.jpg)
I’ll let you in on a little secret. When Pinky was a little girl she wanted to be a ballerina/movie star/pop singer/airline hostess. A bit unusual for an eight year old, eh? I don’t know any eight year olds like that... LOMARFL (or is it LMFOLAFEL?).
When I was about eight years old our teacher Miss Lang, courageously decided to join forces with the class next door and hold a concert for all the parents on the last day of school for the year. I loved the last day of school mainly because of the limitless slices of watermelon we’d be allowed to eat.
How easy it was to please kids back in those days.
The idea of being a part of a performance concert on such an auspicious day had me in a pink fit of exhilaration.
I was definitely not one of Miss Lang’s favourite students due to an earlier incident where I educated the girls in my class on the intricacies of sexual intercourse… read here .
I was definitely not one of Miss Lang’s favourite students due to an earlier incident where I educated the girls in my class on the intricacies of sexual intercourse… read here .
In fact, she made it quite clear on many occasions how irritating she found me to be. I’m not sure if it was her curled lip or forced smiles when I regaled her with my interminably long narratives that gave it away but I’m sure you are all nodding knowingly at this point of the story. A lot of my teachers were of the same ilk and I really don’t know why.
However as I was a particularly loud, overly confident little girl, Miss Lang awarded me a leading role in the short moral play “The Fisherman and his Wife.” I was to play the materialistic, whiny and superficial character of the ‘wife’, but the subconscious typecasting of my teacher went over my innocent head as I had more lines than the two teacher’s pets, Lynette and Kaylene. Those two goody-goodies were allocated the role of princesses, but they only had a measly one line each so I was quite chuffed.
Until, that is, they brought a rather negative aspect of my starring role to everyone’s attention.
“Look at your picture in the book, Pinky!” the girls teased, pointing out an illustration of a strangely unattractive woman with a big wart on her chin and wearing a scarf.
“And you’re married to Bruce!” they squealed in catty mirth.
Poor little Bruce was playing the ‘fisherman’ and suddenly the sheen of my future stardom began to fade. I really didn’t want to be married to Bruce Helmbright in any manner of speaking. Number one, he spat when he talked, and number two, he had a weird name -when I think about this now I suppose ‘Helmbright’ indicated that his ancestors were either very clever or merely wore bright helmets- but nevertheless I couldn’t in a million years be married to a boy named ‘Bruce’.
Miss Lang would hear none of it and I was stuck with the role of the haggard old crone.
“Does anyone have any special talents?” asked Miss Lang hopefully when organising the recital programme.
“I learn ballet!” called out an eager Pinky with stars in her eyes.
Miss Lang looked at me doubtfully, “Can you show me what you can do, Pinky?”
Now I did learn ballet and had recently been a ‘bubble’ in a concert with about fifty other ‘bubbles’, so I had a costume and everything.
I unreservedly kicked off my shoes, strutted to the front of the class and improvised the most ridiculously dramatic dance you could ever conceive. Astonishingly I fooled Miss Lang and suddenly I was not only the leading lady of the class play, I was also the Prima Ballerina of the grade four recital, performing a dazzling solo (sans music) to which I reinvented the steps every time I practised it.
“Tracy Roberts reckons you made that dance up. She told us it’s a load of rubbish,” sniggered Lynette and Kaylene after my glittering rehearsal in front of the class one day.
However as I was a particularly loud, overly confident little girl, Miss Lang awarded me a leading role in the short moral play “The Fisherman and his Wife.” I was to play the materialistic, whiny and superficial character of the ‘wife’, but the subconscious typecasting of my teacher went over my innocent head as I had more lines than the two teacher’s pets, Lynette and Kaylene. Those two goody-goodies were allocated the role of princesses, but they only had a measly one line each so I was quite chuffed.
Until, that is, they brought a rather negative aspect of my starring role to everyone’s attention.
“Look at your picture in the book, Pinky!” the girls teased, pointing out an illustration of a strangely unattractive woman with a big wart on her chin and wearing a scarf.
“And you’re married to Bruce!” they squealed in catty mirth.
Poor little Bruce was playing the ‘fisherman’ and suddenly the sheen of my future stardom began to fade. I really didn’t want to be married to Bruce Helmbright in any manner of speaking. Number one, he spat when he talked, and number two, he had a weird name -when I think about this now I suppose ‘Helmbright’ indicated that his ancestors were either very clever or merely wore bright helmets- but nevertheless I couldn’t in a million years be married to a boy named ‘Bruce’.
Miss Lang would hear none of it and I was stuck with the role of the haggard old crone.
“Does anyone have any special talents?” asked Miss Lang hopefully when organising the recital programme.
“I learn ballet!” called out an eager Pinky with stars in her eyes.
Miss Lang looked at me doubtfully, “Can you show me what you can do, Pinky?”
Now I did learn ballet and had recently been a ‘bubble’ in a concert with about fifty other ‘bubbles’, so I had a costume and everything.
I unreservedly kicked off my shoes, strutted to the front of the class and improvised the most ridiculously dramatic dance you could ever conceive. Astonishingly I fooled Miss Lang and suddenly I was not only the leading lady of the class play, I was also the Prima Ballerina of the grade four recital, performing a dazzling solo (sans music) to which I reinvented the steps every time I practised it.
“Tracy Roberts reckons you made that dance up. She told us it’s a load of rubbish,” sniggered Lynette and Kaylene after my glittering rehearsal in front of the class one day.
Tracy learned ballet at the same studio as me and had also been a ‘bubble’. The big loud mouth was spot on though; my off-the-cuff dance was a load of rubbish and deep down in my heart, I knew it.
The final day of school arrived. I’d crammed the blue sequinned ‘bubble’ costume into my school bag, my lines were learned for the play and I was a nervous bundle of zealous anticipation. The various parents had begun to arrive (not mine I might add, perhaps they knew better) and Miss Lang, in a highly stressed state, was startled by someone tugging on her arm.
“Miss Lang! I think Pinky is sick. She’s laying under the desk and won’t come out.”
Miss Lang, controlling her panic like a trooper cajoled me out from my hidey hole.
“What’s the matter Pinky? Surely you can’t be sick.” She had a bit of an impatient tone in her voice as I recall. “The play is on in ten minutes and then you have your dance straight after that. The whole of grade four is depending on you.”
And just to prove my integrity that I was indeed very sick, I vomited all over the desk, the floor and my blue sequinned ‘bubble’ costume.
The final day of school arrived. I’d crammed the blue sequinned ‘bubble’ costume into my school bag, my lines were learned for the play and I was a nervous bundle of zealous anticipation. The various parents had begun to arrive (not mine I might add, perhaps they knew better) and Miss Lang, in a highly stressed state, was startled by someone tugging on her arm.
“Miss Lang! I think Pinky is sick. She’s laying under the desk and won’t come out.”
Miss Lang, controlling her panic like a trooper cajoled me out from my hidey hole.
“What’s the matter Pinky? Surely you can’t be sick.” She had a bit of an impatient tone in her voice as I recall. “The play is on in ten minutes and then you have your dance straight after that. The whole of grade four is depending on you.”
And just to prove my integrity that I was indeed very sick, I vomited all over the desk, the floor and my blue sequinned ‘bubble’ costume.
The obligatory bucket of sawdust was urgently called out for, the concert was cancelled at the last minute and Miss Lang probably never bothered to orchestrate another concert ever again. Who’d be a teacher eh?
