OH MY GOSH. Today was proper humiliating. My face is still red just writing this. So today we did our “Increase the Peace” assembly for the Year Tens and Elevens. Well, actually just Year Tens as hardly no Year Elevens showed up as they were all doing homework or were just skiving or they didn’t know it was happening or were pretending not to know or couldn’t be arsed. BRILLIANT.
So me, Carrie, Saf, Sean, Joshua, Nabila, Luther, and all the rest of us are waiting in the hall and the Year Tens start arriving, mooching in slowly with folded arms and scowls on their faces like they don’t want to be there one little bit. Right away some lairy girls wearing mini-skirts start shouting stuff out at us and trying to come over and mess with our projector and some of the boys are asking what “all this crap” is about, then laugh at us when we explain. I felt proper angry then and wanted to kick off but Joshua put his arm around my waist and told me to chill. For some reason, I did what he said. My heart felt all fluttery when he touched me, but it was probably just nerves.
Then Murphy comes in with Tariq and some other really tall boys and I waved at him and the little shit pretended not to know me!!! Then a couple of boys in the back row started having a fight and Ms. Bracket had to split them up and tell everyone really sternly to CALM DOWN NOW. Then, just as we were about to begin, Mr. Bamblebury stormed in with about seven really tall, scary-looking boys who had half-grown mustaches and hoodies and baseball caps and nothing like proper uniforms on and he shouted, “Right, you sit near the front! You should hear this so LISTEN UP GOOD!”
Right away I figured that one of them was Meatman and another one was Delano and I dunno who the rest were but they looked like a right bunch of rudes even though I’m pretty sure there never used to be any rudes in Murphy’s year at all. Just spotty little boys in blazers too big for them who’d never DARE give no one in our year any trouble at all. WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM? When did they all get so ginormous? Meatman sat down on the front row and took one look at all of us and chucked his head back and laughed. Then he folded his arms and glared at Sean and pretended to cough but said “fairy.” Then he sucked his gold teeth in a proper dramatic way like he was showboating and everyone laughed and some people even clapped.
I felt well sorry for Sean then ’cos his hands were shaking. I felt irate too ’cos what bloody right has anyone got to make anyone feel like that? I mean what if Sean is maybe a bit, well, gay? He ain’t harming no one. Sean’s not the one with the crap tattoo and a mouth like my nan’s bloody cheese-grater. I wanted to shout that at Meatman ’cos he ain’t no big man he’s a bloody overgrown fifteen-year-old child thinking he’s some sort of rude but I thought it might end up like that bit in the Incredible Hulk movie when Hulk starts picking folks up and whirling them round his head shouting, “Hulky angry! Hulky smash!”
So we put the lights off and put the video on and at first everyone just talked but they shut up once the scenes started where the kids are dealing drugs and riding about in Escalades and Benz Jeeps drinking champagne and getting all up in each other’s faces in nightclub VIP rooms and being all gangster. Meatman and Delano and the rest of the audience seemed to really like this. They were cheering and pretending to fire guns at the screen.
Then the video moved on to where kids start getting shot and stabbed and the parents start getting involved and kids are crying in apartment stairwells and bodies are on mortuary slabs and police are shoving people in jail cells and it gets proper heavy.
I looked at the Year Tens and I see that Meatman had got bored now and got his phone out and he’s sending a text and Delano is chatting up some girl near him and everyone had got a bit distracted; even my bloody brother Murphy was talking to Tariq.
It was like the end scenes were just going right over their heads. They didn’t care at all. They probably see this type of thing every day on MTV, so it weren’t like any big deal to them. Then the lights went on and Ms. Bracket saw us Sixth Formers were a bit flustered so she stepped in and said “So, has anyone got any comments about this video?” and everyone just pretended to be deaf or ignored her.
Then Meatman said, “I got a comment, Miss. Can we watch the first half again ’cos all the gangster bit was well nang before all the preaching crap started.”
Then Delano chipped in with, “Man, dat blood was asking to get merked anyway.”
Then lots of the boys in the front row laughed well loud and fired invisible guns in the air shouting, “Brap Brap Braaaap!”
I won’t even describe what happened during our play. It is still proper painful in my brain. All I’ll say is the image of Meatman chasing Sean through the assembly hall in a salmon-pink bolero jacket with glitter patches while a group of Year Tens shouted, “Run Fairy Run! Ruuuuuuuuun!” will stay in my head forever.