The Girl Who Cried Wolf
Bella James
Part One
Chapter One:
Calling in Sick?
You name it, I’ve done it.
I’ve had every ear, nose and throat infection known to man. I’ve lost countless aunties, uncles and grandparents. In fact, I think during Year 11 I made the amateur mistake of losing a particular grandparent more than once. A rather weary-looking tutor asked me, ‘Anna, didn’t you already lose your father’s mother not long before last term’s essays were due?’
If anyone finds it unethical using a loved one’s demise to avoid handing in coursework, you won’t be terribly impressed to know that before her actual death, the same granny’s passing was also the reason I made it to Ayia Napa for Jules’ eighteenth birthday instead of producing a paper on Shakespeare’s sonnets. She managed a fairly decent spell of good health after that, until sadly being cremated a third and final time when Ashley in Year 12 had tickets for Rihanna.
Now I attend sixth form, a note from my oblivious mother no longer suffices. I have to do the unpleasantries by means of telephone, but I am perfectly happy to report that at the tender age of seventeen, I have this down to a fine art.
Essentially, the trick to a compelling ‘calling in sick’ is to really believe your afflictions. Sound effects are good, like holding six grapes in your cheek when feigning a dental emergency, but nothing beats the actual enactment. Heart and soul. When using the age-old stomach upset, actually feel the cramps. Hold your tummy and bend over slightly with imagined pain, then adopt a defeatist tone when you speak. Aim for suffering, with a hint of despair.
Of course, this only ever works on the school secretary, who doesn’t really give a flying f*ck whether you’re ill or dying. Having said that, the non-judgemental answering machine is always a most welcome and sympathetic listener.
However, if you are one of those unfortunate souls whose sick call goes straight to Head of Year, you can forget about it. Once a term, they attend a secret seminar that enables them to detect the fakers immediately.
In such a circumstance, you must bite the bullet. Take a shower, haul on yesterday’s un-ironed clothes, squeeze onto the bus with the other unfortunates, and go to school.
It was because of my atrocious attendance record of forty-six per cent that I received a summons to the dreaded School Welfare Officer, Maddy Nettleship. This mountain of a woman took one look at my extensive paperwork and proceeded to inform my suitably shocked mother of all my absences, making it compulsory that we attend an official appointment with a doctor to avoid suspension. Not a fabulous fictitious one who would diagnose all of my aforementioned ailments, either. An actual General Practitioner of Health, with certificates and probably a very cold stethoscope.
I looked over now at a drunk Jules, who sensibly left South Bank Campus after her final GCSE exam, and beckoned her to top up my glass. We have bravely made the sophisticated move from cider to my mother’s expensive Chablis.
‘I’ll brave it out,’ I tell my best friend. ‘I’ll say I have a weakened immune system, something both genetic and hereditary. I wish I had something grim. That would show them.’
She squinted at me through intoxicated eyes.
‘Show them you’re a lazy pisshead who can’t be bothered to get up at six every morning.’
‘Well, you’d know,’ I slurred back at her, having expected a bit more sympathy from my so-called confidant.
Only Jules knew the true extent of my feigned illnesses as I struggled my way through English Literature and Sociology. Last week we’d squealed with laughter at having left a drunken message recounting the sudden onset of hand, foot and mouth disease. The fact that we had just survived four days at Glastonbury went unmentioned, leaving us to focus on the truth that the body parts in question were incredibly sore and swollen.
I’ve actually not been quite so on-the-ball lately. I’ve let things slip – a combination of excessive fooling around and an abundance of late nights.
It’s gone three in the morning and I have no idea how I’m to defend myself tomorrow. I’ve always had somewhat optimistic inclinations and I am truly hoping the doctor will be a like-minded soul. If I was in such a powerful position I would share conspirators’ giggles with the shirkers who came in and tell them not to worry, that of course I could scribble something illegible on a form and tell their evil teachers not to be so insensitive to the stresses of teenage angst.
Jules is quoting something from our school handbook. I have no idea what she is talking about, possibly because, since the wine has run dry, we’ve made the desperate decision to drink my father’s treasured port. I would never drink it sober, but I need oblivion. I need to forget that in five hours I will be showered and dressed. My teeth will be brushed until my gums bleed to hide the unmistakable breath of the three a.m. drinker. I will be standing outside the room of a doctor, who is undoubtedly going to contribute to my early exclusion from Year 13.
***
At precisely nine a.m., I had to bite the bullet and shuffle sheepishly through the door of a tiny office and plonk myself unsteadily into the patient’s chair. I had managed to persuade Mother to wait outside.
Dr Braby, they call her. Just my luck to get an uncaring, probably never had a sick day ever, bespectacled jobsworth. I feel utterly sorry for myself. My saving grace is that I am definitely still a little bit pissed, and that has taken the edge off my morning’s grim humiliation so far.