» School fights

Geordie Epic
Despite a heavy Scottish accent I’ve lived in England since the age of 11, so all of my comprehensive experience involved being picked on for fights because ‘the Scots think they’re rock hard’. Actually I like literature and flower arranging, so never quite lived up to my billing. Anyway, a day came along in year 10 (about 15 years old I think) when the PE lesson was on softball. Cue Astroturf, baseball bats and an assortment of different balls (is there a regulation softball? There must be. But not in North East schools.) Sure enough, when our plucky hero’s turn came to bat he was assailed from all sides by the equivalent of an asteroid field – several of these connecting very very hard. Now, despite being a big girl’s blouse on most occasions, the type of pain that comes from this can only produce a berserker rage, which was duly carried out with said bat. I ran screaming at the guy I had identified as my main tormenter, swinging the bat as hard as I could. Problem was, I connected with a sickening ‘pock’, and as he crumpled in a defeated heap (yay!) the circle of little toerags stepped back from me.

The PE teacher (who had presumably been shooting up behind the sheds or something when this was happening) ran over, scooped up my prone nemesis and ran to the first aid bit of the school, shouting at us to get back in the changing rooms, lesson was cancelled etc etc. I strolled back like I was fucking Clint Eastwood. Got into the changers – one of those barbaric Zyklon-B shower blocks with hooks hanging out of the wall at eye level, benches harder than diamond that always gave you splinters and stuff – to find this guy’s mates all waiting for me. Strangely enough, they didn’t all pile on top and pound me into the ground (which would have made sense) but rather, in some sort of Geordie pride ritual, blocked all the exits while this guy’s best mate started shouting at me to ‘come on’ before running at me. Seeing no other option, we had a fight in which I succeeded in battering him quite hard (while his mates amazingly looked on without interfering), busting his nose and seeing those joyful crimson rivers flow. Our sometime PE teacher returned just as I straddled him to deliver some sort of Mortal Kombat-style fatility, hauled me off by the scruff and shouted WHAT’S GOING ON?!? I began to speak, and it was in this downrush that I began to feel the sweat on my brow, the salt in my mouth, and the fact I’d broken three of my fucking fingers punching the little rat. I promptly gulped for air in shock at the pain, and broke down in the middle of this bloody circle with the kind of convulsive sobs that mark you out as an utter wimp for the rest of your school life.

So, my physical ordeal was over. I was frogmarched to the Head of Year’s office, a sourfaced fatarsed hole of a person she was, who shouted at me about bats, fights and criminal tendencies, and promptly suspended me from school. None of the little rats who began it even got a detention. Being a fairly bright student, my dear parents were none too happy about me ‘throwing my life away for a stupid fight’ and spent three nights shouting at me about how important GCSEs are before spending four nights talking about Ghandi and other non-violent role models. I sat my mock GCSEs with an extra half hour because I couldn’t write properly with my cracked hand, became mocked around the school for beating up two people and then crying, and was banned from getting Time Crisis for my Playstation for Christmas, because it came with a lightgun that might ‘encourage my violent tendencies’. Fucking hell!

Anyway, got the fuckers, even if I did cry like a girl and spack my hand.
(Tue 14th Mar 2006, 11:21, More)