This time of the year– I’ve never known what to call it– is special. I suppose it’s technically spring but every day is promising summer with mega-long evenings and lazy times ahead. I love it. Even as a small child when it shouldn’t matter to you what time of the year it is, I loved it.
It meant that school was nearly over. From about the end of April on, I used to tick the days off the calendar. Summer is almost here. School’s out.
You’ll gather I wasn’t particularly fond of school. I know small children are supposed to say that– it’s more or less their job– but I really did hate it. It was quite a cruel regime and it just didn’t suit me. Corporal punishment was the order of the day but it was the mental torture and undermining of confidence that got me.
I wished my life away waiting for it to end and even the temporary respite of holidays was salvation. But twice in my school life, I just couldn’t wait for holidays. I mitched. Played truant. Schemed. Bunked off. It was called different things in different localities. Whatever you choose to call it, I did it twice. And got caught twice.
The first time, I was probably about 10. I used to take a shortcut home through a field at lunchtime and one particular day, I just decided I would probably die if I had to sit in a classroom for the afternoon. It was a beautiful day and I just couldn’t face going back.
I had my lunch and left the house at the usual going-back time but, once I was out of sight, I headed for the bushes in the field and hid out.
The first half-hour was thrilling. I felt like a juvenile spy or something. From my little hide-out, I watched the world go by and could hear my comrades making their way back for another afternoon of torture. I felt liberated and bold. After about an hour, though, I was bored rigid. I wished I’d planned it all a bit better. If I’d brought a cushion and something to read it would have been more comfortable.
The minutes dragged by but I had to stay there. I couldn’t risk breaking cover until the school day was officially over. I had to sit it out in my now uncomfortable hide-out and, to add to the discomfort, the worry had set in. I’ll be killed if I’m caught. Someone will tell on me. I’ll be murdered.
I wasn’t actually murdered but I was watched like a hawk for the rest of the term. It was my own fault. I learned that day that if you’re going to mitch, do it properly. It’s not a good idea to mitch for only half the day. I’d been in school in the morning and I suppose the teacher did a headcount in the afternoon.
A posse of classmates came to my house that evening to gleefully tell me that the nun was gunning for me. I was “in for it”. I decided to get my retaliation in first. I fessed up to my mother that evening and begged her to bail me out. She played the parental ace of, “I’m very disappointed in you”.
I promised her I’d do loads of jobs and things around the house if only she’d save my life. Eventually, after making me stew for a few hours and sweep the stairs (the most hateful job she could think of), she wrote the note to say I had become “suddenly unwell” at lunchtime the previous day. A stay of execution.
My next little rebellion was in secondary school. Again, it was this time of the year and holidays weren’t coming quickly enough for me. Walking back to school one afternoon, I just decided I needed an afternoon off. I remembered my previous experience and the business of the half-day rule but I reckoned it was safer in secondary school– different teachers for different subjects so the afternoon people would be none the wiser.
This time, I was a little more brazen. I went downtown and booked myself into the hairdressers. She was busy, she said, but if I didn’t mind waiting… I drank coffee and read magazines in her backyard and had my wash and blow dry just in time to go home at the normal time.
I wasn’t home half-an-hour when the proverbial hit the fan. The headmistress, whom I’d had for Maths that morning, was standing in for another teacher in the afternoon. She took a roll and remembered I’d been there in the morning. She sent a message with a neighbour to tell me to be in her office at 9am the next day.
This time, there was no note. No “suddenly unwell” excuse. I had to tough it out. What had possessed me? she wanted to know. When was I ever going to knuckle down? I was a disgrace. I couldn’t hold a candle to my sisters who had gone before me. I would amount to nothing. I must be a sore trial to my lovely mother. I must be breaking her heart.
All the time she ranted, I had my eyes downcast as if in disgrace. I was really looking at the calendar on her desk. In my mind, I was ticking off the days. What, she repeated, had possessed me?
In hindsight, I recognise that it probably sounded insolent and cheeky but I genuinely didn’t mean it to be. It must, I told her as I left her den, be just that time of year.
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