I am now at the end of junior school,
having passed the 11+ and thus qualified for grammar school. I have been so
good at my lessons and so ingenious at the obligatory IQ tests that I have
jumped a class to become the youngest in the next one up and only have 4
primary school years instead of 5.
My childish ambition to be a pianist
has long been dashed by an accident. I crushed my elbow and suffered what
people in the know called a green-stick fracture of the elbow and forearm at
the age of seven. It was my own fault. The optician had put atropine drops in
my eyes and I went out on my bicycle before they wore off. A big black dog got
in the way and the rest is history.
If Mama had not repeated over and
over again that it was my own silly fault, and shown me hardly any sympathy for
what was almost the end of my world, maybe I would be somewhere else today. But
the realisation that it would take a long time to straighten my arm again - the
medical treatment having been to tie it in a bent position - did something
drastic to my psyche. The childish voice that had entertained my uncle at
chapel concerts suddenly asserted itself with a vengeance. At the age of about
nine and three quarters I finally confessed to my school friend Hilary that I
was going to be an opera singer. Since neither she nor I knew exactly what that
entailed she wasn’t unduly impressed. In fact, she laughed at me. But I was
used to that from Mama. And that was to become the proverbial red rag to
the bull, though I didn’t know it at the time.
Hilary lives in a long street at the
bottom of our hill together with her elder sister and next door to her cousins
who are boys and therefore of no interest to me since I have brother and that’s
as much as I can take of the opposite sex. Hilary is the tallest girl in our
class. She’s an enthusiastic brownie. She can ride a bike with no hands, and
she plays the piano rather well. Sometimes I go there after school. I stand
outside their lounge window and watch her practising her scales, bouncing
around on the piano stool, her hands whizzing up and down the keys. Her face is
furrowed with concentration, but it usually is whatever she’s doing.
There is something incredibly
competent about Hilary. Sometimes I think she’s more mature than my own mother,
though she can’t be more than a year or so older than me. I am acutely aware of
her intelligence. Her mother is nice, too. They have the same straight beige
hair and low forehead like Queen Elizabeth the First before they shaved off her
widow’s peak off. We have the same surname, but Hilary’s family laughs a lot,
in contrast to my solemn, sad family.
I like going places where
people laugh. We don’t have much to laugh about at home, now Dada is so ill.
Somehow I get the feeling that they know that I am suffering. My elbow has long
since healed, but I’ve lost the urge to be really good at the piano, because
the sinews in my right arm hurt as soon as I stretch them. So I sing instead, secretly,
or so I think, but who can sing secretly?
I owe my stunted career as a brownie
to Hilary. She drags me along to one of the meetings, and before I can say
‘brown owl’ I have sworn allegiance and am given instructions about the first
set of tasks I have to complete to get the same row of embroidered badges on my
blouse as all the others.
First I am to use a public telephone.
We have a phone of our own at home, but I am assured that it is important to be
able to communicate by using a phone box. Equipped with some coins, I am sent
out on my own to look for such a contraption. I have written the required phone
number on the palm of my hand and I am confident that I am up to the challenge.
"There’s one just down the
road," says Hilary. “Shall I go with her?”
"It’s all
right, Hilary," I insist. "I can find it by myself."
I set off at a brisk pace. Brownie
miles are longer than ordinary ones, I discover. ‘Just down the road’ turns out
to be about a brownie mile away. Not only that. Someone else has got there
before me and has made off with the telephone, leaving its wire hanging down
dismally at the side. What shall I do now?
I look at my watch. The meeting
started at seven, I set off at seven thirty, and it’s now eight o’clock. That
means they’ll be starting to get bothered that I haven’t rung. But if I go back
without phoning, I won’t get the badge, so I decide to go on walking. Half an
hour later - presumably the phones boxes are placed at brownie mile intervals
along the road - the next one looms into sight. It is now quite dark and misty.
I am a little afraid. Not without difficulty do I swing the stubborn door open,
pick up the phone, and realise that I have lost the coins. I am devastated.
What shall I do now? I am a brownie. I should know what to do. I should be
prepared.
It is half past eight and the guide
meeting will be drawing to a close and I should be back there being awarded my
first badge. Instead, I am in the middle of nowhere in a phone box without any
money. I squint at the writing on the wall ahead of me. It has instructions for
using the phone. You take it off the hook, dial the exchange, then say the
number and put the coins in when the voice tells you to. In case of emergency,
dial....
In a moment of inspiration, I realise
that this is an emergency. I dial 999 and wait. Sure enough, a friendly voice
answers: "Fire, ambulance or police?".
"Help!" I stutter.
"Fire, ambulance or
police?" the voice insists.
"It’s me," I manage, “…I...”
"Oh really?" the voice
chips in and next thing I hear is the toot at my end of the phone telling me
that my call has been terminated.
Again I am devastated. I haven’t had
time to tell them where I am. There’s nothing for it but to repeat the
procedure.
This time the voice takes on a
vicious note when I try to explain what I want.
"Oh, it’s you again. I thought
it was a silly joke."
"Well it isn’t. I’m a brownie
and I’ve lost my money."
"Brownies know what to do when
they haven’t got any money," the voice chides.
"I’ve only been a brownie for a
week and I haven’t got my badge for not having any money," I sob into the
phone.
The voice starts to sound concerned.
"I’ll put you through to the
police," it says.
The police are obviously more used to
handling cries for help. After I have sobbed out my miserable story, the
policeman says:
"Well, this is Police Constable
Prior and we’ll come and collect you in our police car if you tell us where you
are."
"I’m miles up the road from the
brownies in the second phone box," I explain rather ambiguously. I know
neither the name of the road nor the direction it is taking, but the policeman
seems to understand.
“Stay where you are. We’ll be there
in 5 minutes ... And don’t talk to anybody."
As if I could. There isn’t a soul in
sight.
Sure enough, five minutes later the
police car draws up, and my mission impossible comes to a rather ignominious
end on the back seat of a Black Maria.
When we arrive back at the brownie
meeting house, everyone has gone home. Nobody has even thought of informing anyone
that I have gone missing. They have probably forgotten all about me. The police
take me home in their car and explain to Mama what has happened. They say they
are going to take action against the brownies. Mama threatens to take action of
her own.
Hilary is amused when I tell her
about my misfortune.
"What a pity you missed the
pow-wow," she says. "When I did the phoning badge I just went home
and phoned from there and pretended to be in a phone box."
What a fiddle.
"Why didn’t you tell me that?"
I reproach her.
"Because you wouldn’t let me go
with you," Hilary replies.
She almost stops being my friend at
that moment.
The following week there is an
almighty row at the meeting. The boy-scout leader has come to sort things out
and is really cross with the brownie leader for allowing a novice out alone
without supervision. I am to get my phoning badge for trying and an extra badge
for initiative, because I have phoned the police when in difficulties. I get a
round of applause for this second badge because it’s not an easy one to get,
since you have to rescue people and do other heroic things for it. And they
don’t grow on trees.
Even Hilary is impressed. But my
enthusiasm for the brownies has been severely undermined. I never go there
again, though I do join in one or two of Hilary’s extramural escapades.
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