The Black Signature

Boarding School. What’s the first thing that comes into your head when the words ‘Boarding School’ are uttered? I’ll tell you what mine are:

The first is ‘snob’. Whenever you see a television show about a Boarding School they are all very well spoken and seem to think they are above everyone else, looking down their noses at anyone who is the slightest bit different from them. They all wear the exact same uniform exactly how they’re supposed to and without any argument whatsoever. So ‘snob’, I think, is the first thing that comes into my head.

The second is ‘studious’. It seems to me that each and every pupil that attends a Boarding School is a straight A student that has no social life because they’re constantly studying and concentrating on nothing but their work. Even the thought of this bores me to tears. Seriously. How someone can study twenty-four/seven for four years of their lives is entirely beyond me!

And finally, the third is ‘bitchy’. Plain and simple. This could go hand-in-hand with ‘snob’ I guess but nonetheless I think it suits. There is always some sort of snide remark being tossed about like a meaningless, regulated game of Battle Royale with insults instead of weapons, a game of luck and skill that only the strongest and smartest survive.

As I was soon to find out, each of these initial thoughts were true, but far more complex and intricate than they appear on the surface.

I started Boarding School yesterday. Seventeen years of age and already my parents were seemingly fed up of me. Such a great feeling, isn’t it, when your mother thinks you’re not worthy of her care and ships you off to a school halfway across the country? Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. She just had a baby. My very own little sister. So that makes three siblings: twin brothers and a newborn sister. It’s hard to raise four kids, I imagine, but what makes it worse is that she has no man in her life to be seen or heard of.

So, in all honesty, this whole thing was completely my idea. I just like to rant. You’re just going to have to get used to that, I’m afraid. But I decided that Boarding School would get me away from three screaming children and give my mother some space for the time being.

And that’s when I found Leaderton. I remember opening the glossy red leaflet that I had applied for on the internet and for some reason was strangely attracted to this school. Out of the fourteen schools I had investigated it was the first that had actually caught my eye. I don’t know what it was about it that I found so appealing. Maybe the modern looking building, or the fact that there was no official uniform, or possibly that the kids genuinely seemed to be happy with where they were. Okay, I am fully aware that the faculty are going to promote the school any way they can and that the whole thing was only a façade but it still made me want to go, which is strange for the sole reason that I don’t normally like anything from the first glance. Anything. That includes people, places, food, drink, paintings, books. The list is endless. Literally anything at all that I saw was ugly and repellent in some form or another. And so I showed the leaflet to my mother and her eyes glazed over straight away.

“Boarding School?” She queried, a hurt look chasing away the confused glaze. “Why are you showing me this?”

And so I had to explain to her. I really should have told her that I was thinking about it before I researched schools but I figured that having a solid plan was probably the best way to get her to come round to my point of view.

“I think it would be a good idea,” I replied, a stammer in my voice. My mother can be quite scary at times. I didn’t want her to lose it just now. “It would mean one less child to look after and…it’s just something I would like to do just now.”

A sigh escaped her before she talked to me in a dangerously calm tone.

“Did you ever think that I like taking care of my kids, regardless of how difficult it is?” The hurt in her voice was evident and I felt bad. Real bad. But I needed her to be strong and tell her that I needed to do this. “Did it ever occur to you that I may need your help around the house while I’m raising the twins and your sister?”

“Of course it did, mum.” Don’t get me wrong, I had thought about this, but I’m sure I would just get in the way and moan at her. I wanted to save her the pain of having to fight with me and put up with my siblings as well. I am a teenager after all.

I get capricious.

Isn’t that a fantastic word? I do this thing where I pick up a dictionary everyday, open it to a random page and choose the first word I see that I don’t know the meaning of. Then I have to use that word at least twice that day. Today’s is ‘capricious’, meaning changeable or temperamental. This is my mother’s influence, by the way. She taught me that it was the best way to improve my vocabulary and this resulted in me being in the top five percentile of English students in the country. How awesome is my mother? She’s awesome, I know.
And yes, I know I said I didn’t like ‘studious’ people, but honestly, just because I have a natural talent for something doesn’t mean I’m ‘studious’. It doesn’t mean that I spend all of my life studying English. It just means that I am good at something I like doing. Trust me, it’s completely different.

“Well?” she retorted. She was getting angry. I could tell. There was always a tell-tale sign when my mother’s getting annoyed: her eye twitches (usually resulting in me attempting – and failing – the stifle a fit of the giggles), or the tip of her nose goes red, or her mouth becomes an almost invisible line. In this case the latter was the evidence.

“I just feel that taking care of a teenager will be difficult when you have three other kids to account for and care for. I’ll just get in the way and I know that you know that. I don’t think that Boarding School is such a bad idea and I could write and you could come visit me and stuff.”

Then the tip of her nose went red. She was getting angrier by the minute.

“Do you really think I have the bloody money to send you to Boarding School?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know what to say to that. I knew we weren’t the richest family but we weren’t poor. It never crossed my mind that the issue of money would be involved. I hadn’t thought that far ahead: the crucial flaw in my plan.

“Will you at least think about it?” I asked hopefully, forcing tears to well up in my eyes. I was giving my mother the puppy-dog eyes. I’m pathetic, I know, but for some strange reason unbeknownst to me I wanted to go to this Boarding School. Leaderton. Even the name sounded innocent and serene.

She rolled her eyes. I was in, I knew it. She would think about it but the outcome would be in my favour. She knew that it would be a good thing for both of us. I would benefit from the experience and she would benefit by getting used to me being away for a period of time. I knew my mother too well. She was more than just a mother to me: she was my friend and companion. There were no secrets between us. And because I knew her so well I knew that the rolling of her eyes was a sign of defeat. I was victorious.

So, two months later, here I am. And do I like Boarding School? Not a bit. The solid plan that I had been grasping onto had started to crumble and, like sand, fall through the miniscule cracks between my fingers. The food sucks, my room-mate sucks, my room itself sucks.

Boarding School, you guessed it, sucks.