Staffrider Vol.6 No.2 1985 - DISA

sweethearts in the class, lovers in thetrue sense of the word. We once evenplayed 'Doctor Doctor'. In short, wecraved each other. In fact, I was planningon running away from home tonight, toher lascivious embrace; it being Fridayand my problems at home aspiring toseemingly insurmountable proportions.Tonight was the night - I was goingto lay it on them in floods of fury.Learning, learning every day, I wassuffering in my scholarly pursuitsconstantly searching for the truth,without so much as the basics of supportany young man needed and deservedfrom his family. They were all to blamefor their lack of appreciation for what Iwas achieving. Father too quiet, littlebrother too noisy and mother too busybegetting unnecessarily a larger andlarger family. Hadn't she already hit thejackpot with me, I wanted to ask her.Tonight I was going to give them myManifesto for Family Union and supportand depending on their reaction, I wasgoing to stay or leave — the decisionbeing entirely of my own choosing.I had only this morning given Gillianthe pre-arranged signal. She was going todiscuss with her mother the possibilityof my moving in with them for a fewyears. After all, we were planning onmarrying in a few years time, definitelybefore high school, in any case, and theextra years afforded to us in living inclose proximity, possibly sharing thesame bedroom, would bode well forfuture marital bliss.I chose Gillian as my girl not onlybecause of the status of her being theonly left-handed person in the entireclass. I chose her the day she made, inmy mind anyway, somewhat of acelebrity of herself. Even at that ageshe was a staunch feminist with anactive independent mind. What happenedwas, during Arithmetic she asked theteacher if she could go to the cloakroom.The teacher refused. Arithmetic was herpet subject and she didn't like anyone inthe class to miss even a minute of it.Five minutes later Gillian asked again.She did it all beautifully and everything,following the correct procedure as laiddown by school etiquette and rules. Sheraised her hand, waited for the teacherto acknowledge the signal and thenasked once again in faultless English, ina respectful tone, if she could go to thecloakroom. She added that the visit wasbecoming desperately urgent and thatshe wouldn't be away more than twominutes at the utmost. Again theteacher declined the request.It was a summer's day, heavilyovercast with pent-up promises of rain.Suddenly the rain came gushing downand, in perverse synchronisation to thepittering and pattering on the windows,there formed under Gillian's bench agrowing puddle. The girl next to herstood up, screamed and pointed, botharms outstretched, at the offendingpool. Then we all stood up, one by one,boys and girls, peering in the designateddirection. There was a hushed stillnessabout the class, the only sound beingthe rhapsodic rancour of the rain. Andthen, puppetlike I raised my hands andbegan to clap. The whole class took upthe applause, slowly at first, softlyand in time, but growing in pace andintensity with each successive clap.Gillian stood up, performed a cutecurtsey, burst into tears and ran fromthe room, grasping her raincoat abouther.The next day we performed oursacred rite of love, Gillian and me. Eachholding onto a separate branch of thepoisonous oleander, at the entrance tothe school, we swore eternal faithfulness— the wayward to be damned tohell and struck down by all the poisonfrom that particular branch onto whichhe or she was holding. I noticed thatGillian's branch was smaller than mine,but it mattered not because she waslittler than me and I was sure that thepoison, even from the smaller shoot,would do the required job.At big break that day, fired by ournew-found love we set out to practiseheadstands, in a brave bid to smashLouis's one-and-a-half minute record.Love adds new qualities to life, butmore so for boys than for girls, I think.I discovered new dimensions to thetechnique of standing on my head thatday. Love imbued me with a new senseof balance, a clearer head, a moreperceptive mind, a heightened sensitivityfor the aesthetic.I broke the one-minute barrier andmy own record on my first attempt, butthen my neck, even though strengthenedby the ardour and lust coursing throughmy veins, gave way, and I collapsed overbackwards in a dishevelled heap oftriumph. Subsequent attempts, after alengthy rest, carried me well into thesecond minute and precariously close toLouis's amazing achievement.I managed one minute fifteeenseconds that day. Gillian was encouragementpersonified. She clapped, sheshouted, she did cartwheels, she evencomposed a special headstand war-crywhich attracted half the kids on the playground.Confidentially, I've alwaysplayed better with an audience at handand it was on my final try, withthousands of schoolchildren standingaround cheering, that my little body,inspired to greater strength, withstoodthe battering of time eternal, seventyfiveseconds in all on my head, beforefading on me.W• we went tothe boys' cloakroom — weagreed that it was the lesserof two evils, a girl in theboys' rather than a boy inthe girls'.Gillian was positively hopeless. Asgifted as she appeared to be, with thatnatural feline grace of the athlete, hertalents obviously did not extend as faras headstands. She tumbled truculentlytime and time again, cussing andthrowing her lithe little body around ina robustly morbid display of disequilibrium.Back in class she ran into a problemof paramount proportions. Throughoutheadstand training I had been wearingmy school cap which afforded me thatextra bit of balance, as well as protectionfrom the elemental nature of the playgroundgrass. Sadly Gillian had nottaken the same necessary precautions.Five minutes into mental arithmetic andshe began scratching assiduously at herscalp. The young lady next to her tooknote, stood up and screamed for thesecond time in two days, pointing thistime to a runaway red ant which haddive-bombed miraculously from Gillian'sscalp, to land next to her answer to thethird sum, which incidentally wasincorrect.Bravely Gillian raised her arm andasked to visit the cloakroom. This timeno explanation was necessary, theteacher assented immediately. I alsoraised my hand requesting to accompanyher. Teacher regarded me, a dazedexpression on her face, and noddednumbly.We went to the boys' cloakroom —we agreed that it was the lesser of twoevils, a girl in the boys' rather than aboy in the girls'. We scrubbed at her antinfestedhair for the better part of thelesson, combing out the offending interlopersand drying her off as best wecould with the lining of my blazer —there being no towels.We arrived back at class, Gillian'shair still dripping and my blazer sodden.Teacher grimaced at the sight of us andresumed the mental test which she hadheld over in our absence. We wonderedat the prophetic peculiarity of Gillianbeing twice wet in two days, oncebelow and once above. We meant toask the teacher after the school day, butshe surreptitiously beat a hasty retreatand vanished. We both scored top marksin the mental test, Gillian coming firstand myself a close second.Now some months later the scene forthe runaway was set. Mother fetchedGillian and me from school — the liftschemeof love. Little brother wasSTAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 2, 1985 7