in my first year in high school i was pulled out of
language class by mrs girl's supervisor/ she told
me that someone had complained about being able
to see my 'pinkies' in class/ & that i would have
to keep my legs shut from now on/ for a start she
gave me the creeps by dressing in fluorescent
green & wearing big chunky earrings & apple red
rimmed glasses/ my cheeks flushed in front of her/
i knew straight away that it was mr language who
had complained/ because no matter how tightly i
had tried to cross my legs he kept looking down
under the tables at the girls up the front/ i thought
that 'pinkies' was a funny word for her to use/ i
hadn't heard it before/ did she mean undies or
flaps?/ much to the disgust of mr language i'm
sure that all the first form girls would have had
underpants on during class/ then mr high school
careers adviser said 'you are lucky that you are
only going through your parents' divorce/ one in
three families in this area are incestuous'/ i left his
office with my grief tucked into my sports tunic/
i looked at all the other kids in the quadrangle/
i had never thought of their bodies beyond their
class performance/ beyond their school uniforms/
beyond the roughing up at lunch time or the rowdy
squabbling on the bus at home time/ i never thought
of them in the same way again/ there seemed to be
no real boundaries/ no values/ no safe families/ mr
economics said that i would end up a heroin addict
in the gutter in melbourne/ whilst mr general studies
told my mother that i would join a religious cult/
but mum knew that i was going into the plastics
factory with her/ even when the army repeatedly
came onto the school grounds to try & recruit us/
meanwhile debbie & susan were being stabbed in
the back with compasses in maths/ mr mathematics
turned a blind eye as he turned to the algebra on
the blackboard/ some teachers said i had a chip on
my shoulder that needed to be knocked off/ i wrote
their names down in my project book/ i tried to give
the male teachers hell/ but i was just a silly girl
with her arms folded/ i only wanted them to see
what life was like for me/ they taught me a load
of shit for years/ it was nothing like my life/ high
school was out of touch from the start/ & something
inside me told me that they knew what life was
like for kids in liverpool & what it would be/ &
none of them wanted to do a thing about it/ they
undertaught us in a half hearted fashion/ textbook
teachers: copy it out of the book & if you don't
understand it tough luck/ & drove back to the
eastern suburbs of sydney as fast as their mg's
would take them/ that is until a few of the kids
rolled a couple of the cars & coated them with
flour from the home science block/ once gary
punched his fist through the door in maths/ we
waited for him at the bustop/ he came out across
the front of the school carrying the door with the
hole in it under one arm/ it wouldn't fit on the bus/
he had to walk home/ when i think of the way
those arseholes were at that school it was a wonder
there were any doors left to close/ but what could
they do?/ the lesson for today was 'you can't
beat the system'/ so we beat each other up in the
quadrangle/ & i began to cut into my skin with
razor blades/ i finally made mr mathematics cry/
then mr deputy principal called me 'emotionally
unstable' i didn't know what he meant/ i received
special treatment/ like i didn't have to pick up
papers which we called 'going on scab duty' or
write out lines after i had been told to/ when my
brothers got to high school they preferred the
cane/ because it didn't drag on like detention/
dale put his hand out for mr modern history to
cane him/ as he lifted the cane up in order to
bring it down it got stuck in the overhead fan/
mr modern history was our form master/ i liked
him at school/ you could forge notes from your
parents to get out of sport & he wouldn't report
you/ although he was a dag & cynical/ & for
many years now there were rumours about him
