St. Mallory's Forever!

17. HELEN: Parental Guidance.

When I went to normal school, I got the bus home with the normal kids. Of course I could've cadged a lift with Mum and saved the fare, but that would have meant hanging around until she left, usually about five thirty. Yeah, nope. Not happening.

Since I knew there'd be no-one at home I could take as long as I wanted. I could take a detour to look in an interesting shop, or hang out with the cool friends my mum didn't like, since she wouldn't know about it.

Here — deep sigh — the only going-home journey I've got is a two minute walk across the grounds back to our boarding house, and I can't even fart en route without Mum hearing about it. It's like being under constant surveillance. I swear, the teachers could work for MI6. They see and hear everything.

I've been told that the best thing about boarding school is the freedom, since you don't have parents looking over your shoulder the whole time and telling you off for doing stuff. And it's sort of true. You just have teachers and matrons and miscellaneous ancillary staff, all of whom think they have a right to boss you about instead.

Okay, that was all off topic, but basically what I was leading up to is the fact that earlier today I was invited out to Brighton with the girls.

Abby had been really excited when she told me. Apparently there's an awesome music shop she thought I'd like. I could see from the look on her face that she really was thinking of me. Say what you like about her, but she's not the most musical person I've ever met, so I felt kind of guilty for being so mean about her before. Anyway, I duly went and asked my mother, and she said I couldn't go.

Get this. Mother Dearest doesn't want me wandering around Brighton on my own.

Er, Mother, I'm nearly fifteen. Almost a pensioner like you!

I reminded the Aged Parent (yeah, big Swallows and Amazons fan, me) I'd be with friends there. She said that was beside the point. I was too young to be spending time in an unfamiliar town without a supervising parent.

"Mum," I pointed out, trying not to let it sound like I was mad at her, "seriously. If I can cope with big, bad London I can cope with Brighton?"

"Brighton's different, dear."

"Exactly. It's smaller, quieter, with less crime, less places to have accidents, less places to get lost. I'm not going to commit suicide by jumping off the cliffs, or hang out with druggies and get stoned."

Mum gave in, eventually, on the condition I bring her back some interesting music that she didn't already own. That's a challenge, since I swear she's got every piece of sheet music ever, but I promised — so long as she gave me the money.

◊ ◊ ◊

And so we got off site, for the first time since I arrived.

I've not been to this part of the country much, although we had visited Eastbourne a few years ago, so Brighton's all new to me. And we found the shop eventually.

But the shop itself was nothing compared to what we found inside...