or

The Day I was Dragged, Kicking and Screaming, to School.

One day mum said, “You’re going to school today!” What did I know about school? A lot! They make you wear clothes – every day! Worse! A uniform!! And underpants! And there are big bullies there (the Teachers) who would hit you and call you names. And smaller bullies (other kids) who would hit you and call you names. I didn’t want to go.

And I knew that once you got put in, you never – ever – got out!

All my brothers and sisters went to school. Some of them ran away, but mostly they disappeared and never came back for long, long periods of time! And when you finished school, it seemed, you had to go to work, every day, until you were really old. Life ended when school began, and I was not keen for that to happen. So, when mum said, “Tony, you’re starting school today,” it was like she’d said, “Tony, your life is over, as from today”. My life, in my humble opinion, was pretty good. I was an extreme introvert, which some would say was a handicap – a disability. I was a dreamer. But I saw it as a gift. I could create whatever “reality” I chose, and often I would spend my time “dreaming up” armies, or magnificent sheep stations, elaborate towns and roads and cars – anything I could dream into existence. School would interfere with this dream world I lived in. Teachers demanded your attention. They wanted you to sit still and face the front and be ready to answer when they had a question for you. I did not want to go!

So Mum had the idea that Greg could start school as well, and maybe then I would be compliant. Greg was fine with this, obviously aware that his life was going to continue as normal after sacrificing one day for Tony. But I was dragged – kicking and screaming – out the back gate and along the street – to the first day of the end of my days. I don’t remember much more of this day, but have some recollections of Infants school as the years slowly passed. I cried for the first few hours of each day for several weeks (I did this every year at the beginning of a new grade, up till and including 4th class- would I be able to complete the work? Would it be too hard? Would I fail?) Ironically, I came First in each grade right up till and including 4th Class. When my anxiety dropped, so did my results.

It was Year 1, and we were charged with the task of reading “to ourselves”. I had been able to read, I think, before school had even started, so “reading to self” was no challenge. However, I was soon in trouble, when one of the kids alerted the teacher. “Sister! Sister! Tony’s s’posed to be reading but he’s not moving his lips!”

I noticed on his exercise book cover, that the child to my right was called Brain. I’m pretty sure it was Brain Spice who dobbed me in. Brian, his real name, and the Spice family lived at the end of our street in a housing commission home on the corner of Hill and Bandon St. ‘Brain’ had a sister, Marie, with a disability. She would stand out the front with her hands on the white fence rail and rock backwards and forwards – forever, it seemed. She was as much a fixture there as the fence itself. If she was out the front, as she usually was, we would hurry past so as not to be engaged in a mumbo-jumbo conversation. Brian had another sister, Francis, who will feature in another story. Brian had red hair, and was ‘problematic’, as the two things go together. Apart from his dobbing, he engaged in some other anti-social behaviours which, even in infants school, we recognised would see him end up in some trouble or other as life progressed. On one occasion, mum had bought me some new long pants. Unusual, as we would normally have hand-me-downs. I tried them on, and wore them out in the back yard. As I strode proudly around the yard in my new long pants, I saw Brian Spice grabbing some wood from our wood-heap, and heading off down the lane with it. Without thinking, I flew off after him, down the lane, knowing my superior speed would soon bridge the gap and I would recover the stolen wood. But this didn’t happen. Instead, I tripped and fell – in the process tearing a hole in both knees of my new long pants. I cursed Brian Spice, and went home in tears to tell mum what he had done. I don’t think mum was impressed, but whether her disappointment lay with me or Brian Spice I thought it better not to ask.

Three things about Brian. He won half a million dollars in the lottery. He went to gaol. He died young.

On my left side, across the aisle, were the Kindergarten children. I noticed one poor boy colouring- in a picture of a horse eating grass in the field. He had coloured the horse green, and the grass was brown. I felt I had to point this error out, so that no further embarrassment could fall on his family. No matter how well I made my case that green was green and brown was brown, he would not be persuaded. I’m sure he was challenged by the Cuisenaire rods as well. And to think it was the same child who started school a year early!