Fruit punch; or, the induction morning

Before I forget - purplerainbow, Becca agreed to come on Saturday. So our original plan's okay, all systems go, etc...

I got up this morning, got dressed in a dream and then realised I was putting my boots on to bare feet. Of course, I then discovered my mother has thrown away my last pair of socks. I wish she wouldn't. I had to dig out some ancient pair of tube socks that make my feet itch. Anyway... having stomped outside in a bad mood to end all bad moods, and opened the gate, I noticed the weather - hot, humid, irritable - and also realised I'd forgotten my orange Grin bag full of to-be-returned textbooks. So the day did not begin well.

It did not continue well, either. I got into school on time, started digging out my textbooks and carrying them into the hall - stopped on the way to wave to lilka - and then began the long process of returning them all. I started with Classics, and got stopped by Miss Gow, who wanted to tell me all about how she was enjoying the adventures of Harrius Potter. I was just settling in for what promised to be an interesting conversation when Mrs Latin Williams broke in with a shriek. "How dare you return a book in that condition?!"
It was my Odyssey. She was holding it up in five or more pieces and simmering with rage. Fucking woman. If they give me a book that was new in 1964, it's not my fucking responsibility when it starts falling apart. She told me to "make judicious use of sellotape." The hell I will. I just dropped the book somewhere and forgot about it.

The day did not go on well, either. In a glorious burst of incompetence to round off her career as our form teacher, Mrs Williams misdirected half her form and so we were late starting at the induction morning in the lecture room. When we finally got started, I forgot to register. Joy. I had to retreieve a bunch of forms to begin filling in while they told us about the committees and life in the sixth form and so on and so forth. I wrote my name down for my first choice of committee - magazine - and second choice - debating society - and I was going to allow myself to doze through Mrs Mills' speech, but I didn't. The speech was quite astonishingly brief, and so... normal. I was startled.

They set us loose then, told us to go to the dining room where there'd be "refreshments." I was surprised. I was even more surprised when we actually saw the "refreshments." There was no orange squash. They had this fruit punch thing, with chopped apples in it, and it was in glasses. No plastic cups. And they gave us cookies, Smartie-cookies. It was like... like, we were important. I don't know. Anyway.

The next stage was MICA. They got Mr Hood to explain it, who promptly started talking about goals and achieving those goals and lifting his left leg in the air every time he said "goals." Behind him, I saw Mrs Stubbs and Mrs Enstone laughing behind their hands. And mouthing along when he said, "You are not a wandering generality, you are a meaningful specific!"
Well, I was put off MICA. I ended up choosing community service, though I don't really want to do it. They might put me working with children, and just... no. Not children.

This was followed by lunch (surprisingly good, again) and singing happy birthday to Katrina. Becca, Meg and I had half an hour to kill, so we started walking round the school as if we'd never seen it before. When we were in the first year, we scratched our names into a tree in the grassy bit of the quad, and although that's long since worn away, I was struck by how big the tree seemed when we went to look at it again. I don't know if it's me or the tree who's grown. I suspect both. Anyway, we scratched our names into the tree again, because it seemed the right thing to do. And after that, Meg wanted to give Mrs Custard a present, so we... well, we didn't technically break into her office. The door was open, so Meg slipped in, scribbled a note to her and stuck it to her desk. Mission accomplished.

The afternoon was mainly taken up in talking to individual subject teachers. I have to learn my Chemistry ions tests for next year. I made up them up during the exam - I know absolutely nothing. I also have to learn the ions chart, reactivity series and get myself a lab coat from somewhere. At least the last thing's easy - Pedar will donate one of his white coats.
I also got a reading list for English, but Politics was just "read the newspaper" and no-one turned up for Biology. Helena, in the meantime, spent all her time trying to cheer me up about Biology. I love that girl so much. She wouldn't shut up about the joys of camping, but she made me laugh. I've written her and Becca down as people I want to be in the same tutor group as next year. They haven't sorted them out yet.

When it was all done, Bev went to see Mrs Moon, Yusra was taking pictures of the school, and Becca and I were reading a poster about Cabaret. The auditions are soon, and Becca wants to go. I'm all for it. The interesting thing about the poster is that it was addressed to "Upper 5 and the Sixth Form - ie, next year's Upper 5." That means that the Sixth Form are us. That worries me. It worries me greatly. I'm not old enough!

After a few false starts and interludes involving random graffitiing of phone boxes, we managed to make our way into the village. Becca wanted to "do something" and the something turned out to be sitting in Smolenski's, drinking milkshakes. The milkshakes were a bit crap, but at least we had an excuse to sit there. The topic of conversation was madly variable - it went from Harry Potter (because there was an article about him in the newspaper on the table) to Camilla Parker-Bowles, to A-level choices, to gay sex (Bev asked about lesbians and bisexuals, and had to stop when she noticed Becca and I were both twirling our fingers - twirl, twirl, twirl, flick) to Sex and the City, to the latest programme Bev had seen on the telly. I swear, someone should stop that girl from watching medical documentaries. The last time she did that, I had to answer her questions about narcolepsy for a month.

This time it was on Sally Jessy Raphael (I know, I know) and was about "inner sex" people. "Intersex?" I suggested, and she agreed. She started talking about something - "see, there was this guy who had his ovaries removed..." - and continued in much the same vein until I had to take leave of them all on my way to the station.

This has been a ruthlessly long entry. My apologies.