Front Line

Front Line - Chapter 11 - Year 9

Front Line

Chapter Eleven – Year 9

  This year just like the rest was ever a mystery as the universe itself, no one ever knew what was coming despite the past year’s experiences. I was still in the same class, the same room, and the same people. Nothing had changed. Well there was one thing. I had changed the way I look, no more ‘wear what mum gives you’, I was trying to get into what ‘what my parents could afford that we could both agree on’ sort of thing. My uniform was the same but this was the first year that my trousers had pockets, I could put my phone in them and I felt so important for something so normal to so many.

  We were all prepped on what this year would bring for us in the usual speech the headmaster gives as well as the head of year, our head of year was called Mr May. He was the type that would try and be funny despite not having a humorous bone in his body, he tried his best as he knew he was the type of person that would people would like or not like. Personally I liked him, for the most part. He would often help me out, when it was convenient for him, otherwise we would have to complain and complain until something was finally done, often when the issue was way out of hand or solved completely.

  Around two or so months into the year, I was with the same set of friends I had managed to gather in the previous year. Despite being few in numbers, we were a happy bunch of sorts. I was still with David, after telling us all something very important the last year, we accepted who he was for what he was where many others didn’t. He and the rest of us fit in mainly because we were the ones that no one wanted to be friends with, there was either something ‘wrong’ with us, or we were just too ‘weird’ and ‘freaky’ for anyone to associate with. This was actually perfect for us, we didn’t need the sorts of people that considered themselves ‘perfect’, ‘normal’ or even ‘flawless’, we had each other to support and care for.

  Our year around four months into the eleven month school year, was turned completely upside down. We were due to take the annual SATs that every year nine student would take. Around two weeks away from starting them, we were immediately told that there would be no more SATs from that point on, ever. Naturally every single one of us was relieved that there would be no pressuring exams, back then they felt that way, looking back on it now they would have been a walk in the park. In a way, I was a little disappointed. Even though I hated exams, if I had just focused on my studies and just did the exams, I would probably be more relaxed when it came to them later on.

  Not only did we have our SATs cancelled that year, we were previously given permission to have school lockers, this year they would come into effect. Of course when you’re in school like when you’re at home, you naturally ask every five minutes about something new that would be coming in the near future, which is what we did. It almost felt like every day that we asked about it, until one day, we got our answer. There was about one week or so before they were due to be installed, when one stupid act from a student in our year, got it cancelled. One of the students in my English class had pushed a filing cabinet up against the door when the teacher had gone out the room. This teacher wasn’t one who when something like that happened, would simply look the other way after it being put right, she didn’t have a particularly good temper/persona even on a good day. She flew off the handle, fair enough in her defence, it was a hazard as around that time of the year the predictable fire drill was due. It was a shame this one act ruined something our year had been waiting for since the beginning of year eight, it ruined it for those of us who were actually well behaved students.

  Since then, the year went downhill for the most part. From the last year’s events in the library with that girl, my confidence had plummeted dramatically. I was afraid to walk home alone in case something like that happened again, I showered every day from comments about my greasy hair, and I asked my dad if he could pick me up and drop me home. I didn’t even do anything with my friends outside of school in fear that something would happen, and that I wouldn’t have anyone around to help me if someone was better with words than me, or stronger with their arms. I missed out on so much time with my friends because of my cowardliness, and being bullied by countless girls in my year as well as a select few boys, didn’t help any further.

  One day as I was going in to school, between the student entrances of two blocks, I fell over. I was and still am very clumsy, I caught my shoe on the raised slab and fell flat on my face hurting my palms in the process, trying to lessen the foreshadowing injuries from the fall. Not only did I manage to hurt myself, I managed to earn a phrase that would stick with me for the next couple of years to come. There was a boy in my year, I can’t quite remember his name, he stood talking to a friend of his and I had decided to start standing up for myself, it didn’t end well. I had stood up and simply told him, “It’s not funny you know”, as he was laughing at my simple misfortune at falling over. Ever since that day, for the rest of that year, whenever he saw me he would say the same phrase back to me. It made my life a misery as I dreaded going into school, simply because he would be there, and I would avoid him.

  Thankfully, this all came to an end one day oddly enough in Tesco. I was with my father as we were shopping funnily enough, for school shoes, and I spotted the same boy who was bullying me. The boy was no slim fella, he could dwarf a giant, but I pointed him out to my father and he told me to stay where I was. I could see he was heading in the direction the boy did, now dreading pointing him out to my father in case I would get the aftermath back in school where I wasn’t protected. He came back no more than ten minutes later, a huge grin on his face. Naturally I asked him what he did and once in the car, he told me. I was laughing uncontrollably as he had scared the living daylights out of the boy, only with words, but that did the trick.

  For the rest of that year he would not say the phrase, but he did continue to bully me in new ways. Occasionally throwing the phrase in now and then, but as time passed I learned to ignore people like him, they only did that to shy people like myself back then that could not defend themselves. Once I had learned and plucked up enough courage to defend myself, I looked to summer time and the next year ahead with new confidence, knowing that if I carried on trying to look and keep my head up, I could do anything.