The Unofficial Meet-and-Greet

Ellen's better today. Thank God.

She's back to her usual chipper self as we head towards the gates that fucked us up yesterday. It's crammed, again, but not as bad. We finally get to catch up on how our summers went - and of course, Ellen's went better than mine.

Ellen's parents both make a metric fuckton of dosh, so every summer she flies off to some sunny, exotic destination. This time she went to California, caught lots and lots rays, and took selfies in, like, all these really cool places. I spent two weeks in Maiorca and a week and half up in Cumbria with my grand-parents. Fuck me.

There's a crowd at the gates? Seriously? No way! Sarcasm aside, the first-day mania  is over, and the crowd is actually moving. We survive. Anticlimactic if there ever was such a thing. I try (and fail) to show Ellen to our form room.

I find our building fine enough. It all went wrong when we went in via. the wrong door. You could, apparently, only get to certain parts of the building through certain doors (such architecture). I found the right door on the second attempt, but went up the wrong staircase twice, and then when we did the right staircase, we went down the wrong corridor and got nowhere fast. To honest, I dunno how the hell we made it.

When we arrive, we see about half the class is in the corridor, the other half is in the classroom itselfI spy Elsa and lead Ellen inside. I introduce the two of them and explain Ellen's absence yesterday.

"That's sad," Elsa says, "but at least you're better today."

"Yeah, yeah," Ellen replies, "I would really hate to miss my first of day of school."

"You didn't miss much," I add.

"It would have been nice to be around for the introductions," Ellen's voice is thoughtful as she muses on what she guesses she missed.

"The introductions that never happened," Elsa and I say in unison.

Elsa continues, "I know you two and that's it, really. I couldn't tell you, like, anything about the other kids. At all."

I nod slowly, "Same here. No fucking clue."

Elsa flinches. Not everyone likes swearing. I know I swear a lot in my thoughts, but I really don't swear that much out loud. Can't be beeped.

"So other than five pieces of homework, I missed nothing," Ellen guesses.

Elsa and I share a look, and wordlessly agree she didn't miss anything.

Our conversation is interrupted by four girls arrivivng. They've really overdone their make-up (from my point of view anyway), done their obviously-dyed hair super neat, and are wearing their skirts to be shorter than normal. Any guesses what kind of people these bitches are? Yup, that's the correct answer. Pat yourself on the back or something. I dunno.

"Haven't seen you before," one of them says. She's obviously talking to Ellen.

Ellen, for the record, is pretty pretty (haha). She's tall, tanned, slim... you get the picture. Another eason I'm jealous of her. I have wavy hair the exact colour of shit, dot-to-dot freckles, and a crooked nose. I'm, like, the uglist girl in the class. Even Elsa, with her shocks of ginger telephone wire and glasses the size of dinner-plates, is slightly better-looking than me. I know it shouldn't, however it really pisses me off how shitty I look.

"Uh, hi," Ellen says awkwardly, "I was sick yesterday so we wouldn't have met. Name's Ellen. What about you?"

"Regina," the girl replies. I stifle a giggle. She looks straight out of Mean Girls as is. And she's called Regina. Like, everybody else is a movie joke except me, and possibly Ellen.

One of the other 'plastics' (I am totally calling this lot the plastics) notices me, "What you doin' 'ere?"

"I'm Ellen's BFF," I say politely. I get a dirty look in exchange.

"The third plastic asks Ellen, "Why the fuck do you hang out with a nerd like her?"

"She's smart and she's nice," Ellen's reply sums up my only good points.

"Yeah, but that face..." the third girl continues, "like, oh my god that is such an ugly face."

"I'm here, you know," I pipe up. Bitches.

"Do you 'ave any other shitty friends?" the first girl asks.

"I don't have any shitty friends," Ellen corrects her, "Jane and Elsa are really cool. You can't judge a book by its cover."

"You can do so much better," the fourth girl shakes her head disapprovingly. Fucking bitches.

"Leave us alone!" Not that I've known Elsa very long or anything, but I really didn't think she had a bossy side until she snapped at the plastics and made a shooing motion.

The girls take a step back, but then the first girl takes three steps forward and gets right up in Elsa's face, "What did you say?" she growls.

"Leave us alone," Elsa repeats, slower and calmer this time, "we were just having, like, a nice chat and stuff and then you lot came over here."

"Yeah, but we're cooler than you."

"Elsa Frost is, like, absolute zero" I laugh, "you can't get cooler than her."

"Huh?" the ringleader replies showing such incomparable intellect that she makes Einstein look like a moron. Not.

"I'm confused," Ellen says. Her one weakness is that she isn't bright. At least I have that.

"It's quite simple, really," Elsa explains, "absolute zero, which is either 0 Kelvin or 273 degrees Celsius, is the theoretical minimum temperature achievable, whereby there would be zero heat energy. And, unless you can have negative amounts of energy, and bear in mind we haven't even proven even proved it's possible for an object to be at absolute zero, it's the coldest anything can every be ever. And I'm absolute zero here. You're more like 320 Kelvin or something."

The four plastics stare at Elsa blankly. Skillz.

One of the girls finally gets her thoughts together, "We're more popular than you, prettier than you, and unlike you, we actually have boobs."

"I don't think those count," Elsa shakes her head and points at the plastic's upper torso. She is so cool-headed and calm it's not real.

 I, on the other hand, am feeling the sting. I can be smart, kind, whatever, but I'm not pretty. And it's getting really bloody old after eleven years looking like crap no matter what you try. Being pubescent is something I consider a disadvantage rather than a feather in your hat: being a late bloomer gives you time to mature pyschologically before it all gets fucked up by your maturing physically. It lets you get your thoughts in gear, gives you some prep time. But even then, I feel the sting. Ow.

The four plastics turn to leave. One of them looks over her shoulder at Ellen and tells her, "If you ever want to hang out with some non-losers, you're welcome to join us."

I watch Ellen's face crease a little. She's thinking about their offer. I want to protest, to make a single, decisive point that could put her off them, but against my better judgement I choose not to. It's her decision - I may not want to lose her as a friend, but it's her decision, and hers alone, whether or not she wants to lose me.

"I know what you're thinking," Elsa says, "and I would advise against it. They're messed up people; you shouldn't get messed up in their business."

Elsa's taking a stand. Wow, this one is... yeah wow. She has it all together. And she's smarter than me. And she's prettier than me. I should stop being so damned vain, but vision is a human's primary sense, and it's what we use primarily use to judge people - ourselves included. That kinda sucks.

"I probably won't say yes," Ellen replies nervously, "but still... I'm not smart or nothing, but I do know that you should never say no or yes to something without thinking about it. You just shouldn't."

"You're smarter than them," Elsa notes.

"I'm bang-on average when it comes to intelligence, and I guess that makes me 'not smart', but it definitely doesn't make me 'dumb'. What do you think, Jane?"

I shake my head and stay silent.

Elsa looks at me curiously, "What are you thinking?"

I take a moment to compose my words and then speak, "I don't like to influence decisions I'm not supposed to make. I don't feel right doing that, y'know?"

Elsa frowns, "So, if Ellen decides to hang with them, you wouldn't stop her." It's a statement, not a question. There's something really cold, really hurtful about that. I'm trying to be a good, moral human being, and I get treated like a disloyal pariah. Fuck me.

"Answering that question would apply an influence one way or the other. I can't answer that question, really. Not while the discussion is open."

"But you're her friend, right?"

"I am."

"And you care about her?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to lose her as a friend?"

"I can't-"

She cuts me off, "Do. You. Want. To. Lose. Her. As. A. Friend?"

The bell goes. Phew.

We take our seats, but I can see Elsa giving me a dirty look, and Ellen giving me a confused one. Elsa clearly thinks I'm uncaring, spineless, disloyal, and Ellen is getting similar ideas. The fact of the matter is that I'm happy if Ellen's happy - if she's happier without me, I'm happy for her, if she's happier with me, I'm happy for her. Technically, anyway. There's still that part of me that doesn't want her to leave Elsa and I behind, that part would be sad if she became a plastic. I can't let that part show because that part would bias her, but not letting it show could bias her the other way... I don't know.

How do I fix this? Can I fix this?

On the First Day of School...

"EVERYBODY WAKE UP! WE SLEPT IN! IT'S 6.30 ALREADY! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!"

Two things: first, the first school bus in an hour, so we have plenty of time, and second, I was, like, having a dream about a really epic first day of school when Mum starting screaming at us, and I kind of don't want it to end. Ah well, all good things must come to an end. 'Kay then, Jane, you may as well get your arse outta bed.

I find my uniform, and blearily pull it on. The blazer's a bit big, but when you're shopping for blazers half an hour before the uniform shop closes on the day before school starts, you don't really get much choice.

"HURRY UP KIDS! WE HAVEN'T GOT ALL DAY!"

Jeez, wait a sec. I've never done a tie before! And besies, I know we haven't got all day. We have, like, 55 minutes (which is plenty btw). How the bloody hell do these stupid things work, anyway? Couldn't we just, like, have clip-on ties for our school uniform? Ugh.

"You want help?" Edna asks me.

"Whaddya think?" I can't help but laugh. This day has started so utterly perfectly.

"Nah, you look like you have it under control."

"Shut up and help me." I may have my eyes half-closed and I may be yawning nonstop, but I'm still perfectly capable of snapping at my sis.

Edna shakes her head mockingly. I hate it when she does that. On the other hand, she's going to teach me how to tie a tie, so it's not all bad. At last I have my uniform on. Phew. Next stop: go to the bathroom, wash the sleep out of my eyes, do my hair and my make-up etc. I should be done in ... fifteen minutes? If I'm rushing? No probs, then. Best get started.

"WHY ARE YOU KIDS TAKING SO BLOOMIN' LONG?!"

"C'mon Mum, we don't just wake up in our school uniforms with our hair already done!" That would be Edna.

"Yeah well by the time I had my uniform on youse lot weren't even halfway finished!" Paul, as ever, trying and failing to be relevant in a conversation.

"That's cause you're a boy!" Edna again. Could they seriously just shut up and let me do my make-up without being distracted? Gah.

"ENOUGH!" Everyone falls deeathly silent as Dad loses it.

I finish my make-up and saunter out of the bathroom, grab some toast out of the toaster and sit down for breakfast.

"This is so exciting, it's your first day of senior school today!" Mum said at me.

"It's not called senior school anymore, Mum." I crrect her.

Silence at the table.

"Is nobody going to talk?" There goes Mum again.

You guess what happened next.

***

The bus was packed. I don't even remember how I found a spot to stand. Anyhow, I survived the 45-minute bus stop without being turned into a human panini and I'm now making the 5-minute walk from the bus stop to the Greyson School, which is trickier than it sounds. You see, there's no parking, so everyone's trying to get a spot on the street to drop off their kids (and there are a lot of kids). No few cars have actually driven up onto the pavement to try and get a space.

I'm walking with my friend, Ellen. Ordinarily, we would be bitching, gossiping, or catching up on what happened during the other's holidays, but we can't hear each other over the cacacophy of screaming, slamming, and honking. So we walk in silence, dodging cars, parents, kids, a few lamp-posts, and anything else blocking our route.

We make it to the school gates, but don't get much further. There's a huge mob of people all trying to get into the school, but failing epically. Beyond the writhing mass of pupils, I can hear teachers screaming at students to get a wriggle on. It's not q1working. Within moments of arriving at the gates, we're surrounded by other students. I'm average height for a Year 7, and I'm lightly built. I can't push my way through the crowd, but plenty of people can push past me. At some point I was separated from Ellen, I think. So many people crammed together makes for a lot of heat and a lot of pressure, and I'm feeling faint. I can't breathe. My heart is racing. I can't see anything, and all I can hear is garbled shouts as people try and fail to speak over each other. My nose is being bombarded by the pungent sweat and teenage musk. I can feel myself being jostled and pushed about. I don't know which way I'm moving, or if I'm moving in different directions. I'm going to faint. I'm going to faint and collapse. I'm going to faint and collapse and get trodden on by everyone else. I'm going to faint and collapse and be trodden on by everyone else and all that will be left of me it is a flattened jumble of shredded organs and polyester uniform...

I stumble into the school reception and collapse on the ground, breathing heavily. I pull myself up and look around. I made it!

"Are you OK?" one of the teachers asks me. He tallish, with messy hair and a crooked nose.

"I-I'm fine, tha-ank you."

I keep moving. I stop at the reception desk to sign in, and ask where the hell I'm supposed to go. One =of the receptionists kindly tells me where I'm supposed to be, and I dash off. The corridors are an absolute maze, and I suck at navigating. Luckily, I caught sight of some people who must have been Year 7s - they were too short to be anything else - and I quickened my pace to join them.

"Jane!"

I see one of the kids break off from the crowd. It's Ellen. She's panting, pale, and every few seconds she clutches her head.

"Ellen, you OK?"

"Yeah, yeah. Traffic jam out front fucked me up a bit. What about you?" She says tiredly.

"Oh my god, I was literally about to faint when I got into the reception. Like, one minute I'm leaning on the person behind me and everything's, like, completely spinning and I can't see nothing and then I'm facedown in the reception, like. Holy shit that was ... that was insane."

"I think I hit my head."

"You might have a concussion."

"You think so?"

We've nearly reached our destination. It's a large hall with a stage and lectern in the front, and enough seats to fit maybe four hundred people. We step through the large double doors. Amongst the seats are ten-odd teachers yelling form names and gesturing for students from said forms to join them.

"What form are we again?" I ask Ellen. It's been, like, all summer? How am I supposed to remember?"

"7 something, I thnk's there's an E in there, maybe, like an S or Z or something.."

I hear a teacher who looked to be in her sixties yell out, "7EJS, over here!"

"I think we're EJS," I say uncertainly.

"Yeah, sounds about right." Ellen really doesn't look good.

"Ellen, I think you have a concussion."

"I did hit my head on the doorframe..."

I grab the nearest teacher and explain what's happened. They take Ellen to the sick room, leaving me alone. I trudge over to where 7EJS are supposed to sit. The elderly teacher looks at me with a face like a smacked arse.

"Who are you?"

"Jane Smith."

"That's Miss Smith, ma'am. Please sit down."

I politely take my seat and wait for the assembly to start.

A man with salt-and-pepper hair, wearing the world's dorkiest labcoat, steps up to the lectern and begins speaking.

"Hello, Year 7. Welcome to the Greyson School," be begins. He speaks really posh. "My name is Dr. Taylor, and I will be your Head of Year this year. If you get in really big trouble, which none of you will, you will be dealing with me. I will also be doing most of your assemblies this year."

"I teach Science, in case you haven't guessed. Unfortunately, I will not teach any of you this year - I have no Year 7 classes. However, if you do separate sciences at GCSE or a Chemistry A-level, you will be seeing a lot of me. And I don't see why you wouldn't want to do GCSE and A-level Chemistry. It is quite interesting, I think. Anyhow, I'd like to introduce your Deputy Heads of Year. You will see more of them than you will of me. They will be working with you much more closely. Without further ado, boys and girls, allow me introduce you all to Mrs. Frank, Mr. Champion, and Miss St Clair!"

Three gawky-looked teachers stepped up to the lectern, and Dr. Taylor swept to the back of the stage with a bit too much flourish for anyone to take him seriously.

"Hi everyone," the first teacher, a blonde-haired thirty-something who dressed like she was still 18 and clubbing every night, "I'm Mrs. Frank. I actually have one or two you for Maths, so you'd all better be on your best behaviour. I'm really looking forward to working with you all in the future."

A good-looking twenty-something took her place, "My name is Mr. Champion, and I teach History. I teach a few of you this year, so don't try and muck around in my lesson. Euripides once said, "The wisest men follow their own direction". I hope you all, including all the girls out there, take that to heart."

I stifle a yawn. Are secondary school teachers this boring? I mean, who the fuck's Euro-PC or whatever his name was? At least that one was good-looking.

The last of three was another twenty-something, although she was a woman, with cropped ginger hair. "My name is Miss St Clair. I teach Psychology, so if you all do your homework you won't have to worry about my existence."

The three deputy heads stepped back, and Dr. Taylor returned to the lectern. "I hope you all have a very good first day of school here. Once I finish this assembly, you will all be visiting your form-rooms, where your form teacher will give your homework diaries, locker assignations, and lunch cards. After that, you'll have morning break and begin your lessons as normal..."

***

Half an hour of Dr. Taylor babbling later, we leave the hall and those of us in 7EJS are following the pissed-off old bat we've got for a form teacher to another building on the opposite side of the school, and then through a maze of winding corridors to our form room, a cramped-looking room with a couple of boarded-up windows and busted-looking chairs.

"All right, cupcakes, for now you can sit wherever you want, provided you don't chat," she barks at us the way I imagine a drill sergeant would, "My name is Mrs. Johnson-Smythe, I will be your form teacher and English teacher for this year. I have a zero-tolerance policy for messing around and none of you want to see what happens if you hand in your homeowrk late."

I pick a seat in the back corner, mostly because it means I'm plenty far away from Mrs. Johnson-Smythe. A nerdy-looking girl with shortish hair and a faceful of spots sits down next to me in silence. Mrs Johnson-Smythe asks some the kids dumb enough to voluntarily sit at the front of the classroom to hand around our homework diaries, timetables etc. The diaries are thick, ring-bound things, about A5 in size. I scribble my name and form on the front of mine once a sheepish-looking boy arrives at our desk and gives me one. A moment later we get our lunch cards - credit-card style things we were supposed to use to buy lunch with, rather than lunch money that could be stolen. Next up's our timetables. I quickly check what lessons I have today: first up is English with Mrs Johnson-Smythe (oh shit), then Spanish, lunch, Maths, Computing and last (but definitely least) PSHE.

We go through a few administration-y things, and then the bell for break goes. Mrs Johnson-Smythe slowly dismisses one row at a time, with our row being the last. As we get up, the girl next to me asks me my name.

"Jane Smith. What's yours?"

"Elsa, Elsa Frost." I giggle at her responce, "Oh my god, I am so sick of people mentioning that. I was born like 10 years before the film came out anyway."

"Sorry, I just-"

"Don't worry. It happens all the time. I'm used to it," her voice changes to a conversational tone as we cross the threshold from classroom to corridor, "have you seen it?"

"What, Frozen? Like, a bit over three minutes of it, yes. I thought about seeing the rest of it, but I had to let it go."

"I think we've seen the same three-and-a-bit minutes, and I think we came to the same conclusion. Let it go, let it go..."

"Stop it."

"I know. Where are you headed?"

"Do you know where we have to be?"

"Same place where we just were, but I don't really feel like hanging around there, y'know?"

"I saw there were, like, some benches somewhere. Shall we go there?"

We go there. It's freakishly hot and the sun is beating down on us. If it weren't school, I would be totally sunbathing. We find a bench and sit down to chat. We get so caught up we barely hear a teacher say it's five minutes to the bell, and we end up scrambling back to the classroom. Elsa is a damn sight better at navigating than I am, and so we manage to make it back in time without getting lost too much.

The bell goes and Mrs Johnson-Smythe lets us back into the classroom. There's a seating plan on the board. Good news: I'm near the back. Bad news: I'm sitting next to a boy. Boys can be nice, but they can be so fucking annoying I never get my hopes up. The boy I'm put with is OK-looking, jet-black hair and piercing green eyes, but he's eaten one too many pies and has a few spots and moles and other gross things like that, so, like the niceness of boys, he's a real mixed bag.

"Hi," he says awkwardly.

"Hi," I say back, albeit much less awkwardly than he did. What is it with boys and being awkward?

We settle down and Mrs Johnson-Smythe begins lecturing us on the importance of English and why we should pay attention. I don't think the best way to explain to us why we should concentrate in lessons is to half-drone, half-shout at us when we've already nodded off from the first half of your lecture. Christ, can she get to the crux of this shit?

She does, and it's not a very good crux. The 'crux' is a 500-1000 word essay we have to write describing our summer holiday, which we have finish for homeowrk in time for our next lesson (which is two days away). Fuuuuuuuuuck mmmeeeeeee.

I start scribbbling a bit about our trip to Maiorca at the beginning of the summer, and then the bell goes.

***

Spanish was a blur, and before I knew we have from the first hola of the lesson to the last adios and then it was lunch. We trudged across the field, following a clueless group of kids from our class who thought they knew where we were going. We finally made it, and then all hell broke loose.

Teachers yelled at us to keep moving as we rushed our way through the serving area. It looked like any good trendy, modern cafeteria, but for the sorry-looking food and pissy-looking teachers telling people to get off their arseholes and move it. I hurriedly picked a sandwich, drink and dessert, paid for it with my lunch card, and found a table with Elsa. The cafeteria was crammed, and we couldn't hear each other over the yelling of teachers and students. Story of my motherfucking life, eh?

Once we finished, a teacher yelled at us to clear out and we did. We ambled, directionless, for a little bit, and then decided to find our next lesson. Easier said than done. Even between the two of us we struggled to find our damn classroom. We'd go down a corridor and find a dead-end. We go up stairs and find, like, one classroom door. We'd miss a turn and then take an age finding our way back again. Oh my god!

***

Maths-based subjects aren't my forte, but I somehow made it through Maths and Computing without fucking it up too massively. I learned the awkward chubby boy's name, George, and I learned my first bit of Visual Basic (it's shit). I'm getting the hang of this secondary-school thing, y'know. Give a week or so and I'll be queen of this place.

The bell goes, signalling our five-minute interval between lessons. We get confused because it seems like we're all in two different places next (up until then, we'd stayed together as a form). Figuring it out at last, we made our various ways to PSHE.

About half of our PSHE class are girls I've never seen before, and there aren't any boys... oh wait. I've figured it out. They're splitting us by gender. What is it, the fucking 1980's? Oh well. We take our seats and our teacher, Miss Green, introduces our topic.

"We have you in separate classes to the boys right now," she begins, "because our first topic is sex and relationships."

We groan.

"Don't worry, there are some fun bits."

Yeah right. Course there are.

"For the next few lessons, we'll be looking at puberty."

As though it couldn't get any worse.

The PowerPoint changes to a diagram with a series of girls of increasing age that looks a bit like that monkey-to-man thingy. Except they're naked. Ew. I didn't ask for this, OK?

"So this is what an average girl looks like at ages three, seven, ten, thirteen, fifteen, and eighteen. Can you see any changes that occur as we girls grow older?"

A girl I don't know puts her hand up, "We grow tits!"

Everyone half-laughs, half-cringes.

"Language, miss. I should say that swearing and slang are not acceptable in this classroom. And yes, women's breasts do develop during puberty. Anything else?"

Nobody puts their hand up. This is seriously awkward. I can only imagine how awkward it must be for the guys.

"OK, then, I'll pick on someone... you there, what's your name?"

"Miss Smith," I answer. Of course she picked me.

"Miss Smith, what changes in girls as they grow older?"

I pick something non-gross at random (which is kinda tough), "They get taller," is what I finally decide upon.

We go through all the various things that happen, with Miss Green joking awkwardly about all the gross stuff. It really doesn't help.

We then go through the same process, but for boys. Again, there's a drawing of some naked guys, which, again, is pretty fucking gross. Is that really what a penis looks like? Eww, seriously, how can anyone live with one of those?!

Funnily enough, someone (not me) asked that question. Apparently they're used to it. Go figure.

Next up, she runs us through our sex ed curriculum, pointing a few 'highlights'. I really don't think that putting a condom on a banana is highlight per se, but everyone's allowed to have their own opinions, right? Right?

The lesson, and school day, for that matter, end with the ringing of the bell and a last, dry sex joke from Miss Green. We hurry out of the school and towards the bus.

***

I'm not kidding when I say I got homework in every lesson I had. Our English is due first, so after getting home, finding some comfier clothes and grabbing a quick snack in front of the telly, I set about doing homework at around 5pm. The problem I have is that after like, ten minutes, I get bored, grab my phone, play a few shitty phone games, remember to do homework, do homeowrk for, like, 5 minutes, and go back to my phone, and so on, and so forth. Argh. It's 6 already and I'm not even halfway done!

I put my phone in a different room and get back to work. I achieve like, a 15-minute of solid homeworking, finish the English (finally) and then reward myself by grabbing the iPad Edna and I share. It's a really old iPad (like, before they had Retina displays) but it's better than nothing. At 6.40pm-ish, I remember I have four more pieces of homework.Shit, shit, holy fucking shit!

How the fuck am I going to fucking get through all this fucking homework, for Fuck's sake?

Prologue

School uniform shopping is bad at the best of times. School uniform shopping the day before you start secondary school is like an all-day long dentist session.

I'm standing in a queue, fidgeting and shifting from foot to foot. Gah, can't the people in front of us just hurry up? It's not like I have all day - it's 3pm and we still have loads more clothes to buy. I blame Mum, of course. It was her idea to buy all our uniform at the last possible moment. It was her idea to visit the busiest shoe shop in the whole of South London. It was her to make me try half a dozen different pairs of football boots, and it was her idea to stop constantly to look at clothes and shoes for herself. She can buy shoes whenever she wants - she doesn't work - and it's not like we have the money for Mum to buy herself three new pairs of trainers.

"Mum, are you sure we couldn't have done this earlier?" I turned to her and asked that same question for maybe the fortieth time.

"Darling," she replied in that stupid patronising tone of hers, "I wanted us to make the most of our summer holidays together. Is that such a bad thing?"

"Yes," I snapped back, "it's 3 already and we still have to buy ties, blazers, coats, pencil cases, stuff to put in those pencil cases. After that, we have to go home, unpack all our shopping, we all need to pack our bags for tomorrow, and we're like half an hour away from getting out of this bloody shoe shop!"

"Language!"

"I don't care! You're wasting everyone's time! We could have done this earlier, you know. We could have been ahead of the curve, but no. Lots and lots of families have had the same idea as you, and it's pretty clear from where I'm standing that idea was a bad one."

"Darling, you don't unders-"

"There's nothing to understand, Mum. You made a dumb choi-"

"How dare you call me dumb!"

"We all know I'm smarter than you, Mum."

"I have wisdom from my experiences in life."

"And an IQ about as good as your average German Shepherd. The two don't cancel one another out."

"What's the IQ of a German Shepherd, then, smarty pants?"

"Like humans, different German Shepherds have different IQs. There are smart ones and dumb ones. But the average is 60. A human of IQ 50-69 is clinically moronic."

"69, haha." My retard of a brother, Paul, still hasn't realised the random crap that 14-year-old hormonal teenage boys is best not said out loud.

"That's rude." Mum chastises.

"It's the medical term for it." I retort.

"I wasn't talking to-"

"Shut it, you three!" That would be Dad, finally stepping in and stopping us killing each other.

"Why do you lot keep fighting?" You gotta love just how innocent my little sis Jenny is. She's always completely out of it, and when she does remember there's a real world with people and places and bullshit like that, she's always really confused by it.

Edna, my sixteen-year-old sister, shakes her head disapprovingly, then goes back to whatever music she was listening to on her iPhone. Damn, I wish had an iPhone, or at least a smartphone. I have a hand-me-down Nokia brick phone that, and I am not joking, is older than I am. The bastards just don't break for some reason.

TBH, that kind of sums up our family. Mum and I screaming at each other, Paul saying something dumb that turns Mum and my row into a three-way yelling contest, Dad steps in to diffuse the situation, and Edna just stands there ignoring us. If Jenny evens registers what's happening, she'll ask us why we're fighting and then go back to dreamy-land. That is, if she registers what's happening. One big, happy family.