CHAPTER FIVE

A while after, one of my mother's relatives passed away. I didn't personally know her per se, to me she was just the lonely old woman who lived in a unfinished house not too far away from my grandmother. Her daughter lived in the city with her new family so the house was just going to stay there and fall apart, until my mother apparently told her a sob story and she basically loaned us the house. No documentation, over seeing of a lawyer or even a blood pact, nothing. Just a verbal agreement between a crazy person and a so called 'police officer'. Things were really good after that, granted, my mother and I weren't speaking because she apparently just caught her second wind and was living it up, while she left me to oversee her demon spawn (little brother). I took to my school work like a good nerd, which didn't last long because the boys were way much better than the ones I had to deal with in the city. The innocence of a child is a thing to behold when you are a child yourself. City children and Country children were worlds apart, in the city if you had you had, if you didn't have well tough luck. In the country people shared and children had different varieties of games everyone could play, there wasn't a prison yard mentality I had so gotten used to in the city with the kids.

My mother was always the good little housewife, so basic necessities weren't a problem for us, but what she lacked the most was interest. She never looked to us, well me, with the interest of a mother, with pride that she gave birth to such lovely creatures. I always got a weird smile and pat on the back from her when people asked about my red skin, my all round cuteness and my lack of social skills with the other kids. I said they were nice but some of them were just downright confused about life in general.

I started the new primary school, Indian Walk Government, after we got settled and that didn't begin without a hitch either. I was suppose to start in standard one but the principal said I had to repeat second year because my mother didn't bring any documentation for us when she dramatically left my father. I mean if I didn't have any papers what the fuck was repeating a grade going to do? I was outraged but then again no one gives a shit about the opinion of a seven year old midget. What sent my anger to new heights was when I was introduced to my new classmates and teacher. In the city my class had close to 40 kids and the kindest teachers ever, in the country bumpkin school I was forced to go to there was a total of 11 children in that class, including me, they were all 'unique' and the teacher was clinically INSANE. She would write on the board, ask if we got it and then erase it when she clearly knew we didn't get it. She also slept most of the time, like her night life as a villain was catching up with her. What amazed me was how comfortable she always made herself at the desk.

Certain kids stuck to me that day because of their weird quirks, ANITA - her two front teeth were so far apart in was hella distracting when conversing, JUDE - everyday his father was summoned to the school because he always wrote straight across the copy book pages, -KYLE - palest dude I had ever met and had hair like a girl, all curly and long, the prison bitch in me wanted to do terrible things to him, one day I snapped and actually drew blood. That sounds bad I just pinched him too hard. DIANA - geez, chick made you want to jump of a building just to stop hearing her talk, OTIS - he was my second friend I made there and was like my voice of reason. At one point he was also my safe space when my mother was having one of her episodes, I would hide out at his house and his mother didn't even bat an eye when she saw us in the gallery drawing Pokemon at 7 at night. He was kind and gentle and to me was going to break some hearts when he got older. I thought shit like that. And then there was STEVE. For some reason I didn't take to him at all when we first met, mostly because the first thing out of my mouth was "Lord yuh head huge." He was like the opposite of me, where I was extreme he was mild, where I was loud he was quiet and where I lacked in school work he made up for it and there is where I figured out why I hated his guts. In my old primary school work wasn't a challenge because there wasn't any challengers, but in the country school I was struggling to retain third place and that was killing me. So in bully like fashion, our days were filled with insults and rough housing. Over time I grew to love that school, there was a certain level of freedom I wasn't allowed to experience before so I dove head first into it. Every day I looked forward to where my recesses and lunch times would take me. Second year provided me the time to people watch and suss out who was going to be my new friends and who my enemies, standard one I had a boyfriend who loved himself more than everyone else in the world because he had money, looked like a laughing Pinocchio all the time. That's probably why I liked him.

At one point I realized he was an idiot of epic proportions when I convinced him that I would like him even more if he got up and peed through the window while class is going on. He did but lets just say that interest fizzled out fast. Standard two was more mild per se. I had a friend who I thought was my best friend but what is friendship when you are spineless. We did everything together, told each other all our secrets, well not all I didn't exactly tell her how horrible my family was and where those marks on my skin came from. She knew I was a tomboy so I can see in her eyes she thought I got them from fighting with my brothers so I left it at that. My standard three journey didn't last long because the school was finally deemed as unsafe so everyone was relocated to other nearby primary schools. Our parting was filled with reminiscing and hugs because no one knew where they were going to end up. I didn't mind, I had gotten used to being uprooted, what got to me though was saying bye to someone who lived down the street to me. It took a complete stranger to point out to me a little later was that I liked him, I was a little offended at first because being the girl that I was, I was brainwashed by Disney into thinking that love at first sight was something that applied in real life. With the lingering stare, halo lighting and fast beating heart being the indicator that love is blooming here. So I only acknowledged it when we were to be separated, he could have been my 2nd future husband.

The only two schools that were available to receive us was an Anglican school far away and a Baptiste school close by. Being as I'm not the type of person to have a normal fucking life, my mother decided that sending me to a school far away was the best thing for my sleep pattern and sanity in getting home after school. So I began Standard three as a student of Fifth Company Anglican Primary School. It was hard, when I say hard I mean just sitting and asking yourself 'why do humans exist' hard.

But like a good little soldier, I trekked on through. Confronted my bullies, licked my wounds, fucked with some kids heads, made friends with the librarian and found my new crush. There he was, sitting in a class for the standard five kids separated from my class by a black board and a very annoying teacher. I don't think I learned anything in the three weeks I was there after the move, he was a very good distraction for me because the kids there were miles different from the ones at Indian Walk. The two memories I have of that place that has stuck with me for years is of first getting basically threatened into teaching the ABC's to a girl who got held back 3 times in that class. It was pure torture, the teacher made me do it only because I was new and she was a vindictive bitch but the girl was even worse. She had the attention span of a politician and a sister who made police 'shake downs' look tame. She made her mission to mess with me when I basically called her sister a waste of sperm. I know, not a good look but you have to understand I was young and I thought that my time could have been in more use playing hopscotch or rounders or just following my beautiful 3rd future husband around. So I gave her what she wanted, my ass on a platter to kick. I took my beating like a 10 year old girl and kept on walking, all the way home to get more licks because I dirtied my school uniform. Things were quiet after that, people avoided me, teachers were concerned I would bring my 'criminal father' to burn the place down or something, some bullshit my grandmother kept going around saying.

The second thing that place has stained my soul with was an act that no one should be forgiven for. There was a boy who was already marked as one of those who had a destiny, to be locked up before 25. Menace was too kind a word for that creature, he loved messing with people physically as much as I liked messing with people emotionally and like the beacon of misfortune I am, he zeroed in on me and I didn't even know it. The school's feeding program is something that is lacking in this country on many fronts, especially how anyone has access to the food and can do many things to it before it is consumed. At the time they placed the lunches on the children's desk instead of letting them line up and receive it themselves so are times kids play pranks on one another but this slime ball took it to another level. I had gotten up to go to the washroom and when I came back everyone was quiet and just milling about. I should have taken that as an indicator that something was afoot but I chose to ignore it because things was so quiet lately and it made me relaxed. So three bites into my sandwich he appears in from of me and sits on my desk, I leaned away since he always smelled like dried spit and that seemed to make him even more giddy.
"You know, I spit in that."
That one statement made me vomit for hours, the teachers did nothing when I told them, their solution was to send my hysterical ass home. I didn't eat anything that wasn't made in front of me for weeks, that meant I didn't eat anything until I got home on evenings at five. It got so bad that I was to the point of becoming anorexic. I can't remember how I broke the habit but somehow I did. Good news is that I'm pretty sure he was in juvie when I graduated standard 5. Probably dead by now.