JC
So there I was, dressed in my mother's horrid blue mac, stiff and crackling at every movement I made, and wearing her shiny brown wellington boots, wondering how I was going to cope with the bus journey, full of other school kids and then the horror of arriving at my posh grammar school dressed like this. Just then, Granny said "Here's Mrs Slater coming down the path with Hazel."
Now Hazel was the elder sister of my best friend, Robert. She was 17, had long dark hair and beautiful eyes. I thought she was marvellous, but she always completely ignored me. I hid as best I could behind a chair in the corner. Mum answered the door and they came in.
"Hazel and I are on our way to feed her horse, so I thought I would catch you before you left", Mrs Slater said. "I wondered if Jack would like to come over after school to play with Robert. He can come straight off the bus."
"I'm sure Jack would love to", said Mum. "Wouldn't you, dear?"
"Oh, I didn't see him at first. Good gracious, what is he wearing?"
"Oh, the silly boy left his school mac at school yesterday, so he's got to wear this old one of mine."
"And why the wellington boots?"
" They're just because he catches cold if he gets wet feet."
As I came forward, I could see Hazel, my adorable Hazel, sniggering away. She said; "Are you going to go to school like that, Jack. You poor thing." I knew that I was completely lost from her consideration for ever.
I won't go into the detail of that dreadful day at school. As we left home, Mum said: "Now, I know you. You're not to take of that mac while it's raining and get your new suit wet. I shall soon see if you have and if I catch you out you'll wear that mac every day for a week whether it's raining or not." I knew she meant it and so it destroyed my hope of taking the ghastly mac off at the first opportunity. I clumped up the hill in those wellington boots and caught the bus. All the way into the city, an hour's journey, I could see and hear the schoolgirls sniggering and giggling at me. And then when I got to school, it was even worse. First, my school coat wasn't on its peg. I think some boys quite deliberately had taken it away as I arrived in order to make me wear that blue rubber mac. It never turned up again. "Look at him", they shouted. "He's got his sister's mac and boots on". I told them that they weren't my sister's but my mother's, but that made them even worse. There was no-one else in the whole school of 800 boys wearing wellington boots, not even black ones let alone brown ones. I had to clump around in them for the whole day, being jeered at wherever I went. By the time school ended, the rain had stopped. There was no sign of my proper raincoat, but at least I didn't have to put on the old blue one. Nevertheless, I still had to wear the wellington boots, even though the sun was beginning to come out. It was nearly half an hour's walk down to the bus terminus to catch the bus home and I felt even more of a fool as I went through the streets.
By the time I arrived, the sun had gone in again and it had started to spit with rain. I felt that I could get away with not putting the mac on as I waited in the queue for the bus tor arrive. But then, of course, Mum arrived. She had left her work to check whether I had found my school mac and so I had to tell her that I hadn't. "Well then, you'll have to go on wearing this one. It will be a long time before I can afford to buy you a new gabardine coat. And put it on at once. I told you that you must wear it to keep your clothes dry, didn't I?" All this in front of the long queue! So once more, I was shamed into putting on that ghastly mac and wearing it all the way home.
So there was once again the long bus journey, with the girls sniggering at me all the way. And when I arrived at our small town, it was raining hard again, so I had to paddle down the road to Robert's house. And, of course, who should let me in but Hazel. "What an idiot you look", she said scornfully. "Why on earth you wear that stupid mac and those ridiculous wellington boots I have no idea." And that was the end of that calamitous Tuesday, the worst I could remember. But there were still more horrors to come.
JC
| Stiff Penalty Part III |
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