Round Eleven
Summer in Perth is one of a Mediterranean climate. The days are hot and seem to last forever. The nights are cool and if you are lucky to leave your window open at night, the fresh sea breeze will rock you to sleep.
The best part of summer for a fifteen-year-old girl is the summer holidays. The excitement of Christmas and New Years fly by with less novelty than when you were five, but none the less merit a nice fuzzy feeling. January is full of going shopping with your Christmas money and your best friends; walking around for five hours but only buying a single hairclip and knocking over about twenty displays (and a small child) by accident. The beach is a high point; leaving at 9am to catch a bus to Perth then the train to Stirling train station then another bus to Scarborough to arrive at roughly midday. Then making the same trip home after about an hour and a half (including lunch of a Happy Meal at Maccas), and taking about a kilo of sand with you. And parties; getting Colleen's friend's Mum to buy two bottles of Passion Pop and then sharing it between the six of you (and still getting drunk) then proceeding to quote Father Ted and perform Lano and Woodley stunts through the night. These are the good times.
Then the reality of school enters your mind. Your mother begins to fuss over getting the correct schoolbooks by checking serial numbers instead of trusting the immediate book title/author. She makes sure you have a school uniform which is at least two sizes too big (just in case you get that growth spurt you haven't had yet), and definitely makes you resemble the famous Lesmurdie tree. Then it's time to stock up on pens and files and notebooks and those disgusting caramel choc chip chewy muesli bars (which nobody eats anyway).
The next thing you know, you're posing for the obligatory first day of school photograph. Your bag is packed with all your books (just in case you need them all on your first day), a packed lunch and a pencil case with enough supplies to last you right through to your anticipated tertiary education. This is the one day you put enough effort into your hairstyle in such a way that you don't look like a "mad scientist" or a "cocker spaniel".
Your Mum takes you to school so that you arrive about twenty minutes too early (just in case the bell times change again) and you make your way over to "The Bench" where Jess Griffin is waiting already (she catches the early bus). So begins the gossip about Laine's new love triangle between Brenda, Peter Calvert and Eddie. Tara has a new hairstyle and that Hannah chick got a labret. There's perving on the new guys from Roleystone, and bitching about the new girls. You're about to enter a discussion about the latest happenings on Dawson's Creek when the siren sounds. The terror begins. It's time for round eleven.
The best part of summer for a fifteen-year-old girl is the summer holidays. The excitement of Christmas and New Years fly by with less novelty than when you were five, but none the less merit a nice fuzzy feeling. January is full of going shopping with your Christmas money and your best friends; walking around for five hours but only buying a single hairclip and knocking over about twenty displays (and a small child) by accident. The beach is a high point; leaving at 9am to catch a bus to Perth then the train to Stirling train station then another bus to Scarborough to arrive at roughly midday. Then making the same trip home after about an hour and a half (including lunch of a Happy Meal at Maccas), and taking about a kilo of sand with you. And parties; getting Colleen's friend's Mum to buy two bottles of Passion Pop and then sharing it between the six of you (and still getting drunk) then proceeding to quote Father Ted and perform Lano and Woodley stunts through the night. These are the good times.
Then the reality of school enters your mind. Your mother begins to fuss over getting the correct schoolbooks by checking serial numbers instead of trusting the immediate book title/author. She makes sure you have a school uniform which is at least two sizes too big (just in case you get that growth spurt you haven't had yet), and definitely makes you resemble the famous Lesmurdie tree. Then it's time to stock up on pens and files and notebooks and those disgusting caramel choc chip chewy muesli bars (which nobody eats anyway).
The next thing you know, you're posing for the obligatory first day of school photograph. Your bag is packed with all your books (just in case you need them all on your first day), a packed lunch and a pencil case with enough supplies to last you right through to your anticipated tertiary education. This is the one day you put enough effort into your hairstyle in such a way that you don't look like a "mad scientist" or a "cocker spaniel".
Your Mum takes you to school so that you arrive about twenty minutes too early (just in case the bell times change again) and you make your way over to "The Bench" where Jess Griffin is waiting already (she catches the early bus). So begins the gossip about Laine's new love triangle between Brenda, Peter Calvert and Eddie. Tara has a new hairstyle and that Hannah chick got a labret. There's perving on the new guys from Roleystone, and bitching about the new girls. You're about to enter a discussion about the latest happenings on Dawson's Creek when the siren sounds. The terror begins. It's time for round eleven.