Primary School Confidential by Woog Read Free Book Online

turn out to be, unless you have the confidence to stand on your own two feet.
    But I wasn’t one of those people! I wanted to belong and was acutely aware of what could happen if you dared question the establishment: social death.
    I would see it happen all the time. The worst thing was to be excluded from someone’s birthday party. Birthday parties were a huge deal, easily the highlight of the Year 5 social scene. Looking back, there is one in particular that stands out.
    Sally Griffin’s slumber party.
    We had spent the afternoon tearing about, dancing to INXS and Michael Jackson, talking about boys, eating crap and watching Back to the Future . When it came time to sleep, well, we were not having a bar of it!
    At 11 pm Mrs Griffin appeared at the door of the rumpus room and pleaded with us to be quiet.
    At 1 am Mrs Griffin returned, and threatened to shut the party down via several urgent phone calls to our parents.
    At 4 am Mr Griffin barged through the door and completely lost his shit.
    The thing about Mr Griffin was that he was Scottish and his accent was thicker than pea soup. The more he yelled, the redder his face got. His tirade went something along the lines of: ‘Listen up, ye wee shits. Ahm gonnae kick yer behinds intae next week unless ye gang tae sleep. Ah hae tae gie up fur wark in tois hoors, ye wee fuckers. Noo jobby th’ buck up.’
    And I swear I heard someone urinate in her pants.
    Sleep came quickly after that for most, but not me. I snuggled into my sleeping bag, too frightened to move. It was only as the sun came up, and I heard Mr Griffin go off to work, that I could finally exhale.
    I remember the next day was very long, and I was very tired and emotional, so much so that Sally Griffin’s was the last slumber party I was allowed to go to for a long time.

    But back to social death. I experienced it for exactly two days in Year 6 and will never forget the dreadful feeling that comes with being on the outer. You see, my friend and I—subject to peer pressure—had choked on a cigarette with a couple of high school boys. When this news travelled back to the playground, we were instant social pariahs. We were BANISHED from the traditional game of handball that was the measure of social standing.
    Our so-called friends decided that if we were to play with them and they should accidentally touch us, they would immediately die from cancer. It was a very upsetting state of affairs, and one that I could not share with my parents for obvious reasons. For two days my friend and I spent recess and lunchtime sitting in the library and reading the rude bits of a Judy Blume book aloud to each other. Then another kid wet her pants (probably the same one who’d wet her pants at Sally Griffin’s slumber party the year before), so we got swapped back in. But we had learnt our lesson: don’t rock the boat.

6
    YOUNG LOVE (OF THE NON-EQUINE KIND)
    I grew up surrounded by horses, as Dad was a bigwig in the racing industry and my Poppa was a famed breeder of the world’s slowest thoroughbreds. A few times I was the recipient of one of the backward runners, which I used to then take to pony club and ride alongside my peers. While they bounced around on their Shetland ponies, I would be galloping around on a horse that was fresh off the track. I won any event that involved speed. Not because my horse was particularly fast, just because it was eleven times the size of the others.
    I recall one summer, a KFC store opened up, causing much excitement because there was a drive-thru. An actual drive-thru! KFC was called by its full name, Kentucky Fried Chicken, back then, because everyone still believed that fried chicken was healthy.
    I was in my swimmers, in the pool, when I had a sudden craving for hot chips. I think I would have been about ten. Thosehot-chip cravings have been around a long time, and remain a part of my life to this day.
    Anyway, I jumped out of the pool, stole a couple of bucks from Mum’s wallet