Up In Annies Room 5
Without Prejudice
We had never lived in a small town before, Port Augusta was large in comparison, then Adelaide, then Sydney. The house in Sydney was at the very top of what seemed like an enormous hill, to climb anyway. And we would climb it up and down everyday just to get to school. I was six then, just a baby really and was supposed to walk with the others but it never seemed to work out that way.
We had first arrived at A caravan park, old green round caravan in tow like a band of gypsies, we were there a while but not having to go to school so it must have been the school holidays. The park was big and spacious with a huge playground and Andrew had his nose split open from bottom to top when he stepped behind us on the swing set. He stepped behind the old wooden swing which I think I was on and copped the force of my backward swoop. The old timber rail smashing him straight in the face and blood went everywhere.
It was lucky it didn't break his nose but kids are so pliable at that age that it soon healed and must have hurt like hell. He was stoic, we all were, we children of big secrets and small lives. Everything was decided by our parents and we just blindly accepted and adapted. In total I went to 17 different schools and excelled at all if them. That didnt make me likeable in the short term but I grew to be respected for my intellect in the long.
The school that lay at the bottom of the hill in Newport was the worst we ever went to. The kids were bullying and we were new and definitely not liked. I had the double strain of being intellectually forward and crippingly shy. I spent many a lunch time wandering the school grounds on my own, pausing at the bubbler a hundred times to drink water. Trying desperately to look as if I wasn't friendless.
The girls all played a game called Flowers under the huge trees on the oval. Flowers and leaves were spread like a carpet on the ground in the relative shade of the trees and they would pretend they had houses. Little tomato sauce bottle caps became saucepans, sticks defined the rooms, large leaves bedspreads, mini houses for girls that were only ever going to be wives and Mothers. I never wanted anything so much in my life as to be accepted by my peers and play along side them but it was not to be. It was the first time in my life I realised how cliquey girls can be, it was not a great revelation.
Lachlan was bullied badly by three boys and arrived home bloodied and beaten one day too many andHeather decided to do something about it. She was a sturdy girl with a bit of heft to her, so one day she told me to meet her at the bubblers after school. We set off on the long walk home together, knowing the bullies waylaid Lachlan just after the school fence boundary.
She and I kept our school bag straps hooked over our hands on the watch for the bullies as we crested the first hill of the rutted track worn smooth by thousands of dragging footsteps of the school kids, not hurrying to school but trudging. As we did we saw Lachlan on the ground being set upon by three boys. With a yell and a whoop we started running down the hill, bags flying above our heads. We had the element of surprise on them. We little highland girls of Scottish extraction. Doing what our ancestors had done all those years ago in Scotland. William Wallace and Robert The Bruce urging us on.
Heather took the biggest on and I swooped my bag in the air at another and collected him on the side of his head. I was only six and he had to have been about ten, he swatted my blow off as if I was no more than an annoying fly. But Heather had pinned one to the ground and was sitting on his back as he roared and bucked, trying to get her off. Red faced and crying he was very quickly and Heather made him promise never to bully Lachlan again and she then let him go. Or next time she would break his back. He ran off after his mates who had abandoned him.
We had never lived in a small town before, Port Augusta was large in comparison, then Adelaide, then Sydney. The house in Sydney was at the very top of what seemed like an enormous hill, to climb anyway. And we would climb it up and down everyday just to get to school. I was six then, just a baby really and was supposed to walk with the others but it never seemed to work out that way.
We had first arrived at A caravan park, old green round caravan in tow like a band of gypsies, we were there a while but not having to go to school so it must have been the school holidays. The park was big and spacious with a huge playground and Andrew had his nose split open from bottom to top when he stepped behind us on the swing set. He stepped behind the old wooden swing which I think I was on and copped the force of my backward swoop. The old timber rail smashing him straight in the face and blood went everywhere.
It was lucky it didn't break his nose but kids are so pliable at that age that it soon healed and must have hurt like hell. He was stoic, we all were, we children of big secrets and small lives. Everything was decided by our parents and we just blindly accepted and adapted. In total I went to 17 different schools and excelled at all if them. That didnt make me likeable in the short term but I grew to be respected for my intellect in the long.
The school that lay at the bottom of the hill in Newport was the worst we ever went to. The kids were bullying and we were new and definitely not liked. I had the double strain of being intellectually forward and crippingly shy. I spent many a lunch time wandering the school grounds on my own, pausing at the bubbler a hundred times to drink water. Trying desperately to look as if I wasn't friendless.
The girls all played a game called Flowers under the huge trees on the oval. Flowers and leaves were spread like a carpet on the ground in the relative shade of the trees and they would pretend they had houses. Little tomato sauce bottle caps became saucepans, sticks defined the rooms, large leaves bedspreads, mini houses for girls that were only ever going to be wives and Mothers. I never wanted anything so much in my life as to be accepted by my peers and play along side them but it was not to be. It was the first time in my life I realised how cliquey girls can be, it was not a great revelation.
Lachlan was bullied badly by three boys and arrived home bloodied and beaten one day too many andHeather decided to do something about it. She was a sturdy girl with a bit of heft to her, so one day she told me to meet her at the bubblers after school. We set off on the long walk home together, knowing the bullies waylaid Lachlan just after the school fence boundary.
She and I kept our school bag straps hooked over our hands on the watch for the bullies as we crested the first hill of the rutted track worn smooth by thousands of dragging footsteps of the school kids, not hurrying to school but trudging. As we did we saw Lachlan on the ground being set upon by three boys. With a yell and a whoop we started running down the hill, bags flying above our heads. We had the element of surprise on them. We little highland girls of Scottish extraction. Doing what our ancestors had done all those years ago in Scotland. William Wallace and Robert The Bruce urging us on.
Heather took the biggest on and I swooped my bag in the air at another and collected him on the side of his head. I was only six and he had to have been about ten, he swatted my blow off as if I was no more than an annoying fly. But Heather had pinned one to the ground and was sitting on his back as he roared and bucked, trying to get her off. Red faced and crying he was very quickly and Heather made him promise never to bully Lachlan again and she then let him go. Or next time she would break his back. He ran off after his mates who had abandoned him.
