Secret Girls' Stuff (4 page)

The principal said, ‘Seven, but there are three main ringleaders.’

I said, ‘Okay, bring the ringleaders to the centre and I’ll chat with them.’

We all know that sniffing certain substances
makes you feel weird. Some people like that feeling. Parents would say to me, ‘Why don’t the manufacturers ban these substances?’

The point is we can’t ban petrol, methylated spirits, turpentine, glue, lighter fluid, deodorant, fly spray, eucalyptus, cleaning fluids, Tippex, texta pens, fibreglass resin, and thousands of other substances that some non-cool person decides to sniff. Sniffing is not cool, it’s dumb. If you want to get a high, listen to the type of music that really turns you on, run along a beach, take a dog for a walk, look at a sunset, eat a little bit of something you really like even if it’s fattening, or do something nice for someone else. The last suggestion really makes you feel
good
!

Anyway, back to the alleged sniffers. In they came, three Year Seven girls, sulky and defiant. Their teacher was all set to come in too but I said, ‘Sorry, this is confidential. You’ll have to sit in the waiting room, please.’

I asked the girls if they’d like a cup of tea or a glass of water. The answer was no. They said their names were Anna, Karen and Leanne. So I said, ‘Why are you here?’

‘Dunno.’

‘What were you doing?’

‘Nuthin’.’

‘Well, you must have been doing something because you’re here.’

Silence. Then Anna said angrily, ‘They said we were sniffing glue and we weren’t. Now there’s a rumour going round and the whole school reckons we’re full-on druggies.’

‘So what
were
you doing?’

‘We sniffed some spray deodorant, you know, like just mucking round after PE.’

‘What happened?’

‘I threw up,’ said Karen.

‘Yeah. I felt dizzy,’ said Anna.

‘Are you going to do it again?’ I asked.

‘Nah. No way.’

‘Okay. That’s it, then. You can go.’

Silence. Then Leanne said, ‘Aren’t you going to give us a lecture?’

‘What for? You said you don’t want to sniff deodorant again.’

We’d only been chatting for two minutes. They looked at each other. This wasn’t what they’d
expected. I could almost read their minds. Go back to school after three minutes? They’d look silly!

‘Um, I’ve got something else to tell you,’ said Anna. ‘It’s not about sniffing or drugs. It’s about other stuff. Is that all right?’

Well, those three girls unloaded a lot of stuff. Some of it was about home. Some was about school. A lot of it was about rules.

‘Your mum is so excellent,’ said Anna to Leanne. ‘Like, she lets you stay out practically all night.’

‘Yeah. No curfews. You can go where you like and do what you like. It’s totally cool,’ said Karen.

Leanne bit her lip and scuffed her shoe on the carpet.

‘I’d rather have
your
mum,’ she said to Anna. ‘At least you know she cares about you when she yells at you and says, “Be in by ten or else!” Mum hasn’t got a clue where I am, who I’m with, what I’m doing. She’s too busy with her boyfriend, and, like, it’s kinda scary.’

Anna and Karen were dumbfounded. They hadn’t realised that Leanne, with all her freedom, was angry, resentful and scared. The deodorant-sniffing problem seemed insignificant. We ended
up talking for over an hour about the girls’ feelings about other things.

‘What will you tell the principal?’ asked Anna when it was time to go.

The girls suddenly looked defensive. What if I told their secrets?

‘I told the principal that this talk would be private and confidential,’ I reassured them. ‘And it is.’

And in order to maintain this confidentiality I’ve changed the girls’ names, their year level, and some other details. In doing this I have kept my promise and kept their secrets!

Of course not all school problems are as heavy as this. However, the everyday problems of school life might seem trivial to other people but not to
you
. Or they can be really important to
other
people and not to you. That’s how it is! One person might sail through the day and not think there are any hassles while someone else in the same situation might see it in a totally different way.

For example, I was never good at sport. If I played softball I either missed when I swung the bat or dropped the ball when I was trying to catch it. The other girls would tease me and I never got
picked for teams at recess time unless there was a flu epidemic and there weren’t enough girls to play.

I wouldn’t catch the ball because I’d been hit on the head hard by a cricket ball when I was a kid and I was scared stiff of being hit again, and also everything looked a bit fuzzy to me so when I tried to hit the softball I’d miss it every time. Of course I didn’t say anything to anybody. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I tried to and no one listened.

It wasn’t till I kept complaining of headaches and that I couldn’t see the chalkboard properly that my mother thought she’d better cart me in for eye tests. Yes, I needed glasses. But I was still scared of cricket balls, softballs and baseballs in case they smashed my glasses. Lots of girls don’t like certain sports for different reasons.

Some do like sport but there are times when you don’t want to play and teachers or coaches or parents don’t want to listen. Here’s an email from Emma:

So what was Emma supposed to do, apart from sound off to me in her email? There are always lots of things that can be done in these circumstances.

1. Emma could’ve shrugged off the experience and been optimistic that the next time she plays tennis it
   will
   be 20 degrees and she won’t feel sick, or she could’ve told someone how she felt (she did, through an email) because at least it would’ve got it out of her
   system and she probably felt a bit better.
   
2. She could’ve talked to her friends and they could’ve decided not to play because it was too hot, and then they could’ve told the sports teacher their joint decision. (Mind you, she still could’ve made them play anyway, but at least they would’ve been assertive and therefore felt better). And next time, Emma could prepare for the hot day’s tennis by bringing cool drinks and a hat.
   

Often you have to do yucky things in school, especially in science and biology classes, like dissect dead rats and frogs or hack up sheep’s eyeballs. Here’s an email from Jessica, who felt bad when the teacher brought a dead baby in a jar to class:

This was a hard email for me to answer. On the one hand the school curriculum sets out guidelines for science teachers, and unless everyone examines a real foetus, or a plastic foetus, or the teacher shows videos, how is the class going to know what a foetus looks like?

On the other hand, seeing a dead baby in a jar can really affect some people, especially this girl who had lost a foetus sister.

The big problem is that schools are full of individual people with individual feelings and individual secrets, and unless this science teacher
also had a baby sister who miscarried as a foetus or was stillborn (born at the full term of nine months, but dead) or lost a baby of his or her own, the teacher wouldn’t realise the possible effect that seeing the foetus could have on some students.

You see, another student could have lost a foetus brother or sister and think, ‘Well, something must have been wrong with it anyway, so I’ll put it aside and get on with my life’. Seeing a foetus in a jar mightn’t upset that student. Also it mightn’t be a secret — that person might have told all his or her friends about the loss.

Two things are important here. Firstly, sometimes you might get upset at school because teachers or other students do something to hurt your feelings. It could be intentional or unintentional. If you’re upset,
tell someone
. You don’t have to yell and scream about it. Tell a friend, the school chaplain, or a teacher, so that they understand
why
you’re upset. Or find that listener in the mall or library or wherever.

Secondly, if you don’t say something and keep it a secret, then no one can understand how you’re feeling and no one can help you to feel better. And
more importantly, you only need to reveal as much as you want to; you don’t have to bare your soul and, as my granny used to say, ‘Air all your dirty linen in public’.

Remember, lots of people are sharing secrets on the email or internet and it can cause big problems if someone else reads it or the recipient sends it to someone else. So be careful what you write on the net!

A girl called Sheridan, age fourteen from Melbourne, wrote about the argument she’d had with her best friend in school and poured out her heart to this guy called Jack in Brisbane on chat channel. It’s a little bit like the situation with Amy J, only Sheridan and her friend Rachel were arguing about copied homework. The email she sent me included this conversation with Jack: