Out of bounds
When you were at school, was there an area of the playground/campus that was off limits to students, yet too alluring to stay away from?
At my school, it was a large green gas tank surrounded by a brick bund wall 🙄 The metal container was rusty and corroded in parts and dented in others where generations of girls had thrown stones at it. The cavity between the tank and the bund wall was filled with stagnant water and the whole area had a dank air of neglect and despondency.
Yet it was where all the cool girls hung out to smoke illicit cigarettes (of course, because smoking next to several cubic metres of natural gas is a great idea . . ) and it was in their company that I somehow found myself one afternoon in year 9.
No, I did not inhale (no one offered me a ciggy, or even any bubble gum) and I never got further than the outer circle. Before long a girl who was balancing on the wall got pushed in the water and a fight broke out, which seemed mildly homoerotic to this impressionable 14 year old 😳 This was accompanied by more puffing and more stone throwing, which unsurprisingly attracted the attention of a prefect. At that stage I abandoned any remaining aspiration of ingratiating myself with the in crowd and did what I always did best . . ran away very fast.
The next morning in assembly the headmistress lectured us on forbidden areas of the school grounds, but nothing was done to physically secure it and to my knowledge the old traditions persist to this very day (although the school may now value their gas reserves a bit more than they did in my day).
At my school, it was a large green gas tank surrounded by a brick bund wall 🙄 The metal container was rusty and corroded in parts and dented in others where generations of girls had thrown stones at it. The cavity between the tank and the bund wall was filled with stagnant water and the whole area had a dank air of neglect and despondency.
Yet it was where all the cool girls hung out to smoke illicit cigarettes (of course, because smoking next to several cubic metres of natural gas is a great idea . . ) and it was in their company that I somehow found myself one afternoon in year 9.
No, I did not inhale (no one offered me a ciggy, or even any bubble gum) and I never got further than the outer circle. Before long a girl who was balancing on the wall got pushed in the water and a fight broke out, which seemed mildly homoerotic to this impressionable 14 year old 😳 This was accompanied by more puffing and more stone throwing, which unsurprisingly attracted the attention of a prefect. At that stage I abandoned any remaining aspiration of ingratiating myself with the in crowd and did what I always did best . . ran away very fast.
The next morning in assembly the headmistress lectured us on forbidden areas of the school grounds, but nothing was done to physically secure it and to my knowledge the old traditions persist to this very day (although the school may now value their gas reserves a bit more than they did in my day).
36-40, F
