Jennifer Preston vs the world

Jennifer Preston vs the world

  Ah’m walkin back and forth, fumin, fuckin stormin ah am, fuckin stampin my boots into that floor ay... ah... some fuckin velvet or shite.  I’d like to bounce thir heids aff ay that floor, stamp aw over their fuckin skulls until the inners all shite oot all over the fuckin floor, then call the inmates in for scran.  Aye, inmates, that’s what we are.

  Back up.  Right.  Three thirty, ah report for detention.  Mrs Kerr, the widowed RE teacher, looks at me pityingly as I come in, but ah’m no givin her any hard luck story. 

  “I need to complete an hour of detention,” I tell her blandly.  Her bushy brown eyebrows lift aff like she’s one ay them Thunderbirds.

  “Were you not sent here by Mr Curtis?  For disrupting his class with foul language?”  She says, sternly, hammin up her snobby English accent.  Ah don’t care if you’re a Mancunian or wan ay them twats from the shires – it all soonds stuck up tae me.  Ah have tried, since movin tae London, to resist the gentrifying, domesticating influence of the English vowels – irritatin vowel syndrome, I call it.  But it’s like tryin to swim through mashed potatoes and sometimes you huvnae goat the fuckin energy for it, so you might as well eat up.

  “That’s correct, miss,” I say, determined to be clinical.  Ah’m always ragin inside, but I never ever let them see it come oot like that.  Ah direct all of it, every pikojoule ay furious energy, into blades of articulacy.  Mah words.  They can cut people to pieces.  Ah watch people, ah learn thir embarrassments, thir shortcomings, the things that can crush thir self-image, or that reduce them to fumin impotency.  N ah use mah skills, mah literacy, mah command ay the spoken word, tae cut them doon if they ever cross me.  That’s why I’m in detention.  Because I made Mr Curtis feel smaller than that piggly dick ay his.  The prick deserved it, and worse.

  “So,” she says with a look of satisfaction.  “You don’t need to be in detention.  You’re here because you have to be.”

  “I’m treating it as a bureaucratic problem,” I said, getting a sudden flush of pleasure from the look of disappointed bewilderment on her coupon.  Aye.  You’ve asked for this.  “The school, or rather a personification of the bureaucratic apparatus, has applied a sanction to me for disrupting its socialisation processes.  In doing so, it has disrupted my routine.  In order for me not to have that routine disrupted any further, I must comply with the sanction.  I value my time, and my routine – hence, it is a necessity for me to be here and complete my detention.  Moreover,” I added, seeing she had an answer for that ready, “according to the logic of such sanctions, they are supposed to have an improving effect on a young person’s integration into the schooling system, and thus improve their chances of performing well in examinations and being ready for the challenges of the labour market.  In that sense, too, I need to complete an hour of detention. 

  “Or had you not thought of it that way?”  I said patronisingly.  Ah’m smarter than her.  Ah’m smarter than all ay these wanks - and don’t they fuckin know it?  She hates this, ah know, because everybody hinks she’s daft as a brush – which she fuckin well most definitely is.  She hates being made tae feel stupid.  Being spoken down to by a fifteen year old girl would, if not handled with exquisite care, only provoke her to start handing oot more punishments.  Extra work.  Detention.  These sanctions have two purposes.  The first is tae rob a child of her free time, which is especially prized because of the fact that school is unpaid, coerced labour, forced upon us so that we can grow up to well adjusted wage slaves.  The second is tae ensure that the child gets a kickin from ma or da when she gets home – because most people who end up bein punished like this are suffering from emotional problems due to bein belted or molested by the patriarch. 

  But ah’d been too fuckin careful for the coo.  She just looked doon at her desk, and pointed her finger at where ah was supposed tae sit.  I took mah seat, and started my work.  It was pish easy, but ah was determined not tae finish it a moment too soon, so I sat there thinkin about ways ah could demean my gaoler further.  I had a few good ones lined up, but then a shaft of light opened up in mah brain, and manna started tae descend from heaven.  Awe, yes.  Awe, this is magic.  This is pure gold dust, mah brothers and sisters.  Ah’ve got they fucking Kryptonite for that hoor – sorry, ah know, ah hate that word and all words like it.  But shall we just say that she’s a rank auld soor-faced bovine patty ay shite and have done wi it?  Yes!  We have the magic formula!

  “Er, miss?”  Ah said, tryin to be as sweet as possible.  She ignored me, as she always ignores people’s pleas for attention until such time as she gets irate, looks up from her magazine or whatever shite she’s pretendin is actual work, and exasperatedly says “yes, what is it?” to the poor pupil who is tryin to get her off her erse to do a lick ay actual teachin work.  Lazy auld hump-backed genital wart that she is.  “Miss?”  I repeat, waving my hand in the air.

  “Jennifer, if you’re trying to make detention go faster by getting into a chat with me, think again.”  She said, trying to affect that teacherly savoir-faire, without even lookin up at me.

  “No, miss, it’s really important, something’s just occurred to me, and I need to ask you something really quick, miss.  Really quick, won’t take two minutes, I swear.”  I was comically propping up my aloft right arm with my left hand, still waving it about as if I was an eager pupil who knew the answer.  Ah was lookin deadly serious, but inside ah was ready tae pish mahself at mah ain performance.

  “Yes, Jennifer, what is it?”  Mrs Kerr sighed, looking up at last.  She was exasperated, but ah detected amusement in her expression, like she was enjoyin mah wee performance.  Ah’d soon pit a stop tae that.

  “Well, you know Miss Bell?”  Ah said, mah eyes wide as saucers, with the faux naïveté of a Sixties sexploitation starlet.

  “Yes?”  Her face changed, her hackles already roused.  Good.

  “Well, I was thinking.  Should we not start to call her Mrs Mandelbaum out of respect for the institution of marriage?”  The hunchbacked dame’s coupon screwed up into a mean, rictus-moothed, poisonous glare.  One hundred and eighty!  I had struck the mother lode of ridicule.  ‘Miss Bell’ as we all still called her, had recently been married to Mr Mandelbaum, thus bringing together the geography and home economics heads into blissful, holy union.  And ah knew for a fact that Mrs Kerr had been nurturin a very powerful flame for that baldin, square-headed twat.  The seam of her hatred for ‘Miss Bell’ upon discovering their triste was compounded into tiny diamond of humiliation when it emerged that the pair were oot to get married, and shacked up.  Ah could even believe that aul Mandelbaum had messed aroond wi Mrs Kerr’s affections because, as uncharitably as ah have described her appearance, she wisnae much worse lookin than him.  But whitever the score there, Mrs Kerr was one bitter auld wifie.

  She didn’t answer me.  Instead, she mouthed ‘excuse me’, and got up and left the room.  She prolly went aff greetin tae the bogs, prolly bashin her skull against the fuckin seat, like.  Fuckin serve her right for tryin tae put me doon.  I decided tae elope from detention at that point, figurin it wouldn’t make any fuckin difference.  I also, tae add tae the humiliation, dipped my hand into her purse which she had imprudently left parked next to her chair, and liberated a crisp fifty poond note.  I knew she would suspect me, but ah had a feelin that she would not want to get intae it further with me.  She’d been taught her fuckin lesson.  Jennifer Preston 1, rest of the world nil.  Nil points, like fuckin Eurovision.  Again.  There’s no end ay wanks who’d like to pit me in mah place, but ah’m ready for them aw.

  Anyways, ah gets the bus back to the children’s hame - what would ay been called a borstal back in the day, but which has been institutionally reformed so that kids who huvnae committed any crime but come fae fucked up families can be put somewhere that isn’t a complete dungeon.  There used to be much stricter rules, and gender segregation in the bedroom areas, but partly because it was a pain in the erse tae manage, and partly due to more enlightened doctrines prevailin in they social services, that was ditched years ago. 

  When ah got back, I was right cheerful wi the staff, joking wi them an that.  Doesnae do tae be constantly fightin wi them erseholes, because they can always make yer life more difficult.  Ah even ignored Patrick, the fuckin hair pullin wee wank, the first three times he tried to get mah goat.  I telt him tae fuck off and get a ride, knowin fine that the day he got rid would be the day dinosaurs returned to earth to rule over us all.  Patrick was wan ay them boys that needed attention at every moment, and it didn’t make a bit ay difference to him whether it was good or bad attention.  I tried no tae validate the prick’s provocations by, y’know, punchin his heid in, but it was touch and go at some points.  Pity aboot him because, aside from bein no bad lookin, he actually had a bit ay a brain, and that’s not a matter I concede lightly tay anyone.

  It was after dinner when ah was sittin on my Jack Jones, like, watchin the telly in the small sittin room and smokin a fag, when he came creepin in behind me, crouched behind the sofa and cracked his knuckles into my skull.  The pain was ringin something terrible.  As he bolted oot ay the room, I charged after him, into the corridor and up the stairs.  At that point, disturbed from their gossipin and fag-smokin, the staff appeared from their common room, and Terry – the auld beardy radge whae always wore a cardigan and slippers like a fuckin parody ay the liberal social worker – ran up and caught me as ah dashed through the upstairs corridor.  He applied wan ay they ‘restraint’ holds that they’re trained to use in situations where someone might get violent wi them.  Ah wasn’t aboot to get violent wi staff, just batter that we shite’s melt in. 

  Ah jabbed my lit butt intae Terry’s hand, and he yelped oot and almost let me go, but grabbed me harder at the last minute.  He got dead rough with me then, threw me against the wall, pulled my arm up behind mah back, and reached his free arm round my waste.  But his hand grabbed the underside of my left tit.  I knew fae the way it lingered that it wasn’t accidental.  He was pissed off wi me, and wanted tae degrade me.  He was tellin me all the time, “stay calm, Jennifer, calm down, you need to calm down”, with that soporific social worker voice they pit on like they’re tryin to get a bairn to sleep.

  “Take yer hand off mah tit,” I said, calmly but accentuatin my accent, which I rarely ever do wi these people.  Tae be honest, I was shittin it at that point, worried he might be thinkin ay takin it farther.

  “My hand is nowhere near there,” Terry said, all mock innocence.  “Just calm down, Jennifer, it’s okay, just stay calm.”  Aye right, I thought.

  “Rape!  Rape!”  I shouted, in a panic.  His hand slipped away, and he immediately stepped back a few paces.

  “No one’s trying to harm you, Jennifer,” he said, as if to reason with me, his dirty grabbin hands pattin the air.  Some other staff members arrived on the scene at that point, havin reluctantly waddled up they stairs.  They looked at him, and me, sizin up the situation.

  “That dirty fuckin auld creep was feelin mah tit!”  I said.  Ah was tryin to get my distress under control, so ah could be as dispassionate and glib as ah would need to be in dealin wi these pricks.

  “Jennifer, think about what you’re saying,” Selena said to me, a young woman, a junior member ay staff who obviously knew what side her bread was buttered on.  No chance ay solidarity there.

  “It’s a very serious allegation,” Stuart agreed, his worried eyes flicking back and forth between me and Terry, who was lookin at the others as if tae say “the bitch is hysterical”.  Ah knew ah wasn’t winnin this.  No way would they believe a cuddly auld fart like Terry would ever force himself upon a vulnerable child.

  “Fuckin paedophile so y’are!”  Ah said, lookin at Terry, feelin my fury rise.  Mah eyes were wellin up, and ah hated myself, and ah hated him for makin me feel like this again.  Ah was terrified. 

  “Jennifer, please!”  He said, as if I was devastatin him wi mah antics.  Fuck off.  Ah was ready to pounce on him, and kick that leathery auld bearded face intae the fuckin wall.  Spyin mah increasing propensity for violence, Stuart and Selena both grabbed me, and restrained me.  I was bellowin, ah don’t know what, just yellin and shriekin, and they lifted me up and threw me intae mah bedroom, and locked the door from the ootside wi the master key.  Ah kicked the door, threw my drawers at the double glazed windows, battered the wardrobe to pieces, turned the bed upside doon, tore the sheets and the curtains to bits - but they didn’t dare open up and come in to restrain me.  They just stood oot there, guardin the door and keepin all the other wee ’uns away.  I screamed every time ah heard a familiar voice, screamed that ah’d been touched by Terry the fuckin kiddie fiddler.  It’d be all over the place soon.

  Ah’m fuckin fumin.  Ah know how they’ll fix this up, and ah’ll get fuckin moved tae wan ay them wee despotisms they call ‘homes’ supposedly for my ain protection.  They’ll use my carry on the night as an excuse, say ah’m disturbin the other kids who need a stable environment, blah blah blah.  They’ll say ah was bullyin that wee wank, and talk aboot how scared ah made everyone.  It isnae the first time ah’ve had tae hand oot a pannin, and the staff have records ay all of it in their day books.  That’s what they keep them records for – it’s a powerful bureaucratic instrument, which they can always use tae hurt you if you make life difficult for them.

  Ah have tae stop mahself.  Sit doon, and calmly think it through.  Break the problem doon intae its constituent components.  Why am ah here?  Because mah Da’s a shitebag, and mah Ma’s deid.  Because no foster home will take me.  Because ah can’t go anywhere else.  But why can’t ah just up and leave.  Because the police would get me?  Maybe, but it’s hard tae believe ah couldn’t disappear into a city ay seven million people if ah fuckin wanted to, like.  Because ah’m a minor whae cannae get work?  Maybe.  Even if ah did, what work would ah get?  Demeanin chattel labour, enough to pay a landlord exorbitant rent for a miserable flat.  A life wi no hope, no way. 

  This is a prison, guarded by low level bureaucratic functionaries, and they have a monopoly ay legitimate violence to control you when you’re no goin their way.  And if you break out ay their control, they’ve got higher functionaries in the police service wi better means ay violence tae get you under control again.  And if you escape that, aw you have waitin for you is a life ay servitude anyway.  Ah wis hangin on so ah could get my GCSEs and my A Levels, get intae university and get the fuck oot ay that shithole.  That’s why ah’d put up wi a lot ay shite fae the bastards.  That’s their hold over ye – their main form ay coercion isn’t physical force, it’s economic.  But ah’m no putting up wi this.

  Ah’ll run a way.  I know all the silly wee lassies and radges run away all the time, but they always get caught or come back wi sheepish looks on their coupons.  But ah mean, I will run away for good, and not get caught, and never return.  They’ll be expectin it, but ah’ll have to risk doin a run for it the night.  If I stay, they’ll just find more subtle ways to keep me in my place.  They’ll probably have someone stationed outside my bedroom door all night, but the window’s aren’t as secure as they think.  Ah’ve got money.  Ah’ve got that fifty quid I stole, plus the savings ah keep taped in an envelope under my mattress.  When it’s dark enough, just before dawn, ah’ll get up, unscrew that window pane, take my money and a bag ay clothes and stuff, and jump doon onto the flower bed below. 

  And ah swear, ah’ll never come back.