(This shot is of my
old flat the day
it snowed...)
The Last Laugh. 22 September 2006.
Lauren was not your average child; she was not your average girl. She liked to ride horses and play with dolls – she also was fascinated with computer games and cars.
Her father would often let her hang around and help in the garage when he was maintaining the car. Lauren was pretty good at changing oil now. Her favourite part was watching all the oil drain from the car into the bucket after she had unscrewed the cap underneath the engine. She had been timid about trying it the first time, but now she was agog to do most of the work herself.
As for computer games, her favourite was Car-racer on the SP4-modelXV900: the latest, coolest, most-popular game and computer-gaming console around. She could beat any of her boy friends (male pals, not boyfriends, she was only nine after all…) on it. They were partly livid about being beaten by a female; but also had a sense of admiration and held her in high regard for her attributes and uniqueness.
Some of the other girls at school noticed her boyishness. They called her “Tom-boy” and other unmentionable names behind her back – and sometimes to her face too. They had life figured out – and they were only eight and nine-years old. This was an astonishing thing: adults at the age of fifty were themselves still trying to work out what the deal was with life. They spent thousands of dollars per year on self-help courses and books, on counselling, gurus, mentors, etc, and were still struggling to work things out… Not these young lasses. Oh no. They knew it all. Life was about one thing and one thing only: being normal. That and being popular, cool, having long straight hair… you get the idea.
One of Lauren’s detractors was called Sariah. She was four and a half feet tall, had long, sandy blonde hair, wore blue jeans and a baggy pink t-shirt most weekends, and had the coolest Bratz collection in the world. She had of course verified this as a fact. Her best friend was Abigail: a prissy-looking brunette whose favourite clothing was black tights and a purple cardigan. She adorned herself also with some pink Doctor Martin boots. She was the envy of the town when hanging out with her comrades down at the mall.
Most lunch times Lauren would be out in the field with the boys, playing soccer or cricket; sometimes rugby, but the boys tended to play that game to be manly and get away from feminine homo-sapiens, so she was often left out. She did not look much like other girls; she was not considered normal by her peers at all. She had short black hair, wore ripped jeans and a black Limp Bizkit t-shirt outside of school, and tended to have a tough-looking, boyish face too.
Today was your ordinary day.
“What game are you goin’ a play today eh Tom?” enquired Sariah.
“Oh, I thought I’d be game for some footy today Sariah. What about you: playing with Bratz in the classroom again today; resting your unfit body and avoiding any strain to your legs?” Lauren suggested.
Abigail looked affronted:
“Are you getting’ smart to my mate Sariah eh Lauren - sorry - Tom? Are you cruisin’ for a bruisin’ this lunch-time?”
“I just suggested the obvious, Abs, take a chill pill girl. Well, I’m a off to play some football with the lads, have fun with Barbie – you know what I mean. See ya girls.”
And with that, Lauren was out in the field, at the speed of lightning; faster than the speed of light in fact. (Apology: that could not be a fact, not even in a narrative: all scientists agree that nothing in the Universe can exceed the speed of light. Sure, some things happen in stories that have a one-in-a-million chance of happening; but never things that are entirely impossible and improbable. There’s narrativium, and then there’s just plain lies.)
Abs and Sariah settled down for a nice game of “Thorrington Super-model” with their Bratz dolls, and were quickly immersed in intense dialogue and totally removed from any kind of what people normally call “reality”. About half an hour later, Abigail had an idea which brought her back to the real world temporarily.
“You know, we should teach old Lauren a lesson. It’s just not right that she refuses to be normal; I hate it how she keeps her hair short and plays with the boys. Boys are gross…”
“I’m with ya there Abs”, responded Sariah. “She’s a real weirdo. She needs to learn a thing or two about life; she needs us to bring her into the world of conformity and popularity. Then she can be happy like us, and we can fulfil our dream of a homogenous society. Our motto should be: ‘Everyone must think the same.’”
“That’s a cracker of a slogan Sariah. I’ll just write that down. Now here’s what I think we should do to Lauren…”
After about ten more minutes’ discussion, and with about ten minutes left of lunchtime, the girls had their plan ready, and they set out to teach Lauren the Meaning of Life, once and for all.
“Hi there Lauren, we were wondering if you want to come to a sleep-over at Sariah’s place this Saturday,” said Abigail.
“Uh, aren’t you the same two girls that always pick on me?” challenged Lauren, wary of this sudden kindness.
“Yeah, we know. You see, that’s the thing: we feel bad that we treat you so badly, and would love to make it up to you. You seem pretty cool really; we want you to know there are no hard feelings between us,” offered Abigail. “Go on, it’ll be heaps of fun. All the girls in the class are coming: Sandy, Bobbie, Joanna, – the lot.”
Lauren contemplated this for a few seconds. Hmmm, she pondered, these girls are up to something; no wait, maybe they do want to be my friends. Oh! Who knows? The best way to find out is to just go along, and then see what happens. You do need friends, she thought to herself. “Okay, what the heck. I’ll go. What time?”
“Around seven, bring a plate of food and your pyjamas,” advised Sariah.
“Okay, cool. See you there I guess. Well, I’ll also see you for the rest of the day, and the week; I will also see you there… Oh, you know what I mean.”
“We certainly do,” Abigail winked subtly to Sariah, who smirked back at her. “We do know what you are like – sorry, what you mean.”
The days came and went, and soon enough it was Saturday night. Six-thirty pm and Lauren was having an anxiety attack, and fretting to her liberal, happy-go-lucky mother.
“What could possibly go wrong?” (Famous last words…) challenged Lauren’s mother. “You just go along now; you’ll have fun, you’ll see. Maybe they just want to be your friends."
Sure, and I’m an echidna, thought Lauren to herself. “Okay, whatever. Can we just get this over with?” Lauren was timorous, yet felt skookum enough to brave the party all the same.
Little did she know this was character-building, and that this was the early formation of the strength and determination – bravery even – that would later carry her through the tough times in her life.
The drive to the party was short (it was the fact that Lauren had to walk there that made her take forty minutes to get there.) Enter Lauren, 7.10pm Saturday night.
The party went really well. All the girls chatted to Lauren all night. She joined in Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Midnight, and a plethora of other fun party games. She was having the time of her life; to let the truth be known. Yay, she thought. I have friends, at last.
The party ended quite late: around nine pm. Lauren was first to sleep, being bone-tired from all this new excitement.
She awoke feeling refreshed. She got up and had breakfast with the rest of the lasses, and didn’t notice anything strange until, when washing her face, she stopped short and stared in
horror at the monstrosity staring back at her: they had dyed her hair bright green.
When she finally regained her composure she left the party, still crying bitterly into her now soaked sleeve. She walked home, and would have got there quickly, at the pace she was walking, except that someone stopped to talk to her.
“Excuse me. Hey there, you, girl. Excuse me – yes, you. What’s your name?” came a voice from the bright-red, sleek Alpha Romeo sports-car.
“Go away! Get lost,” sobbed Lauren. “I want to be left alone.”
“Okay, I just thought you’d want to be in this TV show I’m making, you look just the part – your hair looks so cool by the way, who dyed it for you?”
“What?! Oh, that. You like it - really?”
“Like it? No. I love it. We’re filming this new show, you see, and we have not been able to find a young girl with green hair. It’s not that common, you might like to know. And then, on the way to the auditions today, who do I pass but you? Do you think your mummy would let you come audition for a show? It’s called The Rebels. It’s full of punk kids who’ve run away from home and live a life of freedom and independence under the bridges of this wonderful city we call home. It’s just marvellous; as are you. I was looking for someone that bit different; someone unique, to play the leader of the pack, so to speak. You fit the exact description of the character I want you to audition for. We’ve had no luck so far: all the girls look too plain.”
By then, needless to say, Lauren had forgotten about the delinquent girls who had ruined her hair – ruined it? They’d just kick-started her acting career. She’d always dreamed of this. If only Mum says yes…
