More Fun in the First Person
I was nothing like Liz – plain, stocky, quiet, and not at all musical, although I quite liked Beethoven. I’d never tell jokes to the whole class or anything like that. Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry were my subjects. I can’t remember how she’d managed to drag me away from St Ursula's for the morning, and I thought it a very dangerous thing to do. Truanting! Thorny Copse was out of school bounds. If anyone at school knew where we were, there’d be letters to our parents and everything. Already that week, Jessica and Sophie and their friends had defaced their textbooks, thrown Ann into the school pond and hidden my clothes in the changing rooms after I’d played badly at hockey. With no towel and no clothes, I’d had to wrap myself in a shower curtain and sprint back across the fields while they squealed with laughter. The girls at the school were fond of mischief, but I never expected it to be me!
But Liz… she wasn’t like the others. We were the misfits who didn’t fit in. Liz, with her curly red hair and freckles, and me – a beanpole with bad eyesight.
Liz crouched among the fallen leaves pointing to some toadstools she’d brought me to see. “Look! That’s where the fairies live!”. I humoured her as I always did. “Oh, okay Lizzie”. I didn’t want us to be found out and I had to write an essay about the Bayeux Tapestry for tomorrow. But Liz was engrossed. I crouched down to look at the fungi and began to wonder what its name was. I became entranced by it and made notes in my jotter, “whitish stem, tall grey cap, frills on the stalk”. I was looking forward to visiting the library later on.
“Oi” shouted Mr Ogden, a figure of fun at the school because some girls said he walked a bit like a rooster. We were all scared of him, though. Some said he'd been in the army before he became a master at St Ursula's. But there he was, the tweedy old ogre, but what was he doing? Gosh! He was only releasing his dogs! “Quick Liz, run! My black lace-up shoes pounded in puddles and chocolate mud. My face burned with shame and sprigs of branches; my legs stung as thorns ripped my stockings. The mild Autumn sun pressed weakly to the ground as if nothing had happened. I was scared and my heart was pounding as hard as my feet in the mud. I didn’t know the way because Liz had brought me and now she was nowhere to be seen. Oh no! There was the school, redbrick and lovely in the distance – my beloved library through the window. But right now I had to choose between dogs or the river. My stomach flipped into my mouth like a queer pancake. I jumped.
Leather shoes weighing me down, filling with water; satchel clinging round my neck like a strong arm... All I could think of was the trouble I’d be in, later. Would they tell my parents? Blue and green and grey fused together: the banks, the sky, the mud, the water. Where were my spectacles? Without them I couldn’t see my way to the bank. I felt something brush against my legs… What was it? I grasped in a frenzy for something anchored, rooted to the earth, but it was only a weed that came away in my hands. Covered in wet leaves, hair spreading across the water like a fan, my notebook with the toadstool notes floating to the bottom, I disappeared….
I was nothing like Liz – plain, stocky, quiet, and not at all musical, although I quite liked Beethoven. I’d never tell jokes to the whole class or anything like that. Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry were my subjects. I can’t remember how she’d managed to drag me away from St Ursula's for the morning, and I thought it a very dangerous thing to do. Truanting! Thorny Copse was out of school bounds. If anyone at school knew where we were, there’d be letters to our parents and everything. Already that week, Jessica and Sophie and their friends had defaced their textbooks, thrown Ann into the school pond and hidden my clothes in the changing rooms after I’d played badly at hockey. With no towel and no clothes, I’d had to wrap myself in a shower curtain and sprint back across the fields while they squealed with laughter. The girls at the school were fond of mischief, but I never expected it to be me!
But Liz… she wasn’t like the others. We were the misfits who didn’t fit in. Liz, with her curly red hair and freckles, and me – a beanpole with bad eyesight.
Liz crouched among the fallen leaves pointing to some toadstools she’d brought me to see. “Look! That’s where the fairies live!”. I humoured her as I always did. “Oh, okay Lizzie”. I didn’t want us to be found out and I had to write an essay about the Bayeux Tapestry for tomorrow. But Liz was engrossed. I crouched down to look at the fungi and began to wonder what its name was. I became entranced by it and made notes in my jotter, “whitish stem, tall grey cap, frills on the stalk”. I was looking forward to visiting the library later on.
“Oi” shouted Mr Ogden, a figure of fun at the school because some girls said he walked a bit like a rooster. We were all scared of him, though. Some said he'd been in the army before he became a master at St Ursula's. But there he was, the tweedy old ogre, but what was he doing? Gosh! He was only releasing his dogs! “Quick Liz, run! My black lace-up shoes pounded in puddles and chocolate mud. My face burned with shame and sprigs of branches; my legs stung as thorns ripped my stockings. The mild Autumn sun pressed weakly to the ground as if nothing had happened. I was scared and my heart was pounding as hard as my feet in the mud. I didn’t know the way because Liz had brought me and now she was nowhere to be seen. Oh no! There was the school, redbrick and lovely in the distance – my beloved library through the window. But right now I had to choose between dogs or the river. My stomach flipped into my mouth like a queer pancake. I jumped.
Leather shoes weighing me down, filling with water; satchel clinging round my neck like a strong arm... All I could think of was the trouble I’d be in, later. Would they tell my parents? Blue and green and grey fused together: the banks, the sky, the mud, the water. Where were my spectacles? Without them I couldn’t see my way to the bank. I felt something brush against my legs… What was it? I grasped in a frenzy for something anchored, rooted to the earth, but it was only a weed that came away in my hands. Covered in wet leaves, hair spreading across the water like a fan, my notebook with the toadstool notes floating to the bottom, I disappeared….
