Daisy

Today, everything was going to be fine.

I was going to be on top of things.

The sun was going to shine and nothing was going to stop the day from being a success.

That is always my attitude.

Every morning I wake up and think the same thing.

Think positive Daisy, the day is but young.

I really believe I’m going to be a winner.

So I lie there and I think of how good everything is going to be and I get all psyched up about it…

Then I get out of bed.

My feet hit the floor and it all starts.

First there’s the feeling of overwhelming nausea.

I stagger under the weight of the urge to rush to the toilet and let it all out.  Then I realise it’s like that every morning and to get over it.

Then once over that there’s the prospect of mum and breakfast.

The never-ending cheeriness that is my mother.

She’s a perennial optimist who despite my protests puts before me cereal, bacon and eggs.

Thankfully she doesn’t put them all on the one plate for that would be an invitation to a disaster we both don’t want to anticipate.

So the ritual begins: ‘eat what you can dear’, ‘got to get the day off to a good start now don’t we?’

If I get half the cereal down she thinks that great.

If I get some of the bacon and egg off my plate then she’s ecstatic.

Then there’s the morning routine of me getting myself ready to get to school.

The pain I feel thinking about my teachers.  Their expectation that I have done my homework.

As if. I do have a life.

Our school uniform is equally as soul destroying as is the idea of spending part of my day in the company of my classmates.

We wear the most uncool uniform in the history of school uniforms.

I am sure the person who designed it tried to create a uniform that would out last all previous efforts at creating to ultimate abhorrent uniform.

Our uniform is a bright pink pinafore. We have a school emblem in the centre of our chests that makes us look like we have a built in headlight.

As a result we are classed as drop kicks who have no taste and no sense of dress.

It is no wonder we are called the Fairy Flosses.

So with that prospect ahead of me it is little wonder, me, like most of the kids at my school try a thousand and one ways of not going to school.

Sandra Gibson comes every second day with no uniform at all, insisting that her mother is washing it because she has spilt chocolate milk down the front of it.

Sandra spills a lot of milk.

Me, I wear it, I cop the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune from the kids at the public school but hey it’s only for a short time. I reckon public school kids are the reason for McDonald’s success. You know the idea that everything is for a short time. It’s the basis of their day-to-day lives.

McDonalds really hit on a winner with that slogan.

Anyway this morning we have a maths test and Mr Garhen our Year master and maths teacher has promised us a ‘dousy’ of a test, as he likes to put it.

He gave us all this homework to do last night reckoned if we did it the test would be a breeze.

Mr Garhen has a way of understating the simplest of things.

There is no such thing as an easy or for that matter, manageable test in any subject.

Not for me anyway.

I’m what you call a struggler.

I struggle to get out of bed, struggle to get to school, struggle to be interested in anything to do with school; you name it I struggle with it.

It probably has a lot to do with the non-amount of work I do on a day-to-day basis.

Life is too short I think to be caught up in the requirements of maths test or any tests for that matter.

I have a life after school.

I mean there’s Face book.

It’s an all-embracing activity just keeping up with the 4000 friends I have.

On top of that there are the people who write to me.

I have my own counselling service.

It’s innovative I know.

I have 23 clients at the moment.

They are from all over the world.

There’s Oshin from Japan who is having no end of trouble with her parents because she went out and got her hair permed. I say to her, Oshin I say, just do it, what can they do to stop you; they are hardly likely to shave your head now are they.

The last word from Oshin was her fear her parents were sending her to boarding school. Parents can be so cruel you know.

There’s Pedro from Madrid, Penny from Scotland and Mohammed from Turkey.

One of my favourites is Karolis from Vilnius in Lithuania. Yeah I do get around. He’s been in trouble with his mum because he and his mates had a bit of a party after school one day, you know, turned up the music and generally had a good time. Next thing he knows there’s cops at the door, seems the neighbours have complained about the noise. Well I ask you!  Karolis I said, its just music, you can’t help it if you have neighbours with zero musical taste.

His mum, who most of the time is just lovely, so Karolis says, just went off. It seems Mum is going to cop a fine over the whole affair and has told Karolis he will be scrubbing floors for the rest of his life to pay it off.

 

Everyday is an adventure for me. I give advice which some kids take on, others tell me I’ve no idea and to get the hell out of their lives.

Once I’m finished with Face book, you know updating my status and all that, there’s the obligatory phone call to my best friend Marcy.

Marcy and I have been friends since… whenever and not a day goes past that we don’t speak.

Being on the phone is a cathartic experience for me. It gives me a sense of reality. You know those times when a good friend can give you the reality check you need. Marcy does that for me.

Marcy reckons that school is just a conspiracy to keep us off the streets.

Marcy’s view of the world and of good works is a bit warped. She thinks there is a communist conspiracy to take over the world, firstly by taking over our school.  She thinks there are communists everywhere. The canteen ladies she is adamant are all part of an international communist gang infiltrating our school. Soon she says we will all be eating kransky sandwiches. Marcy believes vegemite is a communist ploy to lull us all into a false sense of security.

It is all a bit odd as the fear of communism did die out during the nineties.

But Marcy says the past is there for a reason and it could all happen again.

She thinks when it does she will be at an advantage and will be important to the resistance because she will be the first to spot the signs.

Marcy is at her psychologist today, it’s her weekly appointment and it’s only making her worse not better. Marcy thinks her doctor is the reincarnation of Stalin.

Despite all this Marcy is an ok person.

She’s just a bit odd.

So I’d better get myself together and get to the bus.

That’s another bone of contention for me.

The bus.

The lack of seats.

The year 7 kids from the state school, some of whom have two heads I am sure. They sit or rather lounge on the seats and shout at each other all the way to school.

It’s disgusting what they talk about.

They are all so disturbed.

I mean it is all One Direction this and One Direction that.

Marcy is always giving them her Dr’s business card but they chuck them out the window.

We think they are more disturbed than she is.

So today I will take my weapon of mass destruction on the bus.

My copy of Emma.

Jane Austen really does in the heads of the public school kids.

That it is a book is a challenge, as I don’t think most of them can read.

Reading Emma in full view of the illiterate is really messing with their minds.

Marcy when the going gets tough will launch into a discussion of the virtues of Austen. If she had a soapbox she’d be standing on it in the aisle of the bus.

Needless to say it’s a right battle zone all the way to school. We get off first, which is always a welcome relief.

Then of course there’s the battle of the day beginning with roll call and Mr O’Dwyer asking me why I am not in uniform.

But I am I say.

He says your shoes are not regulation

I say but they are enclosed

He says blue is not the school shoe colour

I say what does it matter?

He says it matters because I will be on detention for it

I say, so?

He says all week.

Then I shut up and suffer in my mind because Marcy has been sitting there beside me with a red cardi on and not a word has been said to her.

Marcy sympathisers and says she will come to detention with me.

I like Marcy.

The rest of my day goes in a similar way.

There are confrontations in every class; I think every teacher sees me as a threat.

The Principal called me in one day and said Daisy, my dear girl, have you ever considered that maybe the All Righteous Girls Grammar School is not the place for you?

I say I’m not sure there is any place for me.

On hearing this she rings the school counsellor, a lovely lady called Helen who sits me down and plans out the next day’s lessons and survival plan for the next day.

I live in a state of perpetual rotation.

Every day the same things land on my plate.

As I said I do start with the best of intentions but where the mind is willing the flesh is weak.

It’s lunchtime soon, I could die for a sausage roll.