PrImArY sChOoL - pArT 1 oF 3

Now we get to the part of my life where I go to school, after moving and after leaving my old life behind, Time to get a new one. Which I do, sort of, I end up moving in the last three months of the year and end up being the loner because I wasn’t new long enough for people to get to know me. Instead I end up being the kid who can’t colour in the lines and makes grass pink. That’s until someone takes pity on me and invites me into the group. I sit there for most of the year until I mysteriously begin to colour properly. In fact it’s so amazing that the teacher decides to hold up my work, which sucks because that’s never happened before. That and I was using my “friend’s” pencil crayons. Imagine how great she must feel. So I get kicked out of the group and around then my brother is born. That’s in October so not that much left of the school year to be alone.

In grade two I move up a little on the social scale because I’m not totally alone anymore, instead I end up with all the shy new girls. Yep, it’s good to be me. The rest of the year passes in a blur with me loving my teacher (the dork that I am) and getting a care award (aaawww…bleh). Basically nothing special happens and once more I enter the new school year with no friends. Why? I have no idea.

I continue into grade three relatively unchanged until I discover something, a library. To be quite honest I never actually liked the library, or the librarian. In fact during my brief stint as a monitor I became so irritated with the place that I refused to enter it for a good three-months. I’d always liked books, more so the stories they had. About lives that were so exciting and glamorous that I could pretend I was right there with them.

There seemed to be a competition that sprung up when I was in the middle of grade three. A competition to see which group could get me to sit with them. The populars, the out casts and of course the wannabes. There was no “different” group, you either sat with the unholy trinity or you didn’t. Except when you were a guy, then you played soccer. This game seemed to have an unlimited entertainment capacity for the girls I knew and I perpetually pestered to sit with one group or the other. I sat with the non-populars for about three days, the populars for one day. I don’t know which was worse but my brief duration on either side had not quelled their need to win the game. It continued with no signs of letting up and it irritated me. I had no wish to be with anyone and I have never understood why. Maybe it was just me being me.