Grimsby Poets Forums

This is a nice story about a girl lost in a point of her life as she attends a new school, and how she finds herself again. A few small English errors are down to it being written by somebody who is still learning English.

Changes, by Nora Lanari.

She was sitting quietly at her desk. Her look was absent. Her mind far away. Around her, everybody was screaming, yelling, laughing. She didn't hear it. The noise of the messy classroom didn't get through her wall of isolation.

Now and then her look returned to reality and she observed the room. Like mime artists were her classmates moving their mouths and distorting their faces to laughter.

The teacher was screaming over the students, trying to keep control over them. He was sweating. She could nearly count the drops on his forehead. His glasses sat slopping on his nose.

A smile surrounded her lips while she was observing the spectacle. But soon the pain reminded her, that this was just a quick moment in which she forgot. Forgot all the difficulties, all the pain, and all the fears. Just a quick moment, worthless.

Her look became absent again, her ears shut down and her attention went. She hardly noticed when the other students started to leave the classroom. Only because a girl hit her out of her way, reality fetched her back. Disorientated she packed up her stuff and followed her classmates.

The bell hadn't rung yet. Wondering where they were going, she looked above the many heads, searching for an answer. She didn't want to ask. They would just look at her very strangely and say: "Don't you ever pay attention?! Clean your ears and listen." She could do without it.

About two meters away there was an announcement at the wall. Her answer. It said: INTERNATIONAL DAY! ENJOY FOOD AND DRINKS FROM DIFFERENT CULTURES! COME TO THE GYM!

Great, she thought and closed her ears again. Anew her look drifted away. She turned back to her innerst. To her broken home, that teared herself into pieces. That didn't allow her to stand up again.

She followed quietly the other students. In line to get into the gym. In line to get away, she thought. Another voice inside her head whispered: "In line to get your life back." Shut up, she told herself off. Hope was the last thing she could use. It would only disappoint her again.

Trying to ignore her surrounding, she stood still in line. Waiting. So turned into herself was she, that she hardly noticed the hand tipping her shoulder.

"Hey, hey. Do you hear me?" a voice asked.

Frightened by the sudden voice that got through her isolation wall, she jumped around.

"Wow. Calm down." Said the voice.

It belonged to a boy. She recognized his face. He was in her English class, sitting next to her. Staring at him, she didn't notice that he was talking.

"What?" she asked brashly.

He held up a book.

"Can I put it into your backpack? I left mine in the classroom and I don't want to carry it all way."

She kept on staring at him, then shooked her head and said: "Yeah, of course. Yes put it in."

She turned around and he put the book into her backpack.

"Thanks" he said. "I'll search you later to get it back."

And he went. She nodded.

The lesson was over and he didn't come for the book. The day was over and he didn't come for the book either. So the book remained in her backpack.

In the evening, when she had done her homework and her father had gone to the bar to get himself drunked, she found the book again in her backpack. It was small and blue and very old. The title was illegible. She opened it. The pages were also illegible. She leafed through the book and could only read three words. Faith, Hope and Love.

She closed the book and looked at it strangely. When she went to bed, she heard her father coming back and hoped he wasn't too drunked.

The next day in her English class, she waited for the boy. She didn't shut her ears nor drifted her look away. When he came she gave him back the book.

"Oh, I forgot it yesterday. Thank you." He said and smiled.

"You're welcome." She answered and smiled back.

It was just a quick moment in which she forgot. Forgot all the difficulties, all the pain, and all the fears. Just a quick moment, but every second was valuable.

THE END

by Nora Lanari
e-mail: nora_lanari@gmx.net

Yes Adam I also think this is a lovely short story. And it is really great that it is written by a non-English speaker learning the language !!

I would note that for anybody learning any language, the use of a good computer 'spelling-checker' like Word has can be very helpful - and I think some free ones can be found with an internet search ?

Yes I think this 'Changes' story is very good. I do not come across many realistic stories from a pupil or student viewpoint and this is certainly an engaging one.

Maybe a touch of the old classic 'Tom Brown's School Days', by Thomas Hughes ? It can be read online at http://www.literature.org/authors/hughe ... chooldays/ - and here is a small bit ;

Tom Brown's Schooldays, Part 1 - Chapter 2 - The "Veast"

Tom, as has been already said, was a robust and combative urchin, and at the age of four began to struggle against the yoke and authority of his nurse. That functionary was a good- hearted, tearful, scatter-brained girl, lately taken by Tom's mother, Madam Brown, as she was called, from the village school to be trained as nurserymaid. Madam Brown was a rare trainer of servants, and spent herself freely in the profession; for profession it was, and gave her more trouble by half than many people take to earn a good income. Her servants were known and sought after for miles round. Almost all the girls who attained a certain place in the village school were taken by her, one or two at a time, as housemaids, laundrymaids, nurserymaids, or kitchenmaids, and after a year or two's training were started in life amongst the neighbouring families, with good principles and wardrobes. One of the results of this system was the perpetual despair of Mrs. Brown's cook and own maid, who no sooner had a notable girl made to their hands than missus was sure to find a good place for her and send her off, taking in fresh importations from the school. Another was, that the house was always full of young girls, with clean, shining faces, who broke plates and scorched linen, but made an atmosphere of cheerful, homely life about the place, good for every one who came within its influence. Mrs. Brown loved young people, and in fact human creatures in general, above plates and linen. They were more like a lot of elder children than servants, and felt to her more as a mother or aunt than as a mistress.

Tom's nurse was one who took in her instruction very slowly - she seemed to have two left hands and no head; and so Mrs. Brown kept her on longer than usual, that she might expend her awkwardness and forgetfulness upon those who would not judge and punish her too strictly for them.

Charity Lamb was her name. It had been the immemorial habit of the village to christen children either by Bible names, or by those of the cardinal and other virtues; so that one was for ever hearing in the village street or on the green, shrill sounds of "Prudence! Prudence! thee cum' out o' the gutter;" or, "Mercy! drat the girl, what bist thee a-doin' wi' little Faith?" and there were Ruths, Rachels, Keziahs, in every corner. The same with the boys: they were Benjamins, Jacobs, Noahs, Enochs. I suppose the custom has come down from Puritan times. There it is, at any rate, very strong still in the Vale.

Well, from early morning till dewy eve, when she had it out of him in the cold tub before putting him to bed, Charity and Tom were pitted against one another. Physical power was as yet on the side of Charity, but she hadn't a chance with him wherever headwork was wanted. This war of independence began every morning before breakfast, when Charity escorted her charge to a neighbouring farmhouse, which supplied the Browns, and where, by his mother's wish, Master Tom went to drink whey before breakfast. Tom had no sort of objection to whey, but he had a decided liking for curds, which were forbidden as unwholesome; and there was seldom a morning that he did not manage to secure a handful of hard curds, in defiance of Charity and of the farmer's wife. The latter good soul was a gaunt, angular woman, who, with an old black bonnet on the top of her head, the strings dangling about her shoulders, and her gown tucked through her pocket-holes, went clattering about the dairy, cheese-room, and yard, in high pattens. Charity was some sort of niece of the old lady's, and was consequently free of the farmhouse and garden, into which she could not resist going for the purposes of gossip and flirtation with the heir-apparent, who was a dawdling fellow, never out at work as he ought to have been. The moment Charity had found her cousin, or any other occupation, Tom would slip away; and in a minute shrill cries would be heard from the dairy, "Charity, Charity, thee lazy huzzy, where bist?" and Tom would break cover, hands and mouth full of curds, and take refuge on the shaky surface of the great muck reservoir in the middle of the yard, disturbing the repose of the great pigs. Here he was in safety, as no grown person could follow without getting over their knees; and the luckless Charity, while her aunt scolded her from the dairy door, for being "allus hankering about arter our Willum, instead of minding Master Tom," would descend from threats to coaxing, to lure Tom out of the muck, which was rising over his shoes, and would soon tell a tale on his stockings, for which she would be sure to catch it from missus's maid.....

Well if we are discussing schooldays stories, last night I watched the film 'School of Rock' and thoroughly enjoyed it. Great to see school kids doing great. A good story well acted and good music as well !!

I think the song must have been inspired by the operetta 'Patience' by Gilbert and Sullivan, first produced at the Opera Comique, London on April 23 1881


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