, and packs of sanitary towels and stuff.
And the boys sure were quiet when they came back from their talk, which made a pleasant change.
So I understood what was happening, but now I had a pretty big problem, because I had no stuff. I hadn’t bought any sanitary towels, and of course Dad hadn’t either. That was definitely the kind of thing mams did. So I managed the best I could with some toilet paper and then I went downstairs, still holding on to my stomach, which was twisting away like mad again, and I told Dad that I needed him to go and get me some sanitary towels.
I was totally mortified – could hardly look at him – but I had to tell someone, and he was all I had. And I’m sure he was just as mortified.
He swallowed a bit and sort of mumbled, ‘OK, go and lie down and I’ll sort it out.’ So I hobbled back upstairs and just waited, curled up with my arms wrapped around my legs because that was the only position that I could bear. I was sorry I hadn’t filled a hot water bottle when I was downstairs, but it seemed like too much trouble to go down again.
And about twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door, and when I said, ‘Come in,’ the door opened and in walked Marjorie Baloney.
And I have to be totally honest here and say that I was kind of glad to see her.
Only because she was female, of course, and because this was the kind of thing that really needed a female.
She looked at me with a kind of worried smile on her face, and said, ‘You poor thing,’ and then she pulled a packet of sanitary towels out of a bag she was carrying. I just took them and legged it to the bathroom, and when I came back to my room a few minutes later she was gone.
But there was a hot water bottle in my bed, and in the bag she left behind I found a bunch of magazines, a big bar of Dairy Milk, a packet of Tylenol and two cans of ginger ale. Oh, and a bar of White Musk soap. How did she know I liked White Musk?
So now I’m sitting in bed with the hot water bottle pressed to my stomach, which has calmed down a lot. I do feel a bit sick, but that’s probably because I’ve eaten three-quarters of the bar of Dairy Milk and drunk all the ginger ale.
When I’ve finished reading the magazines, I’ll be able to trade them at school.
Maybe I won’t call her Marjorie Baloney any more. That was kind of nice, what she did today. And I suppose I’ll have to stop pretending not to see her across the road.
But she is still not getting my Dad – no way. The parent-teacher meetings are on next week, and I’m pretty sure Dad and Miss Purtill will like each other.
Not that I want him to end up with her either, though – I just don’t want him to get stuck with the same friend all the time. It’s good for him to get out of the house now and again, and if he took turns with Marjorie and Miss Purtill, then neither of them could get the wrong idea.
My stomach has just started cramping again. Being a woman sucks. Maybe if I finish off the chocolate it’ll help.
Bet Ruth Wallace hasn’t started her period yet. She’s such a baby.