Primary School Confidential (4 page)

THE BENEFITS OF A STATION WAGON

I asked a friend of mine, fellow blogger Kirsten Smith, if she had a stand-out memory from her primary school days. And she did.

I absolutely loved school as a kid, which was just as well because I went to six of them: four primary schools and two high schools. I wish there was an exciting story to tell about the reason behind the rather large number of school enrolment forms my parents, Pam and Errol Woolcott, have completed over the years but, unfortunately, there's not.

I'd love to be able to tell you that at 2 pm on a cold winter's day in 1984, Pam and Errol were summoned to the principal's office to discuss my behaviour where the imaginary conversation went a little something like this:

‘Mr and Mrs Woolcott, please have a seat. Let me just move this ashtray out of the way and I'll be able to find your daughter's file.' Principal picks up brown glass ashtray and places it next to typewriter. Looks down at desk. ‘Ah, yes. Here it is,' he says, picking up a thick manila folder and wiping cigarette ash from the front of it.

‘I keep telling my secretary to get me one of those new ashtrays on a stand that traps the ash inside. Have you seen them? Such a clever contraption. The mind boggles at what they will invent next!'
Sits down and opens file. ‘Now, as you're aware, our resident Anglican nun, Sister Bridget, teaches the children Religious Education once a week.'

‘Oh, yes,' Pam might answer. ‘Lovely lady. Has the perfect skin tone for someone who has to wear black all day long!'

Principal raises eyebrows, looks up over glasses and clears throat. ‘Mrs Woolcott, this is not the time or the place to be discussing a nun's skin tone. I have called you and Mr Woolcott here today because your daughter, Kirsten, has done something very serious that will more than likely see her expelled from this school.'

‘That doesn't surprise me. What did she do this time?' Errol might reply. ‘Please tell me she didn't sneak her pet rabbit into her backpack again. Pam, I thought you were checking her bag in the mornings?'

Cue a hefty glare thrown at Errol from Pam and a loud sigh from the principal, followed by the words, ‘No, she did not bring the rabbit to school again. She did however call Sister Bridget, Sister Birdshit, not once but TWICE during Religious Education this morning.'

‘OH MY GOD. Where the bloody hell would she have gotten language like that from?! Jesus Christ. I'll kill her when I get my hands on her. Sister Birdshit. I'll give her bloody birdshit. She's a nun forchristsakes. You can't talk like that to a nun!'

‘Fairly sure you can't talk like that in a principal's office either, Pam,' Errol might say as he stands up
and eyeballs Pam to do the same. ‘Thank you, Mr Walker, for your time. We will collect Kirsten and her belongings on our way out.'

Mr Walker stands up from behind his desk, ‘Thank you, Mr Woolcott. I would appreciate that. Oh, there's just one last thing before you go.'

‘Yes?' Pam might ask as she smooths out the wrinkles on her high-waisted polyester slacks.

‘My wife was admiring your hair the other day when our boys were playing soccer and she asked me to enquire, if I may, where you get it permed?'

But, no, there were never any phone calls from the school to my parents or suspensions or expulsions, although I did have a pet rabbit and was, on occasion, taught by a nun whose name was Sister Bridget. She was known in the playground as Sister Birdshit, although I can neither confirm nor deny that the person responsible for coming up with that nickname was in fact a ten-year-old me.

The real, slightly boring reason for attending six schools in twelve years of education was because my parents liked to move a lot. That's it. Which isn't quite as exciting as an imaginary conversation in the principal's office about swearing at a nun, but it does make for several actual interesting stories, including the time our class went on an excursion.

The primary school I was a student at the longest was a lovely little inner city one in Christchurch, New Zealand. It had a beautiful old stone building
that housed the classrooms, a timber church next door and approximately no grass to play on.

Each day, Mum used to drive my brother Blair and me to and from school in her pale-blue mini, which had a tendency to not start in the mornings (‘Get in kids and cross your fingers she starts today!'), while Dad drove the school excursion jackpot—a station wagon, which was a recent addition to our household.

In Year 4, or Standard Two as it was known in New Zealand in 1981, there was much excitement among our class of twenty-seven students when our teacher Mrs Hill announced we would be going on our very first excursion to inspect an aeroplane hangar of all things. Parent volunteers were required to assist getting us all to and from the venue, otherwise we wouldn't be able to go, and could you please put your hand up if any of your parents drive a station wagon?

Now up until this point, I had spent a vast amount of the lesson daydreaming about bean bags. You see my friend Diane, who lived up the road from me, had just had a bean bag made for her bedroom. It was quite an odd shape but it was made from the most luxurious purple fabric I'd ever felt.

‘It's corduroy,' Diane informed me, as I gently ran my hands across the softly woven fabric. ‘Most people use it to make overalls but Mum said it would make a terrific bean bag. It's filled with tiny little balls of foam. You can sit on it if you like.'

I stopped touching the fabric and stared at the purple corduroy-covered bean bag sitting on the thick brown shag-pile carpet in the corner of Diane's bedroom. ‘Diane, you are so lucky. This is the coolest thing I've ever seen. It would be so good to sit in one of these after rollerskating every Saturday!'

I tried to sit down gracefully on the bean bag—but graceful isn't really a word that springs to mind when describing my athletic abilities—so instead I slipped on the one-inch thick shag-pile carpet, fell backwards onto the bean bag and accidentally let out a fart at the exact moment my butt hit the soft foam-filled fabric.

This was followed by a few seconds of awkward silence before Diane yelled, ‘Did you just fart on my bean bag?' Her face all twisted into an unusual look of horror and disgust.

I started laughing, which didn't exactly help the situation, while Diane shouted, ‘Mum! Kirsten just farted on my bean bag!'

Diane's Mum entered the room and calmly assessed the situation. She took one look at a red-faced Diane, then one look at me laughing hysterically on the bean bag, and very politely suggested that it might be best for all concerned if I made my way back home.

Probably a fair call. I mean it was corduroy and I did just fart on it. I thanked Diane's Mum for having me, apologised to Diane, put my pink jelly shoes on and walked home.

On my way home I decided that I was really lucky Diane didn't go to my school because, if she did, there was a fairly high chance I would be known as the girl who farted on a bean bag for the rest of my life. I also decided that I really, really wanted a bean bag of my own.

The only problem was that Mum didn't have a sewing machine and I'd already put in a request for a Cabbage Patch Kid, a game of Guess Who? and a View-Master for Christmas, so I thought adding a corduroy bean bag to the list might've been pushing things a bit.

However—back to the classroom—upon hearing Mrs Hill say the words ‘excursion' and ‘station wagon' snapped me right out of my bean bag daydream and my hand went up quicker than a contestant on
The Price Is Right
!

‘Mrs Hill! Mrs Hill! My dad has a station wagon!' I shouted excitedly, while frantically waving my hand around.

‘It's a red one. He just got it. Although it's not really his. I think his boss is lending it to him? I'm not sure. Dad told us about it while we were eating tea last night but I wasn't really listening because Mum had cooked schnitzel and it's my favourite and she hardly ever makes it and—'

‘Thank you, Kirsten—' Mrs Hill interrupted (that used to happen to me a lot during primary school)—‘for yet another very in-depth answer to a fairly simple question. I think your father might
have what is known as a company car,' continued Mrs Hill, while no doubt wondering how quickly a cigarette lighter works in a new station wagon and if those new beige vinyl seats everyone keeps talking about really are as slippery to sit on as they say they are. ‘I'll give your dad a call at lunch time and see if he is allowed to use it for a school excursion.'

Turns out Dad was allowed to use the work station wagon for school excursions and, while we were all in the playground inhaling peanut butter sandwiches and playing Red Rover on the concrete, Mrs Hill was working hard in the staffroom, calling other parents to ask if they too had a station wagon and would they like to join us on an excursion?

By the time we all filed back into our classroom at the end of lunch, Mrs Hill had successfully managed to rope two other parents into using their station wagons, so the excursion was happening!

‘Right,' said Mrs Hill as she whipped out a piece of chalk from her hair. ‘It's time for a quick maths lesson. Eyes on the board!'

We all stared straight ahead as Mrs Hill proceeded to write the following sum in longhand on the large blackboard on the wall:

I was never any good at maths, so I watched on as hands shot up around me and someone yelled out, ‘Nine! There will be nine of us in each car!'

‘That's right, Mark,' said Mrs Hill. ‘Well done. There will be nine of you in each car. One in the front seat, three in the back seat and five in the boot.'

‘Where will you be, Mrs Hill?' asked Kelly.

‘Oh, I will be driving in my own car behind you all, keeping an eye on things and making sure everyone is safe. Now if you could pass these notes around and make sure your parents read them, please. It explains everything they need to know about the excursion. Oh, and if you're short, you're in luck. You'll be riding in the boot of the station wagons to and from the excursion because it will be easier for you sit on your bottom and cross your legs in such a cramped space!'

If you don't count the day I received a free Wombles poster with my book club order, this was the most exciting day of my primary school life. Not only was my dad coming with me on my very first excursion but, thanks to being one of the shortest members of the class, I was going to ride in the boot of a station wagon with four of my vertically challenged friends! If only I had a corduroy bean bag to sit on to make the ride more comfortable . . .

Visit Kirsten at her blog @
kirstenandco.com
.