Fiction - Just A Few More Years

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I thought I’d put up this monologue for your entertainment – at least hopefully for your entertainment. Our writing group is putting out a collection of our work in time for Christmas. We have done one each year for about 7 or 8 years now. A budding actor performed this one evening and I’ll never forget the rather stunned but delighted look on his face when he got to the end and people laughed. I hope you enjoy it. Just A Few More Years I’m not very happy today. I don’t want to go to school. I don’t feel well. My mother says it’s all in my mind but at my age I should know if I don’t feel well or not. I’ve got a headache, I didn’t sleep well because I haven’t done all my homework and now I’m going to start the day behind the eight-ball and the teachers will all be screaming for their work and I haven’t done it – and, well, it’s all just too much. Now I’m ill and want to stay home and Mum’s giving me a hard time. It’s just not fair. Even the thought of going to school makes me feel sick. My stomach starts to churn. I might even throw up. All the hassle when I get there, people coming up that I hardly even know. All the kids hate me. They take one look at me then walk a big circle round me. Some stare but most look at the ground and keep walking, scuffing their feet along. My Mum says you shouldn’t scuff your feet. It wears your shoes out – and shoes cost money. That’s what my Mum says anyway. And none of the teachers really like me. Some of them suck up to get on the right side of me but none of them really like me. Mum says that’s nonsense but what would she know? She’s not there. She doesn’t know what it’s like to walk into a room full of teachers and give a talk. ‘Cause that’s what I have to do today. Give a talk to a roomful of teachers. I ask you, who needs it? And at playtime and lunch, no-one wants to spend time with me. I have to sit and eat my lunch on my own. Very occasionally a teacher comes and keeps me company but they only want to talk about school things. I think they feel sorry for me – but I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want to talk about school. I’d rather talk about motor-bikes. I’m going to have one one day. A great big Harley Davidson and I’ll sit back on it like I’m sitting in the lounge with my feet stuck out and black shiny boots. I’ll grow a big, long beard and wear a black beanie. It’ll be so cool. The kids will all be sorry they didn’t talk to me then. The only thing is – Mum says I can have a side-car for her. I wasn’t counting on that. Anyway she won’t be around by then. Let’s see – in another twenty years, I could get the bike I want. Nah, there’s no way Mum would come then. She’d be much too old for a sidecar thank God. Oh gosh, there she goes, yelling down the passage again. Every day the same old refrain – You have to go to school dear. You’re the headmaster. The photo is a 'classroom' in Nepal.