This is a short story I entered into a competition a while back.
I didn't win anything.
Pleasing Yasmina
Laura had noticed that when people were nervous, they did odd things like jiggling their legs or pacing up and down. When Laura was nervous, like she was now, she rolled her friendship bracelets up and down her wrist. The sound of the plastic threads clacking over each other was relaxing, like scrunching paper or rubbing your teeth together.
Laura was nervous because it was the last Friday before school started and the car was almost at Yasmina’s house.
If she didn’t ask her mum now, she would never be allowed to join Yasmina’s new club.
Laura had joined Yasmina’s Bracelet Club when Yasmina had given her a custard-coloured friendship bracelet on the first day of school holidays and told her that it meant they were best friends.
Now Yasmina had decided to form a new club and had been talking about it for the entire two week break. And for two weeks, Laura had been rehearsing how she would ask her mum if she could join the new club. She rolled her bracelets up and down.
‘Um … Mum?’
‘Yes, sweetheart?’
‘There’s going to be this new club at school and it’s pretty good and I think I want to join.’
‘Sounds interesting!’ Her mum smiled. So far, so good.
‘Yeah, it’s a totally cool club. All these cool people are going to be in it, and we’re gonna do all this really cool stuff together, and call each other and stuff.’
‘Great. Like a friends club or something?’
'Yeah!' Getting warmer.
'What's your club called?'
Now for the hard part. ‘Well, it’s like a group of girls and we all call each other and keep in touch and organise things together and we all need to be able to be in touch all the time in case something happens and we all need to know about it. You know?’
They pulled up at a traffic light. Her mum looked over at her as if hearing her for the first time. ‘Sweetheart, what are you talking about? What kind of club is it? Is it organised through the school?’
Laura swallowed and brushed her hand up her wrist. ‘No, not really. It’s kind of a mobile phone club and so we all have to have mobiles and that’s how we keep in touch, like best friends and stuff.’
Her mum screwed up her face as though she could smell something dirty. Laura rolled her bracelets and kept talking.
‘So can I get a mobile? Yasmina says they’re really cheap and it’ll be so handy for like when you need to get in touch with me, and Yasmina say they’re really convenient for like, in an emergency or something and I’ll be able to talk to all the other girls in the club and …’
‘Laura! You’re eleven! You’ve never needed a mobile before and you don’t need one now!’
‘But Yasmina says that they’re really cheap and …’
‘That Yasmina girl has never had to pay for anything in her life. This is just like that bracelet club or whatever it was a couple of weeks ago, isn’t it?’
Laura bit her lip and said nothing.
‘Look. I don’t mind buying you a bunch of bracelets so you can be in with your friends, but we just can’t afford a mobile phone, Laura. I’m sure it’s lovely for Yasmina to get everything she wants, but you’ll just have to do without.’
‘But Yasmina got hers last night and I have to get one before school starts or …’
‘You’re not getting one, Laura. I don’t care what Yasmina said, we just don’t have enough money. ’
‘But Mum, I …’
Her mum slapped the steering wheel. ‘I’ve said my bit, Laura.’
They pulled up outside Yasmina’s house just as Yasmina came skipping out to the car. She was waving a hot pink mobile phone and wearing the sunglasses she said her mum would buy her to go with it.
To be continued ...
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An explanation of The Joy Division Litmus Test
Although it may now be lost in the mysts of thyme, the poll below is still relevant to this blog. In the winter of 2008, Mele and I went to live in Queensland. In order to survive, I bluffed my way into a job at a Coffee Club.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.
That is so eerily similar to a conversation that I've had recently with Sapphire I'm still sitting here wondering how you overheard it!
ReplyDeleteHidden microphones.
ReplyDeleteDA DA DUUMMMMM!!!!!
Interesting so far, don't keep us waiting too long for part two, okay?
ReplyDeleteI'm in two minds myself about young kids having mobile phones. Two of my grandchildren have them but they're now almost 14 and 16,the older one got a cheap pre-paid phone in her last Primary year so that they could phone home as they were leaving school to walk home, in the hills along a road with no proper footpath for part of the way. This way if they didn't get home within an acceptable time frame, T could get in the car and go looking for them. When she moved on to high school, the phone was handed down to the younger child. They both proved to be responsible users and now each have their own phone, but must pay for their credits out of their pocket money. That's why I buy extra credit for their birthdays and christmas.
P.S. They DIDN'T walk alone, there was always a bunch of kids going in the same direction, but kids will goof around and accidents were always a possibility, hence the phones once they started walking instead of getting picked up and driven home.
ReplyDeleteFear not, fair River. All is ready to go.
ReplyDeleteDidn't kids just walk home before mobile phones? I used to catch the bus into the city and home again after school when I was ten. Is that old enough? Too young?