I expect that one of the attractions of the trip was thatSam�s gone to Fairthorne too. Sam is Jooj�s latest crush. Most of the attraction appears to be that he is (nearly) her height, unlike the other 60 or so boys in her year. Ive met Sam. He seems pleasant enough. Of course I told Jooj that I thought he was awful � after all, there�s nothing worse than a boy yer mum likes, is there?
Apart from that, I think she�ll be welcoming the chance to enforce her formidable personality on lesser mortals. She�s told me how some of the girls in her year like to question her over her somewhat unconventional dress-sense/level of intelligence/overall demeanour. She gets questioned a lot at school. She�s too tall, she went to a private school, we live in a big house, she�s clever��she sticks out like a sore thumb.
In a passable impression of Catherine Tate�s Lauren, she tells me how the general line of questioning goes�..
�Jooj are you a griblie, tho? Are you an emo? Do you cut yourself tho? Are all your clothes black tho? Do you sleep in a coffin? Would your mum let you tho? Is your mum posh tho? Why did you go to that school where you pay tho? Why don�t you go there now? Is your mum poor, izzit? Where�s your mums money gone tho? Is your stepdad famous tho? Has he been on top of the pops? Does your stepdad know Craig David? D�you know Craig David? Do you tho? Do you? How come you�re from ChavVille and you don�t know Craig David? Craig David�s from ChavVille tho innit? Are you disrespecting Craig David? Are you tho? Are you tho? Are you tho? That is well harsh! Is that because you are a griblie tho?�
If you�re struggling to see how that might be real speech, try this and it�ll give you an idea of how it goes:
She�s a good girl, is Jooj. She rises above it. Every time I start to think she�s nothing like me (poor little bugger looks just like her father), she comes out with something that makes me think we�re not so different.
When I was her age, my family moved from one side of ChavVille to the other. StepfordBro and I stayed at our old schools and so, even tho we made friends with local kids where we lived, we didn�t know them as well as if we�d been sharing classrooms with them.
We joined the local youth club and soon had a fairly large circle of friends and acquaintances.
One day, one of the boys asked if Id like to go up the woods with him. We went to the woods quite a lot, us kids. It was a cool place and we used to build dens and play elaborate games involving hiding and fighting and capturing territory and hitting each other with sticks and stuff like that. Most weekends there�d be a big gang of us, roaming about and generally doing the sort of things kids did in the days before crack cocaine and Nintendo Wii.
Anyway, this particular Sunday afternoon, it was just me and a boy from our youth club called Mark Whittington. He went to the local comprehensive school and had an Elvis quiff. He looked a bit like Brian Setzer, which was a pretty good look back then. We walked up the woods and wandered along the paths, talking about people we knew and stuff we�d done. He was amiable enough company. He started looking left and right and I thought he might be looking for an ants nest to kick at me, or maybe he was going to suddenly run off and then sneak up on me and jump out. Both those things were fairly regular occurrences in my world � Ive got an older brother, don�t forget.
Instead, he suddenly stopped and pushed me firmly against a tree. He kissed me lightly and undid his fly, fumbling and breathing heavy. I looked down.
*blink* *blink*
I looked back up and he kissed me again. I didn�t mind the kissing, Id kissed a few boys before. He pressed against me, hard, and looked down into my face.
*blink* *blink*
We stood like that for a bit, him pressed against me, eyes locked.
He said �d�you wanna touch�.?�
I shook my head, just a tiny bit, almost imperceptibly.
*blink* *blink*
��..silence���
After a bit he did his trousers back up and took my hand. �Let�s go.� he said. We walked back towards my house, not saying anything at all.
When we got to my gate he said �see you later�, and started to go. Then he turned back and said �Why didn�t you want to��.back then?�
I raised one eyebrow. I looked straight in his eye when I said �I�m TWELVE.�
�Oh.� He said. He was 16. It was never mentioned again.
Looking back over the intervening 30 years, I only know of one person who can speak with the same tone of utter scornful distain that I used on Mark Whittington.
That person is Jooj.
I think she�ll do alright.
Later
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