Break the Child: Chapter Ten: Hot Pants and Wedges

                                    Chapter Ten: Hot Pants and Wedges

            It’s the queen’s Diamond Jubilee plus eighteen this week. She’s been the queen for sixty-eight years. Mr Hunter is our English Teacher and he was talking to us about it in class on Friday. He did a lesson about what it means for England to be a Monarchy. First of all, he asked what a monarchy is. Danny Peterson put his hand up, but Sir picked Claire McAdam to answer. Before she could say anything, Danny shouted out because he thinks he’s funny, he said, ‘It’s a flipping big church, isn’t it?’

            ‘No Danny, that’s a monastery, and if you were a monk, they’d have locked you up in a belfry years ago, but sadly, I’m not allowed to do that to you. The government believes that every child has a right to an education—even you, Danny.’

            ‘Aw, Sir, I could have you done for saying that. It’s discrimination.’

            ‘Please tell me that I taught you a big word like that, and then I know my life hasn’t been wasted. Right, enough of the Danny Peterson Show. Clair what is a monarchy?’ Secretly, I think Mr Hunter likes Danny, he always tries not to laugh when he’s telling him off and sometimes he doesn’t manage it and laughs anyway, and then the class gets all disrupted because when Sir starts laughing he tries to stop himself and the more he tries to stop the more he laughs and then the whole class joins in. I love it when that happens. I think Mr Hunter is a pretty good teacher.

            We were talking all about being a monarchy, which is a country that is governed by a king or queen. It got into a big debate when Sir was on about how old the queen is and what we thought about it. David Phelps said that he thought the queen should abdicate, but that Prince Charles shouldn’t get her job, it should miss a generation and go straight on to Prince William. Some of the class agreed with him. I did `cause she’s really old, but some of them thought that the queen should stick with it until the day she dies and get in The Guinness Book of World Records as the longest reining monarch.

            Joe Trench put his hand up.

            ‘Yes, Joe?’

            ‘Who is the longest reigning monarch in the world, Sir?’

            Sir thought about it for a moment, ‘I haven’t a clue.’ We all gasped because Teachers are supposed to know everything, aren’t they? I mean, even if they don’t know the answer, they should just make something up so that we don’t think they’re thick. I mean, what’s the point of being a teacher if you don’t know the answers to stuff? Sir went red because some of the lads started laughing, then he made a joke about it and he put his hands out and said, ‘ I teach English, do I look like a history teacher? There is only room for one Miss Chew in this school?’ and then he crossed himself and said, ‘Thank God.’

            ‘Aw Sir,’ said, Dan Cotter, I’m going to tell her you said that.

            Sir put up his hand for silence. ‘Right, I think we would all benefit from knowing the answer to such a burning question and as I can’t give it to you, and am therefore woefully lacking in calling myself your teacher, I’m going to look it up. ‘He got out his phone and did an internet search. I don’t think even the teachers are allowed to use their phones in school. Some of the class said that they were going to grass him up to Mr Crawford, the Headmaster, but they were only joking ‘Right, I’ve consulted the font of all knowledge, and apparently, the longest reigning monarch was King Rama IX of Thailand. He served for sixty-five years and three hundred and sixty-three days. So, class, what does that mean?’

            ‘Wow,’ Jenny said, ‘I bet he was well annoyed if he died two days before he’d been on the throne for sixty-six years.’

            Dan Cotter called her a thicko and said that he couldn’t be mad if he was dead.

            “No, Jenny, it doesn’t men that he was annoyed, it means that our queen at sixty eight years of service, is the second longest reigning monarch in the history of the world. How about that?’

            Sir told us to write a thousand-word essay on what rules we would introduce if we were king or queen.

            I think woefully is such a romantic word.  We are having a street Party on Tuesday for the queen, though I don’t think she’s been sent an invite, lol, which I think is woefully bad of the organisers. I wouldn’t like to not get an invite to my party. Really, it’s nothing to do with the queen, I mean sixty-eight years on the throne isn’t like one of those mile-sticks, is it? We might as well have a street party for Kerry at number sixty-three getting a new job at Sainsburys.  We have one every year for something or other, it’s just an excuse for a party, but I suppose being the queen for sixty-eight years is pretty cool.

            Mum did something nuts again today. Dad rang her on her mobile because he didn’t know if she was in or not. She picked up the phone and was saying. ‘Hello. Hello,’ but she didn’t press the green answer button, so the phone just kept on ringing. I had to go up and press it for her, but by then Dad had gone. She was sick again this morning and stayed in bed.

She gets the results of her blood test on Wednesday and I know her, and dad are worried about it, but they pretend not to be when I’m around. It’s a woeful shame that they feel that they have to act all happy when I’m there.

            Mum was telling me about the queen’s Silver Jubilee, that’s when she’d only been a queen for twenty-five years. Mum went in hot pants and wedges. She’s still pretty good looking and she’s got a good figure, but I can’t imagine my mum in hot pants. She said she had Farrah Fawcett hair. I had no idea what that meant. I thought it was something to do with a tap, but she was this actress in the olden days. We looked her up, too.

            I asked if we could call the baby Farrah, I think that’s a pretty name. Mum said she’ll think about it, which means a definite, no, and Dad piped up with ‘No son of mine is going to be called Farrah.’

            ‘I want it to be a girl.