The Free Spirit

The Manifestation of the Black Smoke; 1975 (Part Two)

"It's not time to make a change. Just sit down, take it slowly. You're still young, that's your fault. There's so much you have to go through..."

To say the second half of the year 1975 was one of the most challenging periods of time in our lives is an understatement. It started out seemingly innocent. The kids went back to school, and Marley started kindergarten, which meant that the last of our children was finally starting school just as the first was about to end it. "So how'd you like school? Hated it, didn't you?" Maggie, who'd started grade five, asked her little sister.

"I loved it! Miss Walker taught us about turtles today!" Marley exclaimed excitedly, and Maggie groaned.

"Am I the only one with any sense around here?" she asked.

"No, you're simply the only one that hates school," I told my daughter. "And there'll be no tacks on the teacher's chair this year, all right?"

"She deserved it," Maggie replied.

"Margaret..."

"Fine, there will be no tacks on the teacher's chair this year," Maggie said with a sigh. There wouldn't be any tacks on the teacher's chair, but there would be superglue on the teacher's stapler. And his pen. And an apple on his desk. "You said no tacks. You didn't say anything about superglue," Maggie had told us. The first week of school had also brought us some rather shocking news.

"I'm graduating a year early, and I'm going to move to London and try to start a band with Tony Lewis and some mates," Elton had told us. Don and I were seated at the dining room table, I had been doing homework for one of my own classes and Don was reading a book, and we both glanced up at him with expressions of surprise on our faces.

"You're doing what now?" Don asked him after a moment of silence.

"Graduating a year early, moving to London, starting a band," Elton repeated.

"Elton... You're sixteen years old, you can't afford that!" Don exclaimed.

"Sixteen is considered an adult in England," Elton replied. "Isn't it, Mum?" Don turned his attention to me.

"Not exactly, Elton... That's just when you leave school," I replied.

"But most people my age go off and live on their own, don't they?" he asked again.

"I don't know what kids your age are doing now, Elton. I only know what they were doing twenty years ago because that's what I was doing twenty years ago," I told him. "You couldn't get married without parental consent until you were twenty-one even back then, and the legal adult age is still eighteen."

"But you were out being independent at sixteen! You were a midwife by that point!"

"I was training to be a midwife. I didn't actually pass my exams until the following year," I replied. "Also, I was a lot more mature than you are now, not to say that you aren't. I had to grow up very quickly when I was a child."

"I can do this, Mum. I really can."

"I believe you, but do you really think this is the right decision, Elton? Finishing high school early?"

"What difference does a year make?"

"Well, what about all your friends?" Don asked him.

"What, you mean the ones I've known for a year? Who call me a snob and think I'm an entitled brat simply because of my accent? I don't have any American friends, Dad. We've changed schools so much that I've barely had time to make friends and keep them," Elton replied.