Primary memories

Frozen in doubt I stared down at the pearly green dollop in my palm, eyes still smarting from chlorine and tears.  What if Miss Pagnamenta hadn’t meant for me to actually leave the lesson and get dressed.  What if she just meant for me to get out of the pool?  What had I done anyway?  I could hear the clip clop of heels and frantically smeared the shampoo down the front of my luminous yellow and black swimsuit hoping to disguise the extent of my mistake. 

I don’t recall what happened next or how I explained myself.  All I remember was that my childhood was full of these minor mortifications.

Another time, already secretly hurt at not yet having been awarded a fountain pen for good handwriting, I had pencilled a story.  A half page of cramped letters, ugly to look at perhaps, but I was proud of the content.  The game was to pretend to rip up your work by making a ripping sound while feigning the action.  Everybody was successful but me.  Skirting the kick of embarrassment I balled and binned my jigsawed work pretending not to care, accepting instead the heavy blow of injustice at not being able to show off my masterpiece.  At break I crept back in to fish out the sacred balls and shoved them into the pockets of my dress, hoping to show my mum at the very least.

‘Lauren,’ came a stern teachery voice.  ‘What are you doing?  Go and stand outside Mrs Timmis’ office until the end of break.’

There I stood, once again atop the bench outside the headmistress’ office, ducking behind the year six coats lest the other teachers found out I was in trouble again.  I comforted myself by thinking that there were worse places to be.  At least I wasn’t stuck playing with magnets in a classroom with the geeks , and the ever damp coats always held a reassuring smell of conkers and rain.

It was another fourteen years before I was diagnosed with ADHD.