Not Having Fun

021

Now that school is back on, Chris doesn't go to primary with me anymore. Now he's at the high school on the other side of the river. I've been home for half an hour and I'm finishing my homework when Chris slams the door open. 

"Bloody bitch..." he mutters to himself.

"What's wrong?" Mum asks from the kitchen.  Roxie is crawling around in her playpen in the middle of the carpet.

"Ugh, they sent me a note home," he pushes a piece of paper into her hand. She opens it and starts reading.

"You were throwing pencils in the class?!"

SMACK!

"Ow, Mum!"

"It's the first week back and we've already got a letter home?! Is this what it's going to be now that you're in high school, eh?!"

I watch while she gives Chris into trouble. "In the first week?! You're lucky your Dad isn't home to sign this!"

"Alright," he shrugs. "It's not that big a deal!"

"Not that big a-?!"

SMACK!

"Since it's the first week, you can give me your phone until the second week," she holds out her hand and Chris reluctantly fishes his phone out his blazer.

"Get upstairs and do your homework,"

"This is so not fair, man!" Chris storms upstairs.

"He really did get your Dad's anger, didn't he?" Mum looks at me and winks. I giggle.

After doing my homework, Mum lets me play in the garden until dinner time. She calls me in and Dad is giving Chris his second round of lecturing about the note.

"I don't think you deserve to choose the movie tonight,"

"Nobody else in my year gets their phone taken away!" Chris defends. "I didn't even do anything that bad. Some of them even smoke, and a load of them prank-called Childline, and-"

"Well, maybe if they had parents who cared enough to punish them, they wouldn't be getting into such trouble,"

He slumps back in his chair and eats.

"How's Year 2 going, ah Max?" Mum changes the subject.

"I hate Mrs Lammond, even when I've finished all my work she just tells me to do more!" I slump back in my seat too. "That means I'm doing more work than everyone else,"

"Mrs Lammond?! I had her in school! I thought she'd be well retired by now," Dad says. "She used to give me the belt all the time,"

"The belt?" 

Dad nods. "I went to school in the seventies, they were still allowed to belt kids in primary school. Five year olds! That's bloody cruel," he shakes his head. "No, if the parents want to do that that's their business. Teachers shouldn't be allowed,"

I have to say I agree. Mrs Lammond seems like a mean spanker!

"Do you want to help me with Roxie?" Mum asks me. We've been introducing her to baby food since school started again.

"Okay," we go into the living room and I help feed her. She's getting so big at six months! That means she's going to look like Chris - strong and all freckles. And her hair is already starting to come in, curly like his.

"Mum?" I ask while feeding Roxie. Nobody really cares how messy we get. She's a baby!

"Yeah Max?"