by Emlyn Hall
(straight after my last GCSE) and I have no intention of being a fat and pathetically white vast slug on the beach!
When we left the pool we walked past a group of kids from my school sitting on the wall. They were smoking, drinking and swearing very loud on purpose (supposed to be cool I think). The ringleader was Todd Phillips, he is quite a nasty piece of work and is in my year at school (not that he is ever there!). He joined our school last October from Worthing College after being expelled for hitting a teacher – nice kid. I have never heard of anyone being called Todd in this country before, a bit of an American name if you ask me. All he has done at my school is cause misery and hassle wherever he goes, everyone hates him and everyone is afraid of him. As Martin and I walked past he unfortunately noticed and started to hurl abuse our way. “Check out these fucking bum boys! You been swimming together, you gay fucks? I’m talking to you, Oi! Fucking don’t make me smack you.” His mates all laughed and egged him on. As you can tell, dear diary, he really does have a way with words, particularly those beginning with F. He is only happy, it seems, when he is trying to intimidate others.
Obviously we did our best to ignore him and quickened our pace to get away from the nutter (trying not to look like we were). He must have been too pissed or stoned to have been that offended by us, as all we received was a final torrent of abuse from him: “Off home to bum? You pair of twats, wait ’til I catch up with you on Monday!” We will wait until you sober up, you fucking idiot!
We weren’t really that shaken up by him, just a bit annoyed by the fact that he reminded us that we were back at school again on Monday, gutted. I like to feel I can look after myself when it comes down to it. I do karate, I’m reasonably fit and quite fast when I need to be, but let’s face it, he is a nutter and I really would rather not have to fight him. There is a realistic chance that he carries a knife and could well be stupid enough to go and use it. If I’m honest, I do feel very uneasy around him, he is quite unpredictable.
Saturday, January 7th
I was rudely awoken this morning by my dad who was furious that his paper had not arrived. I have no idea why he can’t go down to the newsagents himself in his car. I am turning into a bit of a slave in this house. It was bloody cold and pissing down too.
The one benefit of being up at 8:30 on a Saturday is that I get to opt out of my mother’s ‘fry-ups’ by quickly filling myself up with toast.
Spent most of today reading Red Dwarf before being literally dragged to my nan’s at 5:00pm. I love my nan, but she really does smell, and her tea is how I imagine that Satan’s piss would taste. For a start, she makes it with sterilised milk and secondly she uses leaf tea. I think these items must only be available from a ‘Nan Shop’. I have never seen sterilised milk in any of the shops I go to, maybe my nan makes it herself, maybe she gets it by… No, no, some things are obviously best left unsaid.
Nan’s was painless; I played football with Oliver in the garden, quick peck on the cheek, £1 (no idea how she gets them so warm) pressed into my palm and home.
Counted up my money this evening, I only have £38, I’m sure Oliver is stealing from me!
Woke up at 3:26am after a worrying dream about a factory of old ladies in cages being ‘milked’ by my nan. Chilling.
Sunday, January 8th
My last day as a free man! Back to school, mock exams, stress, dodging Todd Phillips and worst of all, having to get out of bed at 7:00am.
How better to spend it than by arguing with my family all day. I started well by teasing my brother when he was trying to watch TV by flicking his ears, swapping channels and calling him ‘little prince pissy pants’. I am not normally so horrible, but I think it’s the stress of having to go back to school (or the fact that the little bastard is stealing my money). I am not proud of calling him ‘little prince pissy pants’ as this is a bit of a sore spot and a sure fire way of making him cry, he occasionally still wets the bed, you see. I will say sorry and buy him something from my money to make peace (providing he hasn’t robbed all my money by then, the little shit).
After Oliver had left the room in tears, my father decided that he wanted a full on argument with me. My father instigates most of the arguing in the house with some of the following classic opening gambits:
Why do you bully your brother, do you need help?
Your room is a disgrace!
Why can’t you do some school work? Do you want to work as a dustman?
Why do you insist on playing your music so loud?
Why can’t you listen to proper music?
Why can’t you put your dirty plate/glass in the kitchen when you have finished?
Are you determined to grow up to be a bum/sponge?
Eat your dinner; your mother spent ages cooking that/there are starving people in the world!
Can’t you help your mother around the house? You really are a useless waste of space.
Why don’t you get out of the house, you have been playing that damn game all day!
For god’s sake, you are 16 years old, have a fucking shower, you smell!
Love the last one. Very dad.
Mum is not one to be left out but has less of a repertoire, hers include:
Can you stop leaving your rubbish around the house?
Can you make an effort to eat that, there are people starving in the world. I spent ages cooking that.
Can you stop making your brother cry before I strangle you!
I do seem to aggravate my parents during these little tête-à-têtes by doing one of two things:
1) Staying absolutely silent, or my favourite
2) Agreeing with everything that I am accused of, and apologising for all my shortcomings insisting I will change immediately.
For some reason the second retort method seems to drive my parents nuts, so I save it for when I am really bored, it is not to be overused though, that would create way too much hassle.
Today’s argument was pretty run of the mill and did end up with me being sent upstairs for being ‘an immature little shit’ and ‘a sponging useless sod’. My dad brought up the £1 I received from my nan as a piece of psychological warfare today, saying, “I noticed you taking more money from your nan, she is 78! She has no money as it is without you taking money off her each week. Can’t you say no?!”
I believe that it was the following retort that got me sent upstairs on this particular occasion: “It was £1. What exactly am I preventing her from buying by accepting it as a gift and not offending her? More pissy tasting milk?”
I remembered to feed my fish again today; it’s not looking too well, to be honest, probably due to the fact that it gets fed about once a week! I must remember to feed it a little every day. Just like I must remember to do a few sit-ups every day. Who am I kidding, perhaps my dad does have a point, maybe I am a bit of a useless waste of space.
Ha, ha, “Pissy tasting milk”, I do amuse myself at times.
Monday, January 9th
Back to school, joy.
As usual Martin knocked the door at 7:55 on the dot, and as usual I left the house at 8:10 ensuring that not only would we have to rush all the way, but also that Martin would be pissed off with me the whole way too.
School was surprisingly pretty painless to be fair, but then I have never really had much of an issue with the act of being ‘in school’; I just have an issue with the ‘doing’ of work. I am, if you haven’t already figured out, dear diary, a bit of a lazy sod at heart. Here is a little breakdown of the subjects I am studying – in no particular order:
French – I am basically ‘Merde!’ At this subject and have no interest in it whatsoever. That is, apart from the buxom Mdm Jones – who is a mid-40s Welsh vixen with a huge bum and what must be a 48DD set of cha chas. I find something unusually alluring about her. I’m sure she could kill a man between those chest beasts of hers, but I believe that it may just be worth taking the risk. I guess that’s why I find her so alluring.
I find French a bit of a pointless
subject, to be honest. I have been there only once on a school trip while in year nine, and never plan to go back. Despite making a valiant attempt to converse with the natives, my enthusiasm for all things French was well and truly squashed by the utter rudeness of the people I met. Now, I appreciate that we only spent half a day in Dieppe, and I only tried to speak to three people: a lady selling ice creams, a McDonald’s cashier and a man in a sweet shop. At the time I had perfected the French needed to ask for stuff (Je Voudrais or something like that! See I told you, I really am bad at French!), and I asked slowly and clearly, pointing at the exact items I wanted to aid the transaction. All three of them looked at me as if I had dropped my trousers to my ankles, turned around, touched my toes and stuck a finger up my ass.
In summary, French is crap because those three French people’s attitude was crap. I’m sure everyone else in the country is lovely.
Science – I am good at this subject, in fact I am certain that I am better than the teacher is (Mr Stevens). I have pretty much had to teach myself the entire syllabus for my GCSEs as he is such a useless fuckwit of a teacher and completely unable to control the class in any way. I obviously don’t do anything to help the situation in any way, shape or form with my own behaviour, but I only start talking or messing about because I get so bored waiting for the class to stop talking long enough for him to actually start teaching.
Science lessons
