Primary School Confidential (7 page)

I was learning, too, that the world was unfair in many respects. I discovered to my horror that millions of Ethiopians were starving to death; thank God that my virtual gods were able to sing a song about it and save the planet.

I found it to be grossly unfair that the teenagers of a small town somewhere in the Midwest of the United States were forbidden to dance, and breathed a huge sigh of relief when Ren, the kid from Chicago, challenged the small town's small minds with some canny quotes from the Bible and the school prom was able to take place after all. (That Ren proceeds to suck face with Ariel, the rebellious daughter of the anti-dancing reverend, was a delightfully ironic twist!)

And I fell in love for the very first time, with a small and quite creepy-looking chap who went by the name of Prince. Because he was funky.

I longed to go to the Entertainment Centre and see Joe Cocker or The Police, but my oldies were not having a bar of it, which is not to say they were averse to culture. They took the family to
see Torvill and Dean on ice and any number of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals.

There is nothing worse for someone on the cusp of becoming a teenager than spending time with her family. Each evening, my family would come together to eat at the dinner table. This was extremely annoying, as all my friends got to eat dinner in front of the television. However, it did set the stage for my older sister—already a fully-fledged teenager—to throw her nightly temper tantrum. You could set your clock by it. Sullen and sulky, she would sit at the table glowering, pushing her specially prepared vegetarian meal around on her plate. Inevitably, someone would say something to her and, however innocuous, she would crack the shits. Heated words would be spat out like bullets from an AK-47, a punishment threatened, and then she would dramatically push her chair back, and run up the stairs and into her room. The scene would end with a very loud slamming of the door. Observing the evolution of a teenager was both fascinating and terrifying, and total respect to my oldies, who rode that wild ride five times.

As I began to develop my own taste in music and fashion (taste that was hardly unique, I have to admit), I was starting to become aware that trends and fads were different when you were at the pointy end of primary school. Image started to play an important role. Wearing your hair the right way. Wearing the right socks. Not being different. Going with the flow. Not questioning the playground powerbrokers. Toeing the line. It is a sad fact that these years can shape the sort of person that you turn out to be, unless you have the confidence to stand on your own two feet.

But I wasn't one of those people! I wanted to belong and was acutely aware of what could happen if you dared question the establishment: social death.

I would see it happen all the time. The worst thing was to be excluded from someone's birthday party. Birthday parties were a huge deal, easily the highlight of the Year 5 social scene. Looking back, there is one in particular that stands out.

Sally Griffin's slumber party.

We had spent the afternoon tearing about, dancing to INXS and Michael Jackson, talking about boys, eating crap and watching
Back to the Future
. When it came time to sleep, well, we were not having a bar of it!

At 11 pm Mrs Griffin appeared at the door of the rumpus room and pleaded with us to be quiet.

At 1 am Mrs Griffin returned, and threatened to shut the party down via several urgent phone calls to our parents.

At 4 am Mr Griffin barged through the door and completely lost his shit.

The thing about Mr Griffin was that he was Scottish and his accent was thicker than pea soup. The more he yelled, the redder his face got. His tirade went something along the lines of: ‘Listen up, ye wee shits. Ahm gonnae kick yer behinds intae next week unless ye gang tae sleep. Ah hae tae gie up fur wark in tois hoors, ye wee fuckers. Noo jobby th' buck up.'

And I swear I heard someone urinate in her pants.

Sleep came quickly after that for most, but not me. I snuggled into my sleeping bag, too frightened to move. It was only as the sun came up, and I heard Mr Griffin go off to work, that I could finally exhale.

I remember the next day was very long, and I was very tired and emotional, so much so that Sally Griffin's was the last slumber party I was allowed to go to for a long time.

But back to social death. I experienced it for exactly two days in Year 6 and will never forget the dreadful feeling that comes with being on the outer. You see, my friend and I—subject to peer pressure—had choked on a cigarette with a couple of high school boys. When this news travelled back to the playground, we were instant social pariahs. We were BANISHED from the traditional game of handball that was the measure of social standing.

Our so-called friends decided that if we were to play with them and they should accidentally touch us, they would immediately die from cancer. It was a very upsetting state of affairs, and one that I could not share with my parents for obvious reasons. For two days my friend and I spent recess and lunchtime sitting in the library and reading the rude bits of a Judy Blume book aloud to each other. Then another kid wet her pants (probably the same one who'd wet her pants at Sally Griffin's slumber party the year before), so we got swapped back in. But we had learnt our lesson: don't rock the boat.

6

YOUNG LOVE (OF THE NON-EQUINE KIND)

I grew up surrounded by horses, as Dad was a bigwig in the racing industry and my Poppa was a famed breeder of the world's slowest thoroughbreds. A few times I was the recipient of one of the backward runners, which I used to then take to pony club and ride alongside my peers. While they bounced around on their Shetland ponies, I would be galloping around on a horse that was fresh off the track. I won any event that involved speed. Not because my horse was particularly fast, just because it was eleven times the size of the others.

I recall one summer, a KFC store opened up, causing much excitement because there was a drive-thru. An actual drive-thru! KFC was called by its full name, Kentucky Fried Chicken, back then, because everyone still believed that fried chicken was healthy.

I was in my swimmers, in the pool, when I had a sudden craving for hot chips. I think I would have been about ten. Those
hot-chip cravings have been around a long time, and remain a part of my life to this day.

Anyway, I jumped out of the pool, stole a couple of bucks from Mum's wallet and headed down to the paddock, swinging a halter and lead in my hand. I then proceeded to ride my horse, which was about seventeen hands high, through the streets—navigating some very busy intersections—and into the drive-thru, where I ordered some hot chips with extra salt. The slack-jawed teenagers serving could hardly believe their eyes. I took the hot chips down to the river, hoovered them up, then treated Abby the horse to a little swim. I did all this without the benefit of a helmet. Or a saddle. Or any sense whatsoever.

Horses were my first love, closely followed by hot chips. But that was about to all change for me.

The first time a boy ever told me that he loved me I was all of seven years old. We had only known each other for two days. He looked me in the eyes and said confidently, ‘I love you, Kelly.'

Which was fine by me, even though my name was, and still is, Kayte. But, hey, he was cute and someone loved me and so I was Kelly for the next twenty-four hours until the end of that pony club camp.

I didn't think about boys for a few years, then all of a sudden they were all I could think about! I flew through a handful of crushes. There was Lance, who looked like a sheep, so thick and curly was his white-blond hair. And then there was Christopher, with whom I was quite smitten until my mum remarried and we moved towns. So he was gone (though, clearly, not forgotten).

By the time I reached Year 5, if you didn't have a boyfriend you were considered a complete loser. I wished not to be a complete loser and by this stage I had, fortunately, lost my Coke-bottle glasses, my hair looked relatively normal and my teeth had decided to straighten themselves out. The only problem was I was quite tall for my age, and all the boys were midgets. But this was a minor impediment. I wouldn't say that I was in the running to win the
Dolly
Covergirl competition, but I was not a complete cretin either.

So I put the word out via my little gang of friends that I was ready to ‘go with' someone. (The term ‘go with' was the vernacular at the time and the ironic thing was that you ended up going nowhere. It was just a label.) It was like I was putting out a request to tender for the role of my boyfriend. At recess and lunch, interested suitors were put forward.

‘Alan said he would go with you,' came the word.

And I would be all like, ‘Alan! He has fricking warts!'

Next!

‘Peter said he would go with you.'

Sweet Mary, mother of GOD! Peter shat in his pants two years ago. Was this it for me? Was I already scraping the bottom of the barrel at the age of eleven?

‘Paul said he would go with you.'

‘Ryan or Waters?'

‘Paul Ryan in Year 6.'

And that is how I got my first boyfriend.