by Hayley Long
I’ll say one thing for Gareth. Apart from being very good at rugby and having very big feet and colossal manly thighs and quite a nice face, he also has an exceptionally powerful voice. When he wants to, Gareth Stingecombe can be even louder than Lee Fogel. One boom from Gareth and all other conversation in the classroom stopped. Everyone turned to look at him. And then they looked at Lee Fogel. And then they looked at me.
I suddenly started to feel really sick.
For a split second Lee Fogel looked a bit confused, and then he shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘What’s the matter, Gaz? It was a top header from a top headcase.’ And then he looked at me and grinned and said, ‘Nice header, schizo.’
And then something very freaky happened. Everyone in the classroom seemed to freeze except for me. It was like they were all actors in some DVD rental film and a giant person on the other side of the screen had pressed the pause button so that they could go out to the kitchen and make a cup of tea. The only person who wasn’t rooted to the spot was me.
I sat there, trapped in this frozen scene from a bad film, and looked at the characters around me. Goose’s face was thunderous. She looked every bit scary enough to be the lead singer in a goth-rock band called Desriny of Death. She looked scarier even than Marilyn Manson, and that takes some doing because he looks like this:
Lee Fogel was laughing lamely but, at the same time, blatantly backing away from Gareth Stingecombe, who looked like he was about to rip Lee’s arms and legs off. Mrs Peebly who is about as useful as a holiday home on Mars, was staring anxiously in two directions at once, but whether she had spotted the bloody violence that was about to break out at any second between Lee Fogel and Gareth Stingecombe was anyone’s guess. And in the middle of all this was me. Before I had time to ponder on this tricky situation any further, everyone started to move again and Gareth Stingecombe’s voice boomed across the room once more. It sounded like the noise a volcano probably makes just before it blows its top and kills everyone.
‘FOGEL! TAKE THAT BACK AND APOLOGIZE!’
And I understood then that Gareth Stingecombe didn’t just sound like a volcano which was about to blow, he WAS a volcano which was about to blow, and there was a very real and distinct danger that he might kill Lee Fogel in the process. And although I don’t like Lee Fogel very much, I do quite like Gareth Stingecombe and I didn’t want him to get into serious trouble on my account. So I took a deep, deep breath and stood up and said, ‘It’s all right, Gareth. I don’t want an apology.’ And then I turned to Lee Fogel, who was trying to smirk and appear cool but actually just looked as if he had an internal problem with trapped wind and said, ‘I did nick some shoes, Lee, and some other stuff, and I wish I hadn’t. But you needn’t worry because there’s no way I’m going to steal your trainers or anybody else’s because I’m totally through with all of that. And besides, I can smell your trainers from here and they’re pretty minging – so I really don’t think you actually need to worry about anyone making off with them.’
Lee opened his mouth to say something but I was in full flow. And I had an audience now so I thought I’d better make it count.
‘And while we’re at it, I’m not a schizophrenic. But seeing as you brought the subject up, schizophrenia is an illness which leaves people feeling totally cut off from reality. That must be pretty scary and horrible, I reckon. And I don’t think it’s nice to laugh at someone because you think they might be ill and scared. That’s quite pathetic and nasty, actually!’
And then, without even bothering to ask Mrs Peebly, who is about as useful as an Oompa-Loompish dictionary, I picked up my bag, marched straight out of the room and down the corridor to the girls’ toilets. I didn’t need the loo or anything — I just needed a moment on my own to clear my head and calm myself down away from everyone else.
At the end of the corridor I almost bumped into Mrs Rowlands, the Welsh teacher. I have always had a sneaking suspicion that she hates me. This has been based on the evidence of all the rubbish marks I am consistently given for my Welsh homework and the fact that it was her who got me excluded in Year 9 for throwing Samantha Morgan’s exercise book and bag out of the window. But I only did it because she called my mum a rozzer and I thought she’d said lezzer. Thinking about that now, it all sounds a bit stupid, but at the time it made me flip out at 7.0 on the Richter scale.19 I would have thrown Samantha’s desk out of the window as well, but it was too big and I ended up smashing the glass a bit and then Mrs Rowlands used her mobile phone to get the Head of Year to come and take me away and after that Samantha Morgan’s mum told Samantha not to speak to me any more.
It therefore came as an enormous surprise to me when Mrs Rowlands stopped, smiled and said, ‘Hello Lottie. Good to have you back!’ And then she patted me on the arm and carried on down the corridor. I was so confused and startled that, for a second, I froze right there in the corridor with my mouth open. I can only explain Mrs Rowlands’s action in the following ways:
1.
She does not hate me and she is actually quite nice. And to be fair, I suppose it was a bit off-putting when I tried to throw that desk out of the window.
2.
She also has a mental disturbance and is currently in an up mood.
Either way, it was nice of her.
Inside the toilets, I was relieved to find that there was nobody else around. I walked over to the furthest cubicle, pulled down the toilet lid and sat on it with my head in my hands and shut my eyes. My head was bouncing about like a space hopper and I really needed to escape school for a moment by thinking of something nice like orang-utans to help calm it down. I sat there on the loo, concentrating as hard as I could on a mental image of their sweet ginger faces, but, for some reason, my brain wasn’t having any of it. Instead the only thing I could think about was how Gareth Stingecombe had got so upset on my account.
After a little while, I opened my eyes again and looked up. On the back of the door, somebody had written:
I sat on the lid of the toilet and stared. Then I leaned a little closer to the door and checked to see that I’d read it correctly. I had. It was my name. I am the only person called Lottie Biggs in my school.
I sat back on the toilet lid and just kept on staring at the door. Seeing my name on it had surprised me so much that my brain had stopped bouncing around and was doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL.
I leaned down and rummaged in my bag. I pulled a marker pen out of my pencil case, stood up and made an adjustment to what was written on the back of the toilet door.
And then I sat back down on the toilet lid again and considered this new message. It was definitely a more positive message. And there was blatantly some truth in it. After all, I’m not exactly mad; it’s more like Dr Edwards said – I am having some functioning difficulties of the mind.
I was about to put my pen away when a random thought made me pause. It was quite a complex and deep random thought. In actual fact, I’m not sure that I have ever had such a complex and deep random thought ever before in my life and I’m not at all sure that I ever will again. It was this.
What exactly does mad mean anyway?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not stupid. I know what the word mad means20, but what I don’t understand is WHO DECIDES what is or isn’t mad behaviour. I mean, I’m not trying to wriggle out of this and say that my behaviour just recently has been perfectly normal and OK because blatantly it hasn’t, but what I’m trying to say is, however mad I may have been acting is no more randomly weird than the behaviour of this person who writes stupid pointless things on the backs of toilet doors. I may have my moments, but I’m not that mad. Not yet anyway. I took the lid off my pen again, stood up and made another adjustment.
And then I put my pen back in my pencil case, picked up my bag and left. I don’t mind telling you that I was smiling. I reckon the best proof of sanity is being able to identify a bit of madness in yourself and be OK with it.
CONfrONtiNG CertaiN seNsitive issues heaD ON
I think the rest of the day went fairly well. In a funny-peculiar way, Lee Fogel calling me a schizo actually helped. It forced me to confront the sensitive issue of my illness head on and deal with it. I am very proud of myself. My calm response to the situation was probably the BEST thing I could have done to prove to everyone at school that I, Lottie Biggs, am actually a SUPREMELY INTELLIGENT AND MATURE HUMAN BEING AND it also gave me the opportunity to tell Lee Fogel that his trainers ming.
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Anyway, I was so buzzed up by this blatant moral victory that I decided I was going to tackle a few more sensitive issues head on and DEAL WITH THEM. Here they are:
1. The Sensitive Issue of my Unhealthy Art Obsession with Edvard Munch
All of this entire term, I have been working in my art lessons on a 150 cm x 80 cm reproduction, in felt-tips, of Edvard Munch’s famous painting The Scream. Mr Spanton, my art teacher, has never felt a big wow for this project. He says that I am a keen visual learner with a naturally artistic streak, but he also says that busying myself, week after week, with the mere duplication of an expressionist painting depicting existential angst is both creatively limiting and likely to induce panic attacks. These were his EXACT words and I’ve learned them off by heart because they sound amazingly clever. Mr Spanton was laughing when he said this to me so I laughed back a bit — but I can’t, one hundred per cent, hand on heart, honestly say that I totally understood what he was driving at. However he also said, ‘And felt-tip pen doesn’t look that good. You’d have been better off using chalk or oils.’ This last bit I got. It’s hard to take advice on board though when you’ve just wasted whole months of your life doing things wrong. So back then I’d just shrugged and picked up a chunky red felt-tip and carried on colouring in the sky.
But when I went to art today and saw that picture of the screaming skeleton with its hands over its ears and the world hemming it in like bars on a cage, I couldn’t bear to get my felt-tips out. It reminded me of how I’d felt when I’d been sitting in my wardrobe thinking about all the reasons why I might want to jump out of my bedroom window and, frankly, that wasn’t a very nice feeling to be reminded of. I suppose I finally understood what Mr Spanton was driving at. So I picked the whole 150cm x 80 cm of it up and put it in the bin. And then I got out some oil paints and started a still-life portrait of a tomato-ketchup bottle. I feel much happier with this project.
2. The Sensitive Issue of Gareth Stingecombe Who Is Nice
It occurred to me today in art, while I was sketching the outline of a tomato-ketchup bottle, that I have not always been that nice to Gareth Stingecombe. I’ve never been deliberately horrible to him either, but I haven’t actually always been terribly nice. Certainly not as nice as he deserves. I don’t know why I haven’t been nice because Gareth Stingecombe is a nice person. Actually he is very nice. He is so nice that he was prepared to rip the head off Lee Fogel and get himself excluded forever in defence of my honour. I don’t actually approve of violence, but that was still nice of him. A few weeks ago he also asked me to the school disco. Twice. This was nice of him as well. I, however, was not nice. If I remember rightly, I said no to him the first time and laughed in his face the second. I didn’t mean to laugh in his face, and I certainly didn’t mean anything nasty by it but the fact does remain that Gareth Stingecombe asked me to the school disco and I laughed in his face. And that is not nice. And now I regret doing that. Gareth Stingecombe has also got a nice face and a nice smile and colossal manly thighs. Very recently, for some totally weird reason, I’ve been having random thoughts about those colossal manly thighs. When I have these thoughts, my face goes hot. I had one of these thoughts while I was drawing my tomato-ketchup bottle in art this morning and the shape of the bottle went all wonky. This is all very weird because in NO WAY would I previously EVER have said that I had sexual designs on Gareth Stingecombe, but now, actually, I think that it is time to confront the issue head on and deal with the truth.
I fancy Gareth Stingecombe.
At break-time I asked Goose what she thought about the hot flushes I’ve been getting as a result of random thoughts about Gareth’s thighs. Goose said, ‘I reckon it means you badly crave his body.’
When she said this I laughed really loudly and said, ‘Don’t be daft, Goose. This is Gareth Stingecombe we’re talking about. He’s got size sixteen feet and can’t dance.’
Goose, who is a bit more experienced in matters of the heart than I am, said, ‘Yeah, but, Lotts, how would you feel if you saw Gareth Stingecombe with his tongue jammed down someone else’s throat?’
And when she said this I was speechless for quite a while because I understood, right then and there, that I wouldn’t like it at all. Not one bit. And not in the put-out, left-out, on-the-shelf, no-mates, feeling-a-gooseberry, potty-Lottie kind of way that I’d felt when Goose went out with Neil Adam. Not like that. If I saw Gareth Stingecombe kissing someone else, it would just make me feel really very sad.
Because I want to kiss him.
When I didn’t answer Goose’s question she did a big dramatic sigh and said, ‘I suppose it’s just as well I took the chance of buying you a ticket for the school disco before they all sold out. Something tells me you’d quite like to go now. Am I right or am I right?’
And then she grinned and gave me a big hug right in the middle of the Year 10 yard. Goose is the best friend I could ever have. She is awesome.
3. The Sensitive Issue of my Former Status as a Thief
And this is the most sensitive issue of all. I can just about tolerate being called a schizo and I can also just about tolerate finding Lottie Biggs is Mad written on the door of a toilet cubicle because, inside, I know that neither of these labels, however true or untrue, is anything to be ashamed of. In fact, all that these labels reveal is that whoever uses them has a brain the size of a particularly small amoeba. Like this.
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But what I can’t tolerate is the idea that ANYONE might stop to consider me for a moment and then think, ‘Oh yeah, Lottie Biggs, she’s a thief.’
This is not the impression I want to make on people. Not even people like Gina.
So I have tackled the issue head on and dealt with it.
When I got home from school today, my mum was waiting in the kitchen to see how everything had gone. I told her I’d had an OK day and that she absolutely, definitely MUST go back to work tomorrow because my head feels fairly normal. She was very pleased when I said this and gave me a big hug. I’m getting an awful lot of hugs at the moment, which is quite weird to be honest because I’m not sure that I totally deserve them. And then I asked her what she’d done with all that swag I’d kept hidden in my wardrobe.
My mum looked a bit worried and said, ‘Why? What do you want it for?’
‘I’m gonna take it all back,’ I said.
My mum cupped her chin in her hand and looked at me. Behind her, the kettle boiled and she made us both a cup of coffee and then we sat down at the kitchen table. After a bit she said, ‘Well, I think that’s a very good intention, Lottie. To be honest, I’ve been absolutely unable to decide what to do with it myself. It’s all in bags in my bedroom and it worries me every time I look at it. But I’m not sure that taking it all back is the best thing for you to do right at this moment. You’re just recovering from a colossal mood swing and I don’t want you to get stressed out again. The people in those shops might not understand.’
I said, ‘You’re a Detective Sergeant. I don’t think it’s beneficial to your career to be harbouring stolen goods in your house.’
My mum sighed. ‘No, it probably isn’t.’
‘And anyway,’ I said, ‘I’m OK. I feel a lot more positive about everything now that I know I’m a bit mental. So those chats with Dr Edwards have helped a lot and I even feel OK about having to have those stupid counselling sessions. Does that make sense?’
My mum thought about this for a moment and then she sort of nodded her head. She looked a bit worried. I don’t know
why though. I was feeling positive.
‘I’ll be OK, honest. I’ll do it without getting in trouble. And I’ll just start with Whitchurch today. Please, Mum – I really need to.’
My mum looked up at the ceiling a moment as if she was saying a prayer and then she said, ‘Do you want me to come with you?’
‘No.’ I wasn’t lying. Would you want your mum with you while you were on a shoplifting clean-up mission?
‘OK. Do what you need to do. But phone me if you have any trouble and COME STRAIGHT HOME.’
Five minutes later I left the house. I had two bags with me. The larger one was a black plastic bin bag full of Sole Mates swag. The shoes made it very awkward to carry. The second, smaller, bag contained a plug-in air freshener, a toy giraffe and a pack of fifty clothes pegs. It was this smaller bag that I planned to get rid of first.
When I got to Pound World it was already four o’clock and the shop was nearly empty. I went straight to the counter. I put the smaller bag down in front of the girl sitting at the checkout and said, ‘I got these things from here but now I don’t want them.’
The girl looked a bit surprised and said, ‘We don’t do refunds.’
‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘I don’t want one.’
And then I walked out really quickly.
After that, I went up the road to Sole Mates. I knew this would be harder but there was no way I was bottling out. I just did my best not to think about it and concentrated as hard as I could on being positive. It was quite tricky, to be honest.
I walked into Sole Mates and put my black bin bag down on the floor. Dionne was standing by the till and sticking some YOU PAY stickers into some sandals I had never seen before and didn’t know the name of. When she saw me, she looked up and said, ‘Hello, Lottie. This is a surprise.’