‘Hiya, you OK?’
‘Yeah, you feeling OK? Not like you to be chatty.’
‘I know, I think it’s the excitement of this prom thing. Do you think you will go?’
‘Yeah, defo, me and all the lads are going to get a stretch limo like pimps.’
‘You going as a pimp, ha, can I be your ho?’
And yes, that’s exactly how I asked him. I wanted the ground to swallow me up and spit me back out.
‘I don’t mean an actual ho, I just meant a date, that’s not ho’ish in the slightest.’
‘Why not? Aye, I’ll be your prom date.’
Now I was just as surprised as the rest of the year. Part of me did wonder whether it was a dare, like is it going to turn into a scene from Carrie and he’s going to throw pig’s blood and guts on me when we rock up there, but he was actually just a really lovely lad. We started spending more time together in school and he even complimented me on occasion. Now I have never taken compliments very well. Someone will say, ‘Your hair looks lush today,’ and I’m like, ‘Happy birthday’. I never know what to say. But with him it was different. I would tell him Victoria Wood jokes and make observations around the playground. He would tell me all the secrets about the cool PE group and how his mate Greg always wore tracksuit bottoms rather than shorts during football because he couldn’t grow leg hair.
The week before the prom came around quick and because my mam now worked at Burton’s, she helped Seamus get a suit for the prom. His mam came along, and we got a suit and a tie that matched my dress – it was so amazing.
That was the highlight of my time at that school. I don’t think Seamus realised just how much it meant to me. We danced, we drank mocktails, we giggled and then a week or so after prom me and Seamus never really spoke again. Not even a smile on the playground.
Around the same time, the mother of one of the only friends I had at school, Helen Race, decided to open a B&B in the Lake District. So Helen left and I was back to being in isolation and finishing school ten minutes early again. I had lost all interest in studies and I just couldn’t cope with school any more. I would pretend to be poorly constantly so I didn’t have to go in. That’s when my mam and dad sat me down.
‘We have always taught you that running away is not the answer but in this case, Scarlett, it is. Your work is going to suffer; you’re not reading any more like you used to. You don’t even want to go dancing. All you want to do is sit in your bedroom and pretend you’re poorly so you don’t have to go to school. Me and your dad have really thought about this so … how would you feel about moving schools?’
I didn’t know what to say. I thought I’d managed to hide how miserable I was.
‘Why don’t you switch schools, kid? You aren’t happy there,’ my dad said gently.
Even though I had tried to play things down my mam and dad knew. It’s like a superpower that parents have. They have the ability to know when you’re lying, if something’s wrong and also the ability to make carrying very heavy shopping bags look effortless.
So I went for a meeting at my school. I sat down on a black swivel office chair in the headteacher’s office, resisting the temptation to spin round on the chair and ready to pour my heart out. I explained how I just needed to be somewhere I could feel safe so I could concentrate on my studies. I was met with sour faces but I ploughed on. ‘Mrs Wood,’ I said. ‘There’s another school that I want to finish my GCSEs at. Sunnydale in Shildon.’
The reply I got was not what I was expecting. ‘If you go to Sunnydale, it will come to the summer of 2006 and you will end up having no qualifications to your name. It hasn’t got the greatest reputation and it’s too late to be changing schools and subjects when you are about to go into Year 10.’
That response made me more determined than ever. ‘You are not telling me that I won’t get one GCSE. If you want to learn and do well, you will. It doesn’t matter what school you go to!’
I knew if I wanted to achieve anything I had to leave. See, sometimes withdrawing and leaving has nothing to do with being weak, it has everything to do with strength. In the words of Don Quixote author, Cervantes:
‘To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay
is no wise action when there’s more reason to
fear than to hope.’
Chapter Seven
QUARTER LITRE OF VODKA AND A BLUE PANDA POP, PLEASE
One of the first people known to have invented the modern office chair was naturalist Charles Darwin, who put wheels on the chair in his study so he could get to his specimens more quickly.
The record number of fish and chip portions sold in a chip shop in one day is 12,406 at Marini’s in Glasgow, set in 1999.
Vodka is popularly believed to soothe jellyfish stings. It helps disinfect the wound and some say it alleviates the pain – though other studies say it might aggravate it. (I say you should always keep a little bottle handy if you’re by the seaside, just in case.)
So aged fourteen, I was due to go to this new school, Sunnydale, after the six-weeks’ holidays. Now over the summer holiday, puberty hit. And I started to change in other ways too. My mam took me to get my eyebrows waxed, the caps on my teeth looked a lot less like polystyrene, and yes, my tooth was still black but it wasn’t as noticeable. I just felt like everything was finally starting to come along nicely; even my face was starting to look more symmetrical which was something I was always conscious of because of the Bell’s palsy. I just all of a sudden wasn’t as ugly as I had been. I’m not saying I was a stunner or anything but I felt so much more confident in my own skin. I went to this new school and I just thought, right, be the dancer version of you, Scarlett, be confident.
I have to add, the school has since closed down (due to a few bad Ofsted reports) but honestly these were the happiest two years of my teenage life. Yes, it was a bit rough; yes, its nickname was Scummy Jail; yes, it didn’t have the best facilities, but I didn’t care. And why didn’t I care? Because everybody was nice. I had friends. The teachers were encouraging.
The other really mint aspect of the new school was that you could go out for your dinner, which you couldn’t at the other school. We’d go to Beedle’s Chip Shop and get a free bag of scraps and half a bag of chips, which cost 50p. How I wasn’t fat in school, I don’t know! I literally would just eat that and then on the way home, because the shop was right next to the bus stop, I would get another bag of chips. Or I’d say, ‘Have you got any of the fish ends?’ And you’d get a bag of fish ends for £1.50. And then I’d go home and say, ‘Oh, what’s for tea, Mam?’
The only problem was that the new school was miles away. I had to get a bus at seven in the morning to a place called Shildon. It was where I went to my old primary school, but we moved after then. It was a bit of a ballache, if I’m honest.
But, even though I had to get up so early to get on the bus to the new school, it was worth it. And my old friend Rosie – who I used to eat pancakes with every Friday – was there. So I already had a friend, and I soon made friends with her group. To be honest I just got on with everyone in my classes. We would sit on the green during breaks and chat about Sabrina the Teenage Witch, who we fancied in class (everyone liked Gillan, the school player) and me and Rosie chatted about old times, making the rest of the group giggle.
‘Remember that time we Sellotaped each other into cardboard boxes and fed each other digestive biscuits covered in butter through the holes?’
But we did also have the kind of sensible and meaningful conversations that you have when you’re fifteen years old in the year 2005.
‘Would you rather go on a date with Duncan from Blue if he had arms for legs and legs for arms, or if he had eyes for nipples and nipples for eyes so he had to wear really low-cut vests everywhere so he could see?’
‘Would you rather be stuck in a room for a full seventy-two hours with Peter Kay’s ‘Is This the Way to Amarillo?’ on repeat or Black Lace’s ‘Agadoo’.
Now I must adm
it I did slightly alter the real Scarlett while I was at Sunnydale. Only a little, though, and it was just because everyone at that school was a bit chavvy (in a good way) and I wanted to fit in. I said to my mam, ‘I need to stop wearing cowboy boots and skinny jeans. I definitely need to stop wearing tops with lots of sequins and unicorns on, as no one else is wearing them. I need to get some “chavvy” clothes.’
So we went out into Darlington town and bought me a new wardrobe. My mam must have spent a fortune, bless her, on loads of Fred Perry hoodies and Nike Air Maxes; I even got some pink Timberlands and loopy earrings. My mam just wanted me to fit in too. I got a pretend gold chain and started going to raves called Power House and listening to MCing.
‘PC Liddle, policeman on the fiddle, sold all his drugs to the man in the middle, who put it on a plane, Newcastle Airport, picked up by a dealer in a light blue Escort.’
‘Scarlett, seriously, do you have to have that music so loud? Anyone going past the house will think you’ve got a bloody ASBO singing along to that shite.’
‘Mam, man, it’s not singing, it’s MCing, this is a classic.’
‘It’s classically shite.’
‘It’s MC Scotty J. This is real-life stuff, it’s what kids are going through these days.’
‘Right, you tell me who do you know who has even been to Newcastle Airport let alone sold drugs and drove away in a frikkin’ Ford Escort?’
She had a point and it was just a phase. I forced myself to fit in. All the while, I was like, this is not me at all, but for once I thought, well, I can still be me listening to shite music and be dressed in this attire. It just meant I didn’t stand out as much as the fifteen-year-old who was wearing cowboy boots, watching Red Dwarf and listening to Wham! Fitting in is really important. It’s everything when you’re a teenager.
I also turned into a little bit of a rebel at school. Well, I never really got in that much trouble (only for chatting or asking way too many questions) but I did wear trainers for school. I’d wear my Clarks shoes to go out the house but then put them in my bag once I got on the bus. That was me being a rebel. If the teacher noticed they’d give you a big yellow sticker and put it on your jumper. The yellow sticker meant that you were wearing incorrect uniform.
‘Come on, Scarlett, trainers again.’
And I’d be like, ‘I can’t wear normal shoes, my tendons are shorter than an average person’s. Trainers help me, Miss – you don’t want me to walk around school in pain all day, do you?’
It was stupid because the teachers thought it made you look silly wearing a big yellow sticker, but actually it was a badge of honour. You were walking around and you’d see another yellow sticker and you’d be like, ‘Yeah, a fellow rebel!’ I think it did the opposite to making you look stupid, because all the cool kids wore yellow stickers. It was almost like we were in a gang.
Now I was never cool enough to be in the smoking crew. (I’ve never actually tried a cigarette, as my dad drummed it into my head that they’re poisonous. When my mam used to smoke we would snap some of her fags in half and put them back in the packet, or we would write little messages on them like ‘cancer stick’, ‘don’t do it, Mam’ or ‘ashtray breath’, much to her annoyance when she would dish out her fags on a night out with all these obscene messages on – although it obviously worked as she hasn’t smoked in over ten years.) However, now apparently I was cool enough to get invited to drink down the rec.
‘My sister’s boyfriend said he can get us some booze from the corner shop on Friday night. We’re gonna get a few bottles of Lambrini and vodka if you’re up for it,’ a girl from my English class said.
‘Erm, how many people are going to be there? Will we not get caught out?’
‘No, Scarlett, honestly it’s fine, plus everyone will be there. Just bring three quid in tomorrow so I can give him the money to buy the booze. We’re all chipping in.’
I handed her over five quid there and then and she gave me the two-pound change she was going to use for her dinner. I felt slightly anxious as I had never drank before but equally excited that I’d been invited to the rec on a Friday night.
My alarm went off on the Friday morning. ‘Good morning, good morning, Scarletto,’ my mam greeted me. ‘Toast and peanut butter or Coco Pops?’
‘Coco Pops please, Mam.’ Every spoonful of cereal was harder to swallow as I knew what was about to come out of my mouth was lies. My brain started going crazy. What if she can tell I’m lying? What happens if she finds out what I’m really up to? What happens if she grounds me, stops me from going dancing? What happens if she never talks to me again?
‘Mam, is it OK if I stop at Rosie’s tonight? I know it’s last minute but her dad said we can get a takeaway and watch the new Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, he’s got it on copy.’ Technically I was going to be doing some wizarding skills myself; I was going to do a disappearance spell. ‘Evanesco’ and the quarter-litre of vodka has gone.
‘Yeah, of course it is OK, just give me a bit of notice next time – you could have told me last night. Make sure you take your phone so I can get in touch with you. Shove some pyjamas and that in your PE bag.’
‘I will. Have a good day at work, Mam, love ya.’
All day we passed notes around the class about the ‘wrecky’ (definition: cross between getting wrecked from alcohol whilst sitting in a rec). We were buzzing. This was my first ever time having a drink (apart from that pina colada I had when I was nine that my grandad bought me). Me and Rosie organised to go to Libby’s house to get ready beforehand and Rosie brought over some Lambrini she had stored in her bedroom that her sister had left over from the previous week. Now, note to self: if there is one thing I’ve learnt from this experience it is DO NOT drink Lambrini that has been sat in a warm bedroom with no cap on for a week. Normally I love a little glass of Lambrini but room temperature and flat as a fart, it’s not good.
‘I’m going to get so drunk I won’t even remember my own name, me.’ Libby was known for always slightly exaggerating. We walked down to the rec wearing our light blue skinny jeans and me with my black pleather fringed jacket. I was ready to sit on a swing, listen to some MCing through a speaker and enjoy my first alcoholic experience.
Turns out my £3 not only got me a quarter bottle of vodka but an added bonus of a blueberry Panda Pop to mix it with.
‘Down half of the vodka so you can put the mixer in the bottle, Scarlett,’ said one of the girls. Before I had a chance to say no, peer pressure kicked in and six others had joined in with the chanting.
‘We like to drink with Scarlett coz Scarlett is our mate, and when we drink with Scarlett she downs her drink in: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five …’
Half of the bottle was gone. Why the fuck do adults do this every weekend, I thought. My breath smelt like the ethanol we used in science class. My throat and insides were on fire and that £3 could have bought me two bags of fish bites from the chippy.
As the night went on and everyone had played the usual Truth or Dare, which involved telling the whole group who you fancied, necking on with someone or making a dodgy phone call to the local pizza shop, I started to feel seriously sick. I remember the sudden numb feeling of not being able to control my own body. I felt like my legs were made of jelly and I was trying to walk on a waterbed. However, I also suddenly had a boost in confidence and started running round the rec like a demented spider monkey, hanging from the bars and shooting down the slide. I even threw a chip at Chelsea Lowland’s head (something you just do not do).
Then the word-vomit started. I was telling my friends things that I was only going to regret in the morning. ‘I know you fancy Dylan, mate, but to be honest he told me he just does not like you at all. Seriously, you’re wasting your time. He said he would rather get with Mrs Coleman than you and she wears jumpers that have pictures of wolves on them.’
Then the actual vomit started, all over my white Nike Air Maxes. I called the house phone, begging my mam to pick me u
p. ‘It’s not ya mam, it’s ya dad,’ said the voice at the other end of the line. ‘She’s already on her way and will be there in two minutes.’
‘How though, is she in a rocket, is she Mystic Meg? How did she know to come?’
‘Because she’s your mam and someone spotted you running around being a little idiot pissed as a fart in Shildon Park.’
When my mam arrived she didn’t speak to me for the whole car journey back. Instead I got home and drank lots of water while they finished their Chinese takeaway (the smell of which didn’t help my current condition: rat-arsed-itis). I spent the whole night throwing up in a washing-up bowl and crying. I was ill for the whole weekend. Not saying it put me off but I didn’t drink again until I was eighteen. I still went down the rec but I just drank the Panda Pop mixer minus the vodka.
I loved everything I learnt at Sunnydale. Including not drinking week-old warm alcohol, the skill of boning a corset in Textiles and of course how to MC. Now I understand that to some it might have looked like I was running away from the bullies and giving them what they wanted when I decided to change schools. I remember fearing that I had actually let them win. But the day I got my GCSE results was the day I knew I had beat the bullies. Not with violence or name-calling, but by being happy and succeeding. I ended up getting the second-highest grades for GCSEs in the whole school. I got fourteen GCSEs in total; yep, I took extra ones on just to prove a point. I got four A*s, and the rest were As, Bs and Cs (except maths which I had to redo three times at college before I got a C – but we won’t get into that).
See, I actually learnt a lot from my bullies. I learnt to grow a thicker skin. I learnt that words hurt so to try to always be kind, because blowing out someone else’s candles doesn’t make yours shine any brighter.
Me Life Story Page 7
