Let’s do this together
YOUR
The Dark Lord’s first day at her new school didn’t go quite as smoothly as expected.
I’d managed to sew her blazer’s inside pocket up with a late-night last-minute name tag, so she couldn’t carry her pens or phone on her.
Unlike her last school, this one doesn’t ban phones, and instead tries to encourage kids to use them sensibly, which is a bit like expecting turkeys to vote for Christmas.
Then the school secretary rang first thing to ask me to send The Dark Lord in with a packed lunch for the first day, since she wasn’t set up on the lunch card system yet.
Trouble was, all that was in the fridge were some bendy carrots, two stale rolls, cheddar so strong it would take the roof off the top of your mouth, a cooked pork chop and the last of a tin of Twiglets. It made the sort of packed lunch that would be roundly condemned on Mumsnet as child neglect. Anyway, it was either that lot or Pot Noodle. Fortunately she didn’t seem to mind her random lunch and rushed off to school just minutes before the 8.25am bell rang. Trouble is we live too near this school, which almost guarantees her cutting it fine most days.
Luckily we’d remembered to dye her hair black after having it pink for the holidays, and removed the alternating black and purple nail varnish.
Then just seconds after she’d gone out the door, I suddenly realised she’d left all her black spiky earrings in, when she’s only allowed one small stud either side.
The third self-piercing has closed up thankfully since it went gammy, as I’d warned it would, but she still insists this is due to sleeping on it, rather than sitting on a park bench and getting her mate to stick a dirty old darning needle in her ear lobe.
The night before she also had a chat with her old primary school friend, Chloe, but as far as I could overhear it was mainly to warn her about all the people at this school not to talk to rather than anything useful.
I could hear her reel off a list and when she came out of her bedroom, I said, “This is school you’re talking about and not a far-right rally? I hope you’ll make up your own mind about people rather than take Chloe’s word for it.”
She grinned and sounded quite grown-up when she replied, “Yeah, I probably should add Chloe to that list too this week.”
Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.