Hopeless

It is raining, again.

I understand that living in England fundamentally means that the statistical likelihood of rain is about 99 percent, but even so, this is absolutely ridiculous.

"What's a bit of rain?" you might say, "it's not all bad".

Wrong.

You are very, very wrong.

Because you see, when the rain in England comes calling and you're stuck doing PE (physical education, not that there's anything remotely educational about running around a field) the absolute idiots we like to refer to as the PE teachers decide to move us inside to play wonderful games like dodge ball, running, badminton and gymnastics.

Today it is trampolining.

Just to give you a sense of how dangerous I am on a trampoline, imagine an elephant in five inch high heels balancing on a tight rope.

Even the teachers move away when I get onto the trampoline.

So needless to say, I am not looking forwards to this lesson. I change into my gym clothes slowly, taking extra time to make sure the ridiculously short shorts we are supposed to wear don't ride up and display my underwear to the world (Now that would be a travesty, I'm wearing my hello kitty ones today and people just don't need to see that). Finally, after ten minutes of time wasting, I make my way over to the gym slowly, of course I'm still there far earlier than I'd like to be.

Oh great, the professional gymnasts are up there (well I say that, anyone would look professional compared to me). I wonder if I slip away now, anyone will notice... Too late.

"ANNIE! Come and stand with me!" My best friend, Izzy calls over to me. Begrudgingly I make my way over, grumbling under my breath. "You didn't think you'd get away that easily did you?" She whispers with some vague, slightly stereotypical, evil sounding accent. I just snort back at her and turn my attention to the bouncing person in front of me, he appears to be having some difficulty staying upright on the bed, let alone bouncing on it. At least he's making me feel mildly better about my skills.

"I honestly don't see an every day use for trampolining, when I'm cooking pasta I don't get the sudden urge to do a triple somersault into a front landing." I mutter, eyes trained on the particularly unstable boy in front of me, if he's going to fall I want to move out of the way as quickly as I can.

"It's not like you could do that anyway" Izzy mutters from my side.

"Shut up." I say, shoving her arm so she stumbles into the boy stood next to her. Unfortunately, she is an actual sociable person whereas I am not, she manages to strike up a conversation with him and I'm left alone as she smirks over every few seconds.

Now one thing you never want to be in PE is alone. At any given moment the teacher will call a time out to teach something new and if you look even remotely isolated you'll be the subject of huge embarrassment.

I think you can see where this is going.

Miss Goade, a young, blonde woman who knows next to nothing about basic English, maths and science but is apparently qualified to teach a class full of people who are probably smarter than her, blows her ludicrously loud whistle and waits for all eyes to fall on her.

"Today I'd like to work on forwards somersaults. I'm going to need a volunteer."

Silence. I'll never understand why the gymnasts won't just man up and volunteer when they know damn well they can do anything she throws their way, instead they prefer to throw people like me into the den of lions.

"Annabelle." Miss Goade says as her eyes land on me in all my lonely glory, "Would you like to help me demonstrate?"

There is a moment of silence as all eyes turn to me and I fiddle with a loose thread on my sports shirt. I can't openly tell her no, but I fear that getting up on that trampoline will end much worse.

"I'm um- not really up to that standard yet miss."

"Nonsense you'll be fine, hop on up." She waves away my mumbled protests and pats the mat I'm supposed to climb up on. I can hear a few of my friends laughing as I clamber up onto the surface and I shoot a couple of them a glare. Adam, one of my best friends, just laughs and waves sarcastically at me from where he is stood, they all know how this is going to end.

I'm not really certain whether I'm supposed to stand still or not so I just sort of bounce timidly around the painted cross in the centre of the bed until the teacher turns her attention back to me. She gives me a strange look so I stop my hesitant bouncing and she raises a belt in her hand. Immediately I shout,

"You can't use corporal punishment in a school! I'm sorry for bouncing but please don't hit me with a belt!"

There is a moment of utter silence then a snort erupts from behind me and I see Miss Goade visibly sigh.

"The belt goes around your waist so I can help guide you in the air."

"Oh, sorry." I let out a breathy laugh as giggles ripple through the room, my eyes are still focused on the belt in her hand, corporal punishment or no, either way this will end with me lying on the ground in pain.

Well this is just going splendidly. I'm not usually so completely stupid, but I think the combination of complete apprehension to the task ahead and the distance between me and the floor might be messing up my head a bit.

So reluctantly I allow the teacher to tie the belt tightly around my waist. And quietly, as miss lectures the class on technique and concentration, I panic.

When Miss Goade, or Goadie as I have decided to refer to her from now on (After all, she shouldn't get a nice nickname if she's going to make me try and exercise) turns her back to me, still holding the end of the belt in her hand, to take some questions I make violent gesticulations towards Adam in some wild hope that he will rescue me.

Being the wonderfully supportive friend that he is he just stands there and laughs at my misfortune.

It's official, I will kill him first.

So instead I turn my attention to Izzy who has stopped her flirting to witness my literal downfall, however my violent gesticulations towards her appear to be too violent and I slip on the trampoline bed, pulling Goadie down on top of me.

Oh buggering hell.

As I mentally make plans to move to Mexico and join a convent I apologise profusely and smile weakly at the very angry PE teacher in front of me, her hair is making an attempt to break free from the regimental ponytail she has scraped it back into and I'm pretty sure that the vein protruding from her forehead is anything but healthy.

Scrambling back to my feet, with a huge amount of grace I might add, I hear the seven words that bring my stomach dropping to my feet in terror.

"Shall we get on with the demonstration then?"

Or was that eight words?

Oh well, it really doesn't matter now. I am going to die. If not by trampoline then by humiliation. These shorts are really too short for any normal person to keep their dignity in... and teachers wonder why teenage pregnancy rates are so high. It must be hard for the boys to resist me when I'm almost displaying my shocking pink Hello Kitty knickers to the world.

Oh great Goadie's talking, she's probably beginning the funeral speeches for my dignity. "Here lies Annie's dignity, it was never all that much but it meant a great deal to her..."

Oh wait, she's looking expectant.

"What?" I ask, cringing at the laughter from my peers. "Oh, do you want me to bounce?" I tag on quickly and begin jumping before she can even get another word in. Now I don't know what you might have been told, but it's hard to land in the same place on a piece of stertchy material, especially when there's a muscly, blonde, block of a woman staring up at you in disbelief and blocking the available bed space. So when I fall off it's really not all that much of a surprise, though as a PE teacher, Goadie really should have had the sense to hold onto the belt.

What was a fairly big surpride however, was the fact that I landed in someone's arms.