When I went to check the house for intruders, the cat came with me, peering into each room, and afterwards smoothing my legs with her velvet fur and pressing her nose into my fingers until I felt sleepy again and went to bed. No sooner had I fallen into the sweetest of slumbers when I was awoken by a further crash. This time the feline culprit was caught in the act on the kitchen floor, disentangling herself from underneath a saucepan lid, and was invited to leave the family residence by the nearest exit. I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning and having horrible dreams about my husband in a series of wrongdoings for which he took no responsibility, and was very grumpy the next morning.
It must have been one of those days because when I went to collect the children from school half the girls in R's class were in tears before they reached the arms of their carers. It was one of those ripples of social unrest which occasionally afflict the Girl Community.
The girl I pick up, S, broke into keening and wailing when I stroked her back and asked her what was the matter.
'Something Has Happened aa bo ha hooo'
She sobbed desperately for the next half hour. Her younger sister L, when she could be bothered to look up from her play with her equally unaffected friend V, threw in a series of sensible but heartless questions, in response to which S wailed,
'Stop asking all these questions, it makes me re-live the whole thing and it's UNBEARABLE! We are all guiltyoooahahah mmfff'.'
We eventually ascertained that S and her girl friends had sworn a pact of secrecy, so that she could never tell anyone about the terrible thing that had happened.
'If we tell the mothers they will all be..' gasp, gulp 'on the PHONE to each other TALKING about itoooaaaaaa' No, she would have to bear the burden Entirely Alone.
'Well', I chipped in from the driving seat 'I've just seen L sobbing to her Mum and I'm sure she's grassing you up, so you won't be the first. Anyway, your Mum is going to notice you are crying, she's sure to get it out of you. Much better to talk about it and sort it all out'.
Sniff, wobble.
I was wondering about the moral implications - it seemed certain that some horrible crime had been enacted, such as murdering a puppy or vandalising their beloved teacher's car. Should I phone the Mum, thereby doing the very thing which S dreaded?
Once the girls were safely out of the car, R said coolly 'I know what happened'.
He and his friend E, clueless boys, had spent an entertaining afternoon playing Sherlock Holmes and Watson, skulking in the shrubbery and earwigging on whispered conversations. He and E were now able to make the following Detective Report (I translate):
- some girls had said some nasty things about some other girls, not sure who said what about whom or why
- then a girl from the fifth class had taken N aside in the girls' toilets and told her she had overheard N's friends saying that N had Big Ears and Big Teeth which stick out
- an attempt to resolve the situation ended in N saying that she would Forgive No-one because L had told her, not only that she was Not Her Friend, but she had Never Liked Her
- this was considered such a moral outrage that the whole Community of Girls turned against L who now has No Friends (except for A).
'No. If we don't want to play with someone anymore, we don't say nasty things - we just tell them to go away'.
'Oh, why do you tell your friends to go away, aren't they upset?' (girl question)
'Well, sometimes we are playing a game that only needs two people so the other two have to go away. They just play another game'.
'Mmm, but you do get annoyed with each other sometimes' I said
'Yer, well, then we just have a fight'.
The fighting does upset teachers and Mummies, but I suppose there is something to be said for a short sharp shock of physical violence which can leave those involved injured, but never Wounded (for days on end). Many times I have lectured R on the merits of resolving conflicts peacably, and hauled him in front of some boy to make an apology, only to observe both boys smirking, and the 8 year old 'victim' reassuring me that it really wasn't anything serious.
Which leaves me with the question: why did I waste so many of my Sunshine Years worrying about these Boy people, wondering what they were thinking, what they meant by that, why they did this, talking about them with other girls, falling in love with them and wishing they would fall in love with me, when all along they were very... Simple.
