As I squeezed into my plane seat between a young boy and an angry-looking young man (who’d tersely requested I move my laptop along in the overhead compartment so that he could squeeze his more important swollen rucksack in), I noticed six children sitting in the row behind and opposite me.
These were not your normal run-of-the-mill, back of seat kicking, overly vocal, weak-bladdered and annoying children… these were all children from the school I teach at. No… I didn’t do what you would expect and slap my sunglasses on affecting disguise whilst quickly looking away pretending not to see them. I didn’t have to. They pretended not to see me. How dare they? That’s a teacher’s prerogative!
To be honest, the kids were very well behaved during the entire flight. Perhaps this was because they too had noticed how crabby Mrs P has been lately, particularly on playground duty, and thought they’d err on the side of caution.
The next leg of the journey involved dragging my luggage across to the train station and travelling for another hour and a bit to get to the last station on the line, close to where my parents live on the Gold Coast.
Two stops before I reached my destination the final remaining passengers disembarked and the carriage was completely and worryingly empty. It was getting late and pitch black outside. I sat all alone, spooking myself by imagining scenes from the movie “Hostel” where the girl has her eye ball ripped out by a maniac in a train or visualising a distorted Edvard Munch face pressed up against the outside of one of the windows. I cringed behind my suitcase with one hand fiercely clenched around my laptop handles and the other buried in my pocket gripping my orange plastic ‘rape’ whistle.
I hope to hell Dad is at the station waiting for me at this late and ungodly hour and I don’t step out into a dark, deserted platform where a Freddy Krueger aficionado is waiting for me with his sharp steely knife, I thought nervously.
As the train drew to a stop and the doors slid open I was startled by bright lights and about three hundred, colourful rugby fans who were on their way back to Brisbane after a footy match. I looked at my watch… apparently it was only eight o’clock.
Dear old Dad, of course, was waiting right where he was supposed to be and I was safely escorted back to the luxurious Gold Coast mansion which I have decided during my stay to think of as ‘Rehab’.
They tried to make me go to rehab but I said, 'No, no, no.'
Yes, I've been black but when I come back you'll know, know, know
I ain't got the time and if my daddy thinks I'm fine
He's tried to make me go to rehab but I won't go, go, go
These were not your normal run-of-the-mill, back of seat kicking, overly vocal, weak-bladdered and annoying children… these were all children from the school I teach at. No… I didn’t do what you would expect and slap my sunglasses on affecting disguise whilst quickly looking away pretending not to see them. I didn’t have to. They pretended not to see me. How dare they? That’s a teacher’s prerogative!
To be honest, the kids were very well behaved during the entire flight. Perhaps this was because they too had noticed how crabby Mrs P has been lately, particularly on playground duty, and thought they’d err on the side of caution.
The next leg of the journey involved dragging my luggage across to the train station and travelling for another hour and a bit to get to the last station on the line, close to where my parents live on the Gold Coast.
Two stops before I reached my destination the final remaining passengers disembarked and the carriage was completely and worryingly empty. It was getting late and pitch black outside. I sat all alone, spooking myself by imagining scenes from the movie “Hostel” where the girl has her eye ball ripped out by a maniac in a train or visualising a distorted Edvard Munch face pressed up against the outside of one of the windows. I cringed behind my suitcase with one hand fiercely clenched around my laptop handles and the other buried in my pocket gripping my orange plastic ‘rape’ whistle.
I hope to hell Dad is at the station waiting for me at this late and ungodly hour and I don’t step out into a dark, deserted platform where a Freddy Krueger aficionado is waiting for me with his sharp steely knife, I thought nervously.
As the train drew to a stop and the doors slid open I was startled by bright lights and about three hundred, colourful rugby fans who were on their way back to Brisbane after a footy match. I looked at my watch… apparently it was only eight o’clock.
Dear old Dad, of course, was waiting right where he was supposed to be and I was safely escorted back to the luxurious Gold Coast mansion which I have decided during my stay to think of as ‘Rehab’.
They tried to make me go to rehab but I said, 'No, no, no.'
Yes, I've been black but when I come back you'll know, know, know
I ain't got the time and if my daddy thinks I'm fine
He's tried to make me go to rehab but I won't go, go, go
