Notice of Copyright Infringement
Minnie the Minx
Dear Ms Junior Misssy,
It has come to our attention that you are in serious breach of copyright.
Reports coming into our office have indicated that several of the “jolly japes” and characteristics belonging to the well-loved characters of our top-selling Beano comic have been, well, pinched.
We feel that we need to draw this infringement of our creative copyright to your attention and, frankly, ask you to stop this potentially criminal behaviour immediately.
We have outlined your most recent infringement for your deliberation, and we hope, your embarrassment.
Infringement 1
Plaintiff: Junior Misssy
Location: The Master Bedroom of the House of the Flying Martinis
Evidence suggests that you did, in fact, enter the bedroom of your parents at 7.50am on Monday morning of 24th January 2009, and, having previously applied a myriad of spherical red marks to your face using a felt-tipped drawing pen, you then proceeded to claim that there was “something wrong with” your face. Something that may render you unable to go to school. Something that may be potentially contagious.
Miss, I think you will find that this jape is the copyright of our foremost female character, Minnie the Minx. Our records prove that Ms Minx did in fact use this ruse in the following issues of The Beano:
- 12.09.1972 (supposed measles)
- 16.09.1986 (supposed radiation sickness)
- 23.10.1999 (supposed necrotising fasciitis), and
- 01.07.2005 (supposed allergic reaction to a botox injection)
You will also find, if you were to examine these issues for yourself, that Ms Minx did not manage to convince her father that the marks were indeed lesions of a biological nature as, we believe was also the case in your personal attempt. Furthermore, if you were to look back in the issues of 1972 and 1986, you would find that Minnie did, in actual fact, get “the slipper” for her feeble yet hilarious endeavours at truancy. In later issues, she would have been subject to a grounding and laterly she is forced by her father to sit on the “the naughty step” as is the current fashion. Frankly, we prefer the intial old-style punishment but we’re not allowed to espouse child beating anymore, so that’s the end of that.
Anyway, we digress. These infringements must cease. Your brother is already on his second warning, after his disgraceful attempt to emulate the actions of Bash Street kid hero, Plug, by doing his level best to go to sleep in his school uniform so as to save crucial minutes in the morning, and voiding the need to get dressed. You will find, should you ask your brother, that our reprisal is swift and merciless. And not at all funny.
Rest assured, our lawyers have been informed and you will be hearing from them in due course.
Yours sincerely
DC Thompson
(Owners of the Beano and all the Characters and jokes there-in)
Don’t ever miss a Misssive, subscribe!
I Fought the Law
If there’s one thing I’ve always been able to say with complete confidence it’s this: I’m a good girl, I am. Never saw the inside of the headmaster’s office. Never got booted out of anything for bad behaviour. Never had one brush with the law. Until now.
You know how I said the other week that I wanted to fit some things into the last weeks of my thirties like raising a people’s army and taking over a country? Remember that, eh? Well, it’s not that. I was in France over the holidays and tried it, but my superb speech carefully planned to rouse the sensibilities of the masses fell flat as the French pretended not to understand it and collectively went, “Bof…” So, no, my brush with the law wasn’t a hearty beating 1968–style with a gendarme’s baton, or a thorough tonsil rinsing with a water cannon. It’s oh so much more tame than that. But yes, my friends I have managed to fit in a sojourn in the back of a polis car into my last few days of my thirties. And kids, it wasn’t cool…it wasn’t cool at all.
(And I write this in full expectation of the first comment being from my long time blog buddy, Noddy, a polis blogger of old. The shame of it…. All I can say is, I went quietly Noddy, be assured of that.)
The story of my legal misdemeanour is so pathetic that it is only made blog-worthy by two things: the fact that it is the first time I have ever been charged for anything, and the live commentary on the whole incident by my willing accomplice, Junior Misssy, who incidentally got off scot-free despite putting me up to it.
It all started when I had a bright idea to get a curry takeaway. If only I’d cooked instead of being a lazy arse. And then I made the bizarre decision not to sit on the sofa whining until Meeester agreed to go for it. I went myself- another mistake. What was I thinking? The Capo never gets caught- he always sends his henchmen. That’s how they could never get Al Capone…
The long and short of it is that I parked my car illegally outside a curry house. Not just yellow lines illegally but on zig-zag lines outside the curry house beside the pedestrian crossing. This is, apparently, significantly more naughty than yellow lines parking. And to quote the officer in question, my actions “showed complete disregard for other motorists”. The man’s right, I paid other motorists no mind. I gave them nary a thought. I am sorry. I did however listen to my five year old who whined and said that she had already taken her seatbelt off when I hummed and hawed about parking further up. She’s a criminal mastermind of manipulation, that one.
When I came out of the Nazma, winner of the North East heats of the Scottish Curry House Without Customer Parking of the Year 2006, the cops were waiting for me. In fact, they said they had been in the takeway asking if anyone owned a white mini, but ironically I was glued to a TV special on Scottish police drama, Taggart, on the takeaway telly and must have missed them. How’s that for comedy? I actually think that they thought I’d seen them and had just ignored them- a fugitive if you like, and possibly this was the reason for the actual charging rather than a mere cuff round the ear and a telling off that I was expecting.
Two other things occur which may have led to the 3 points on my license and the sixty quid fine severity of the eventual punishment:
1.The police are trained not to respond in any way to the kind of face that the Cat uses on Shrek. I used it, accompanied with the simpering, broken voiced, “You’re not going to charge me, are you….?”. It didn’t work. By God that Tulliallan Police College training is bloody good. That face usually works on everyone!
2.I forgot the “I’m just nipping in” lights. Aren’t these signals, apparently also known as Hazard Warning Lights, the get out of jail card of every motorist? No??? They say, “Hey, I may be illegally parked and holding up heaps of traffic because I’m nipping in to get my dry cleaning but you cannae get angry because I’ve switched on the ‘I’m just nipping in’ lights. Sorry!”
Another classic mistake- “I’m just nipping in lights” may just be the cloaking device I forgot to engage.*
Despite the humiliation I felt, I have to say one thing, the two policemen were perfectly nice to me. In fact, at one point the polis were quite funny. They looked at my drivers’ license and took the piss out the fact that I am about to turn forty in three days, “Oh, big birthday coming up, eh? Oh dear.” I half expected them to sing Happy Birthday to me, as this kind of behaviour is not unknown amongst the Grampian Polis. My brother in law got a chorus of Happy Birthday a few years ago from two officers who caught him without road tax on his birthday. Maybe if it had been Wednesday I might have got that. I don’t feel cheated or owt, it was nice of them to notice. No birthday present though….
So now onto Junior Misssy. Junior Misssy added these items of interest to the story:
1. After explaining to her that I was going to have to leave her in the car while I went and sat in a police car for five minutes BUT WAS NOT GOING TO JAIL SO DON’T PANIC, She stopped me and said. “But Mum, it’s OK, I know two policemen”. Bless. She is already thinking of how her connections can get her out of things. She is going to be a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately, having met two officers at a school talk who allowed her to try on the handcuffs and one of their hats, does not mean she’s got the whole force in her pocket. Plus, this is not LA in the 1930s.
2. When I returned from the back of the police car after my ordeal (as it shall now be known), Junior Misssy asked me if they shouted at me and used bad words. Eh? What’s that about? I’m thinking that maybe she’s maybe been watching The Wire or something behind my back.
3. When I told Junior Misssy what had happened, I explained that there would be three stars going on my driving license. She refused to accept that getting three stars was not a “good thing”. She also said that if they gave me three ticks, this would also be a good thing. Why was I upset at this?
So there you go, I managed to get nicked for the first time ever three days before my fortieth birthday. I’ve got three days left- what’s next? I hope you’ll all still want to consort with me, despite my confession of criminal tendencies. A Happy New Year to you all.
*I’m joking, police readers, I’m joking I would never do this and I don’t know anyone else who does! No no.
Don’t ever miss a Misssive, subscribe!
Judy Garland Would Have Wept
I am a major Halloween fanatic. Frankly, I don’t know why people bang on about Halloween being part of the Americanisation of our society. From where I’m standing Halloween has always been a big deal in Scotland- the only difference is that these days you can easily fashion lanterns out of pumpkins instead of having to start carving out a neep sometime in late summer to have a chance of having it done by the 31st of October (that’s a turnip or swede, non Scottish folk).
Although the smell of candle-wax on burning neep will ever be a trigger for happy childhood memories, I’m now loving the smell of burnt pumpkin even more, coupled with the fact that my fingers don’t have to be worn down to stumps in order to make a hole big enough for a candle to go inside. However, I’m still not convinced that pumpkin is any better an ingredient for a pie than turnip. Pumpkin pie is veg with sugar on, no matter which way you look at it.
Yet, for all the hoo-haa about Halloween, I think it has deteriorated since the seventies and eighties. In fact, I’d go as far to say that if you want to know what is wrong with the youth-of-today then you need look no further than Halloween for evidence. And my beef gains gravy here; in the shape of the Halloween Turn.
Scene 1: Friday 31st October 2008. There is a knock on door of the House of the Flying Martinis
Misssy: Hello! A happy Halloween!
Three lads dressed as skeletons (chorus): Hmmmmnnn….weeenn.
Misssy: Well, what have you got for me, then?
Three lads dressed as skeletons (chorus): Hmmmmnnn…?
Misssy: Song? Joke? One act play? Anything for your Halloween treat?
Skeleton One: Haven’t really got anything…
Misssy: Well you better think of something or else you’ll not do too well out there. Am I the first house you’ve been to?
Three lads dressed as skeletons (chorus):No, we’ve been out for an hour (open bags to reveal booty acquired by merely turning up in shitty supermarket costumes and grunting)
Misssy (simultaneously tightening her grip on her sweet bowl and fundamental argument): I’ll take a joke, if that’s on offer…
The three lads dressed as skeletons look at one another.
Skeleton Two: I’ve got one, but it’s rubbish.
Misssy: I’ll be the judge of that, young fella me lad (I am turning into a retired army colonel before their very eyes, but I’m keeping on going, despite the fact that the phrases “National Service”, “Corporal punishment” and “Never did me any harm” are uncontrollably popping into my head.)
Skeleton Two: Why did the skeleton feel lonely?
Misssy: Ho! Ho! I don’t know, you young scamp, why did the skeleton feel lonely?
Skeleton Two: Because he had no body.
Misssy: Hahahahahaha! Hahahahahaha! Hahahaha! That’s the ticket, you bunch of rascals! No body! Hahahahahaha! Bloody marvellous! Help yourselves, lads!
Sweets delivered, the kids leave.
* * *
Scene 2: Flashback to 31st October 1979.
There is a knock on the door of Mr and Mrs Generic-McNeighbour, Some where in Scotland.
Gladys Generic McNeighbour: Oh hello Misssy and assorted chums! In you come! In you come! Why have you for us this year?
Misssy: Well this year ,Mrs Generic-McNeighbour, we’re performing a medley of the show tunes from Vincente Minelli’s “Meet Me in St Louis”. Mr McNeighbour, if you wouldn’t mind clearing us a large space in the living room, then we’ll begin. Everybody, first positions, please! (Claps hands sharply)
Seven kids dressed as Smurfs, JR Ewing, Metal Mickey and various Star Wars characters scurry into position.
Eric Generic-McNeighbour (rubbing hands excitedly) : Excellent, we haven’t stopped talking about your “42nd Street” since last Halloween, have we, Gladys? Will you require us to move the sofa this year, or will the coffee table be enough….?
* * *
And that’s what I’m talking about.
Kids of today…pfff, why was the skeleton lonely.….. What a load of amateurish crap…..
Don’t ever miss a Misssive, subscribe!
Art History
You’ll be fine by lunchtime
For my Mum is gonna kill me for this one.
Before I start, make no mistake, this is not and has never been an anonymous blog. I am so un-anonymous that my actual mother reads this. How many of you can say that? Eh, you bunch o’chickens?
I’m bloggin’ on the EDGE!
Now my Mum has only ever taken issue with two things I’ve ever said on the Misssives:
1. I said to one of the US readers of the Misssives that she should look out for her, as my parents were holidaying in the US. I said that they would know her because she would be wearing beige knee length shorts with an elasticated waist. About three months later I get an email from my Mum and it simply says this,
“I do not just have beige knee length shorts. Mum”
This little transgression of the fifth commandment happened in the comments box. So think on, commenters. Mum’s watching you too!
2. Last month’s assertion by myself that my folks wanted to call me Kenneth should I have been a boy, warranted an actual phone-call. According to the revisionist historical account by my mother, I would never have been a Kenneth, I would have been a Ewan. Hang on hang on, before you think I’m an out and out liar; she did say once that she liked Kenneth. I heard her. But, at last, during the ensuing conversation we get to the crux of the matter; it was Dad who stopped Mum from calling me Ken. And this is the man who called their cat Lech after the (then) incoming Polish President, Lech Walesa.
OK, so we’ve established that my folks read this blog. But I am still going to tell you this story after which my Mum is going to probably jump in the car and come round to my house in response.
I’m not going to mess about, I’m going straight to the punch: My Mum sent me to school with a broken arm.
The story goes like this. We go ski-ing for the first time ever. Skis are hired and applied to legs. Parents tell Misssy to stay where she is until they can safely escort her to the nursery slopes. Misssy ignores them, probably having watched a James Bond film the Saturday night before, and whizzes off, thinking she’s going to effortlessly slalom between pines dodging machine gun fire. Misssy whizzes off ….straight into an icy ditch.
Throughout the day Misssy complains of a sore wrist and whines. Unfortunately Misssy has spent most of her childhood whining, and no-one notices any difference.
Once back home, Misssy whines her way to bed. And then in the morning Misssy wakes up and re-commences whining.
Mum trots out a line which I’m ashamed to say I now use to my own kids when I think they are trying to cadge a sicky;
“You’re fine, go to school. You’ll be fine by lunchtime”
Misssy wasn’t fine by lunchtime. She
didn’t even get to lunchtime. She had PE first thing and whined to the PE teacher, when she tried to make her play netball. The teacher had a cursory look at the object of the whining, said the wrist looked a bit blue and asked Misssy to grasp her finger putting the one afternoon of First Aid training she had in college into action. Whining, Misssy failed to achieve the right intensity of grasp.Wrist is declared broken by a professional.
Mum is called.
Mum comes into school.
Mum takes Misssy to doctor.
Doctor confirms fellow professional’s diagnosis.
X-rays are done.
Cast is applied.
Mum feels terrible the rest of her life.
Daughter blogs about event.
Mum disowns daughter.
*Take THAT Dr Freud!
Monkey Justice
The phone rings in House of the Flying Martinis
Indy: Hello?
Meester (phoning home from work): Hello? Is that the police?
Indy: Yes.
Meeester: I want to report that my car has been damaged?
Indy: Do you want me to send the monkey?
Meeester: Yes, but how will I know it’s him? Does he wear a uniform?
Indy: No, but he sometimes likes to wear a bikini.
Meeester: Ok bye
Indy: Bye.
“So, Misssy Martin, when was the point that you knew your son was going to be a surreal esoteric performance artist?”
“The day I met his father”
*Sigh*
Don’t ever miss a Misssive, subscribe!
The Angel of Death
One of the things I’m thinking about as I pack the last of my kids off into the school system is that it’s end of the baby era for us.
Meester and I are closed for business on the baby front and the Flying Martinis are a permanently fixed and complete unit.
One of the more positive knock-on effects of this decision is that we will no longer have to endure visits from our Child Health Visitor, known to us as, The Angel of Death.
The Angel of Death has no kids herself, but knows everything about bringing up a kid since she learned it at college. Apparently.
She manages to do her job despite the fact that all children and their parents are visibly terrified of her.
She is broad country Aberdeenshire farming stock and looks like a big knitted bag that is filled with runny porridge. She has unrestrained, unsupported, massive, pendulous breasts that end somewhere around her waist. The upper front part of her body is not so much a décolletage as flesh-mountain landslide. It’s truly remarkable and may be visible on Google Earth.
Whatever the weather, she always wears jumpers, with a pattern that looks like the vomit you see on a Sunday morning beside a lamp-post outside the pub. She must knit them herself as I have never seen the like on sale in a shop anywhere.
Moving past the jumper area and up to her head, she has a haircut like a bloke, a bit like Roy Castle’s before the chemo. She wears those horrible Reactolite tinted specs. You know the sort; they instantly make someone look sinister. The more light there is the darker they go. They lack the coolness factor of sunglasses and retain all the geekiness of wire-rimmed specs with an ever changing gradient of brown insipid tint. My gran also has a pair and they make her look like Dr Strangelove.
There’s a whole catalogue of incidents with the Angel of Death, but I think our first meeting gives the most succinct impression of her. It’s the occasion of Indy’s 2nd birthday and hence his 2 year developmental assessment. We’ve just moved into the area and have not met the Angel of Death in the flesh yet. Of course, being as it is the day after Indy’s birthday, I have forgotten that she is scheduled to come round.
At that point, I was the only one of my friends to have a kid, so Indy’s birthday party had consisted of our friends coming round for a barbecue, getting pissed and watching the wee fella do cute things for our entertainment.
So at 10am Indy and I are sitting in the debris of all yesterday’s parties eating leftover birthday cake for breakfast in our jammies watching Clifford the Big Red Dog on telly, with me nursing a slight headache and all the barbecue dishes still in evidence.
I spot the not inconsiderable frame of the Angel of Death lurching past my living room window. It’s too late to do anything about the situation. Hiding is futile as she has already glanced through the window giving me quite a start. And as it’s particularly sunny, being May, the Reactolites are in sociopathic full tilt tint.
I have to let her in. Stopping her from entering would look even worse.
Once in, she starts to “assess” my boy, whilst no doubt making a mental note to contact social services as soon as she leaves.
Her assessment is frankly odd. For one she does not speak directly to me when Indy is in the room, she talks through Indy like he’s some kind of parent medium. She also shouts at Indy the way that ignorant people shout at deaf people or foreigners.
“SO HAS MUM STARTED TOILET TRAINING YET?”
“SO IS MUM THINKING ABOUT ENROLLING YOU IN PLAYGROUP?
I have done none of these things. A cross is indelibly marked somewhere on an official sheet as my failings as a parent are recorded forever.
The most hilarious thing about her is her accent; it’s not just broad Aberdeenshire, which is impenetrable enough. No, the Angel of Death appears to have her own language.
“Aye jist wait, we’ll hae Thunner and Lichhtnin‘” she says by way of small talk about the weather as she arrives.
Lichhtnin‘? How does one get from light to liccchhht via making the sound of a cat bringing up a hairball? This is taking Scottishness too far.
I wonder if she wears tichhts on her legs.
If she goes on holiday, does she go to the Isle of Wicchhht?
Does she wear the Reactolites to compensate for her failing sichht?
Is her favourite Elton John number, Saiturday Niccht’s alricchhht for Ficcchttin’?
To this day, if we hear the faintest rumble of thunder we say,
“Aye jist wait, we’ll hae Thunner and Lichhtnin‘”
The Angel of Death goes on to test Indy’s development on ridiculous things that can’t be part of any recognised programme. She gets some little Thomas the Tank Engines out of her big black bag. She then asks Indy to point out which one is “James” and which one is “Henry” .
Now, we don’t like Thomas the Tank Engine in our house, so Indy knows none of these characters and is unable to identify the line-up of our locomotive Ringo Starr-voiced friends. I demand a recount. But given that I’m in mismatched jammies, reeking of Chardonnay, un-showered, hurriedly shuffling around trying to collect what seems like hundreds of wine glasses with chocolate fudge on my face, I haven’t a leg to stand on.
“We don’t really know the Thomas the Tank Engine characters,” I say, “I couldn’t even tell you the answer to that one!” .
She looks at me blankly and puts another mark down on another official form that probably says something like,
As the years went on I had another child to offer up to her. She would give me advice on breastfeeding, despite her ample bosoms never having seen a hungry baby. She would talk me through childbirth, despite never having possibly even seen a grown man naked, never mind getting pregnant. I am unsure if there is a Mister Angel of Death; I suspect not.
So goodbye Angel of Death, we won’t miss you. But as I sit here, I’d like to think of her on her way right now, to terrorise a family with a new baby, trundling along a street in her Vauxhall Vectra and looking out her windscreen at the skies and weighing up the possibility of “thunner and licchtnin”.
******
Over on the Spontaneous Production blog this week, I’m looking at Little Films That Made it Big. It’s got a podcast attached and everything. Now off you go..shoo! Click here
Don’t ever miss a Misssive, subscribe!
Chronicles of Junior Misssy
Aslan: Always “Happy to Help”All of a sudden I have become acutely aware that my little girl is growing up fast. Little teeth are getting wobbly, she’s finishing nursery and moving on to school and she’s becoming a lot more independent.
The kids and I went to the cinema tonight and my girl showed there was still a lot of baby left in her, though. Jnr Misssy just can’t sit still in the cinema, and within ten minutes of the film starting, I had taken her to the toilet, taken her for a drink, had to retrieve her shoe from the floor of the row in front of us and had to pick up her spilt sweets from all over the floor to the soundtrack of her wailing.
After fifteen minutes she had given up her seat for my lap, as she always does.
She also talked to me throughout the whole film. Normally, I hate it when people talk through a film but tonight, watching Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, I enjoyed Jnrs commentary immensely. This was, in part, because I realised that I’m not going to have too many years left when my daughter wants to sit on my knee whispering to me, with her arms round my neck and her little hands buried in my hair.
The other reason was her commentary was hilarious. If only it could be an extra feature on the DVD of Prince Caspian.
Highlight One: “Where’s Asda?”
“It’s Aslan”
“Where’s Asdan?”…..
Highlight Two: “Who’s that beaver?”
“It’s a mouse”
“Well, it looks like a beaver to me”……
Highlight Three: “Are the bad men good yet, can I open my eyes?”
“I’d give it a minute”…..
Highlight Four: A little centaur with blond hair and a beard walks on screen, he says nothing, just blows a little horn. Junior Misssy absolutely cracks up laughing in an otherwise silent cinema. Really cracks up. The shot changes to something else, then returns to the little centaur and Jnr Misssy cracks up even more.
I’m reviewing Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian on the radio this Saturday…better read some newspaper reviews beforehand so that I can pretend I was paying attention….
(Podcast here)
********
Don’t ever miss a Misssive, subscribe!
Carry on up the Khyber
PROMISE TO ALL: An embargo on this kind of thingwill be in effect from the 9th of July
And then I remembered why I started the Misssives in the first place. It was to record my travels. I wanted to let my friends and family hear all our holiday/travel stories without having to: A: Actually speak to them
I solemnly make this promise to you: whilst in India I will not go all spiritual and hippy trail on you, I will not sit in the Lotus position even once, I will not adopt a brown baby like Madonna or Jolie, and I will most certainly not ever utter the words, “This place is magical”.
B: Be arsed to send postcards
C: Clock up international phone charges
*Finnish cuisine can be summed up by the dish “Egg Butter”. Fact: Egg butter is the reason the Russians or the Nazis didn’t invade Finland.
Meanwhile over on hot new blog (hint hint…) Spontaneous Production, I’m telling people to stay out of the cinema. Click here
Don’t ever miss a Misssive, click here!
The Tearoom Six
Kids are not to be trusted. Never forget that.
The reason I say this is because despite being quite a good girl at school, give me any job which included an element of trust and I would simply blow it. Especially given the presence of a buddy whipping me up.
Some key phrases seem to have had an almost chemical effect on me.
They were:
“Awww, go onnnn…”,
“C’mon Misssy, it’ll be a laugh”
And my all time button pusher,
“I dare ya”
In Primary Seven when I was 11 years old, each week a pair of girls would be on coffee duty for the teachers. Aside from flouting the laws governing equal opportunities in a cavalier fashion, (like, can boys not make a cup of tea?) it was a chance to get away from maths or somesuch bollocks 15 minutes early.
The deal was that two 11 year old pupils would make teas and coffees to order for all the school’s teachers, in the combination staff room/headmistress’s office. It was a quite a small school, so we’re really only talking about nine coffees… tops.
I could burble on about the teachers taking complete advantage of our child labour but really the week you were on “tea and coffee duty” was, in truth, a bloody great week.
At first, the casual vandalism was slight and unimaginative. One of us would maybe spit in the kettle or wipe a bogey in the jacket pocket of a less popular teacher, but pretty soon the whole thing got out of hand. Ahh, the addictive power of hysterical, wet-your-pants laughter.
Now, we never nicked anything, I want to make that much clear. Destruction and slow burning pranks were more our bag. Even when you were not on tea duty, you would wait to hear stories at playtime of the offences committed by your tea-making compatriots. We got away with it for months.
There was one particular teacher we didn’t like, Miss Mathers. Her nickname was “Muggy”, quite why I don’t know, but it suited her. She looked like a hippy with lank henna’d long hair, no bra, (complete with pendulous boobs like a Masai woman) a muslin collar-less shirt and floaty skirt. This outward appearance would lull you into a false sense of security. Outside she was a clean living version Janis Joplin; inside she was a dragon. She kept order in her class by simply screaming in the faces of kids to an extent that their hair would be blown back like in a cartoon.
Still she had never done anything to me, so why did I feel the need to fill her rubber mac pockets up with washing up liquid, when I eventually decided that spitting in them wasn’t going to be enough for me?
Bizarrely (OK predictably) , this was the prank that got us all caught and banned from the “privilege” of doing the teas. Which was sad really, because we’d had a good run.
As the six Primary 7 girls stood before the Headmistress, each not owning up nor ratting on one another (just like in Prisoner Cell Block H, we weren’t no “Laa-aagers”) we felt strangely cheated as the washing up liquid was one of the tamer things we did.
I almost felt like saying, “But we did much worse than that! C’mon! What about the pinhole in the student teacher’s condom that was in his jacket pocket? What about the prank phone calls from the Headmistresses desk? What about dead mouse smuggled in from home that we’ve put in the staff toilet cistern that you’ll only find out about in six months when you finally work out what that stench is??”
Never trust kids. Especially girls.
