The following week, Sunday school was much the same apart from three things; One, I arrived already wearing my nappy having reluctantly donned it myself. Two, I was a little more adept at skipping with a rope… and three, I had to read aloud a passage from A Little Princess in book group and answer questions about it. I’d read the entire book in a week, hoping I’d get something better, but was told that I’d have it for a month and was advised to read it again, making sure that I gave it my full attention rather than quickly skimming through it. It wasn’t that bad I guess. I felt sorry for Sarah, loosing both her father and her privileged lifestyle… but even after being forced to work as a maid, she never lost her dignity. It reminded me of the first time I had to sit and wait for my wet nappy to be changed. Looking like a little girl, feeling like a toddler… and trying my best to preserve my dignity by not crying like a baby in front of everyone. Although I kept that out of my short talk on the book.
The country dance class involved a clapping routine which is really hard if like me, you don’t know the routines… but the women who manage the Sunday School keep saying things like there’s nothing wrong with not being good at something, practice doesn’t always make perfect, trying to be better is better than being better… and all sorts of other stuff that I dong really ‘get’, but the basic message is that we try our best. In the afternoon, between the sit and talk sessions, I was paired up with one of the girls who was charged with teaching me some clapping routines which each had their accompanying rhyme. I couldn’t practise the routines at home on my own but I could rehearse the rhymes, and I was told to learn the first ten by heart I time for next week’s session.
At least I didn’t have to wear my dress on the other days, but I did wear my knickers everyday, even at school. Mother would make me wear a training bra after changing out of my school uniform and expected me to wear until morning. I always took it off at night but Mother would check and wake me… telling me to put it on so after a while I just kept it on rather than being disturbed around midnight. Mother claimed that it’s the same for all the boys at Sunday school, adding that some of them have to wear their nappies for bed as well as a training bra. “Why?” I asked. “We’re all too big to wet the bed.”
“Probably because they kept taking their training bra off when they were told to keep it on.” Mother smugly said. Just like the dresses we were at Sunday school stop us from running off, the girlie undies I wear from Monday to Saturday serve as a constant reminder of Sunday school and supposedly stops us from forgetting what we’re learning. I suppose I’m lucky that I don’t have to wear it at school too… or a nappy at night either. There’s already a big pack of them under my bed and I believe that the fact that I willingly wear them on Sunday is why I don’t have to wear them more often. Some of the others complain about nappy rash and have to wear a special cream, but they’re the ones who go to Saturday club and the after-school clubs too, and therefore wear theirs a lot more often than I wear mine.
My mates questioned why I wasn’t doing PE class all of a sudden, and I told them that I’ve ‘apparently’ got Asthma. I spun a line that I had a medical check when I got arrested and it was discovered then, and claimed that the doctor said that I can’t do PE in spite of me feeling fine. I discussed this lie at Sunday School because that’s what we’re encouraged to do, and the tutor dissected the excuse I’d used. She explained that in a roundabout way, I’d actually told the truth and changed a couple of facts. “You substituted Sunday school for asthma, you did have a medical check when you were arrested, but not the sort that would reveal you had asthma, and you substituted your mother pulling you out of PE class, for a doctor.” she said, calling it a defensive lie. “None of your school friends need to know about Sunday school… unless of course they end up here.” she said.
And there’s another reason why I really can’t grass my friends up… if I do they’ll know exactly what I’ve been doing every Sunday because they’ll be doing it too. I imagine after that scenario, they’d all gang up on me at school the next day and quite literally kill me! May not actually killed, but I imagine I’d get beaten up, and badly.