We walked your quiet old halls one last time
Although we swore we wouldn't do it.
As feared, the old ghosts were there to call
Out, reminding of wondrous times long past.

 

In the corners still the smiling faces of friends
Who since disappeared into the world long ago
Or moved on to another place where tears
Don't exist and hearts never break.

 

When dreams were new and fear unknown,
The world was before us and we were ready
For the final bell to ring one last time so we
Could shake your dust off our shoes at last.

 

But, as you know, life never quite lives up
To its promises and, mostly, things just
Don't work out. Dreams are put aside as
Bills and jobs and babies become important.

 

The times we spent with you, with friends,
Coaches and instructors, seem now more
Vivid than they were during those times
When life was good and would never end.

 

And when you finally come crashing down,
As all of us are destined to do eventually,
Those left behind will clutch the memory
Of wondrous times when we were young.

 

The voices of the thousands that flowed
Through your halls will be stilled but
In our mind they will still ring clear, each
With its own memory, its own life.

 

Classmates' and teachers' names will
Roll off our tongue with both laughter
And respect as we re-tell the old stories
Of sunlight and magic and calamities.

 

Thanks for your presence and long
Service to us, the children of your past,
Always a touchstone as we returned
From where our wanderings took us.

 

And please excuse us, we of faint heart,
If we do not attend your destruction.
A piece of our life will go down with
You and being weak, we just can't watch.

                                             -- ANONYMOUS

 

 

So that's it.  The era has ended.

 

Prom was amazing, and I mean that quite seriously, in several senses of the word.  I have such amazing friends, you're so wonderful, so good to me, through the wonderful and the devastating, the dance-around-singing-loudly and the quiet-in-a-corner... I can't believe it's all finished... but it hasn't changed, has it?  It won't change.  We'll still talk to each other even though my world is going to change and so is yours?  Promise me.  Solemn pledge.  If you will, I will.  Comment me "I promise to stay in touch".

 

Last night... things didn't just end.  They began as well.  I'm so happy for you, (and I would put your initials here but they might be misread by quite a few people...) you deserve to be happy like this and I'm so glad for you.  It's like the Phoenix, something beautiful coming out of the ashes of that which we have lost... and I for one wouldn't change it for the world.  And it's not even my beginning.

I am not joking.  If I wasn't trying to blink back god knows how many emotions because my mother is sat behind me watching the television, I would probably find it very funny that I am a week late.  But as it is, I am not amused.

 

That's what Mum told me when she found out.  That's a shame.  Have a good cry about it and it'll all be okay.  Except I haven't.  I've spent this long not doing that because I didn't need to.  It wasn't bottling at all.  I thought it was fine, I thought I could master my panic and it really was alright.  But now I've had my say, everything that is going to be said on the subject has been said.  That is the end.  Unless a miracle happens in the next twenty-six hours...  But I'm not holding out for a hero.  Illusion never did anyone any good.  And as the song goes, I don't need another half to make me whole.

 

Do not feel guilty.  I have a theory that what you told me about that comment was a downright untruth, but still.  If that is how you think, don't.

 

That is that.

 

It is finished.

 

Part of me... is relieved.

I'm not joking.  It was AWFUL.  Really horrible.

 

I hate thinking I'm being looked down on, everyone does, and there was one kid, 14 years old, who thought I was in junior school.  Junior school.  I am not joking.  He thought Lily was my older sister.  It is not funny, don't even DREAM of laughing, that was last night and I have spent since then depressed (for more reason than that) and with any self-esteem I might have been building up shattered.

 

We all have a need to be needed, and at the moment, I feel utterly replaceable.  My sensible side tells me that's not true, it can't be true, but my logic right now is such that I can't see any other way.

 

It's also worrying me that I haven't found the time with the inclination to cry yet.  Maybe that's a good thing, but I need to.  Everyone needs to cry sometimes, whether they admit it to themselves or not.  Just... get it out of their system.

 

So, don't ask me if I'm alright.  I'm probably not and I don't want to go into it that much.  I don't see why you should have to put up with my complaining anyway.

 

I think, after the football, I'll go for a walk.  I need space to think about things, I think.

 

If anyone wants to ring me and talk about anything, I don't mind what it is, any time between now and 10.30 this evening, I'll be very glad to talk to them.  I need to think on my feet for a bit, so as long as you don't want to know how I am, I could do with the company.

You LIAR!!!!!!

 

YOU KNEW, DIDN'T YOU?!?!?!

 

THERE IS NO WAY THAT IS COINCIDENCE.

 

They say one coincidence is coincidence.  Two coincidences are design.

 

You knew.

 

I can't believe it.  You absolutely have it coming to you now.  You've tried to fuck me about ONCE TOO OFTEN.  Didn't I tell you last time?  Didn't I?  You can't do it.  Because I will KNOW.

 

LIKE I KNOW NOW.

 

You have it coming to you.

I'm really very lucky to have all you guys.  Three quarters of an hour ago, maybe?  And already eight of you are trying to comfort me and keep me sane.

 

It's alright, thanks, I'm completely rational.  I feel, surprisingly enough, no different whatsoever.  Maybe it was that there was very little difference anyway.  I just keep thinking that there are things I'm never going to get to do again.  Ah well, never mind.  So much is changing, ending right now, I daresay I won't notice that much.

 

And in a year's time, you'll have forgotten completely that anything ever happened...

 

My only concern is: MSN.  More than one person has said that that's a bit cowardly and I may have to agree with them.  That and... eight days.  I hope you enjoy it, I really do.  And, besides, I intend to.

 

 

And now I know I can cope.

 

Because I have just done the thing that makes me feel worst, I have just listened to the song that always makes me panic because I think you are going to abandon me, and I could never cope with that (do you remember?  I told you I had a panic attack to it?) and now you have, and I DON'T MIND.  It is okay.  That is that.

 

The saga has ended.

I sent a copy of this to someone who I think needs to hear it particularly.  But the rest of you could do with it too... it's very good, and if anyone has it on their computer, please send it to me and I will love you forever.

 

EVERYBODY'S FREE (TO WEAR SUNSCREEN) - by Baz Luhrmann

 

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.
The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience... I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked... You’re not as fat as you imagine.
Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing everyday that scares you.
Sing.
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind... the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.
Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life... the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.
Get plenty of calcium.
Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary... what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body, use it every way you can... don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own...
Dance... even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.
Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.
Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don’t expect anyone else to support you.
Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.
Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen...

Yesterday was BRILLIANT.  Vurrygood.  Thank you, you lot, for coming with me, acting your ages, agreeing to sit and watch Scotty (SCOTTY!!!!) and go on the teacups (was it five times or six?) and also coaxing me onto the rollercoasters.

 

And I swear I won on the go-carts, despite doing a lap less than anyone else :s you know, they don't even let me ride a bike normally.  And, two words, Steph: Road. Rage.

 

Paultons Park is a MUST GO, I swear.  You kow you used to love it.  You know it hasn't actually changed at all.

 

 

Unfortunately, however, I also got forced into babysitting until about midnight.  I make sure I always stay up for when the parents come home, I like to look like I've actually done something the whole night and I am the kind of person they won't mind leaving their kids with... but I couldn't help it.  I dropped off about eleven.  And I could hardly think straight on the way home... you know when you're really, REALLY tired like that?  And you HAVE to stay awake when you could happily drop back to sleep?  And then you crawl into bed exhausted and can't actually get to sleep?  It was like that.  Then Mum came in to see me before she left at 7.30.  I love her, I really do.

 

 

Oh, one other thing.  Internet down?  That's a shame.  Don't worry, I wasn't online anyway.  Home phone and mobile down?  I'm impressed.  I don't know if I want an explanation, not any more.  It won't be worth the brainpower you used thinking it up, most likely.  But, when one is in a hole, it is customary to STOP DIGGING.  You could at least have rung me last night, couldn't you?  Whether you got my message or not.  It's common sense, really, isn't it?  So, tonight is good.  Or I will call you myself, tomorrow morning, before I leave for school.  I am deadly serious.

I am so so happy.  After a rubbish day yesterday, and I mean really rubbish, I find out that loads of you have been getting together to buy me a DALEK.  Reality check if ever I saw one, I love you guys to bits and that is probably the best thing you could possibly have done for me right now, I will not forget it.  And also, it was a dalek.  I mean, come on, just for that.  But the fact that you all got together to get it for me...  I will cherish the newly-christened Andrew and promise he will not exteeeeerminate anything too big.

 

And now, I am sixteen.  I can do so many things, it keeps catching me out.  I can get MARRIED, ffs.  SCARY or what?!  And, most ironically of all, I can buy fags and Steph can't.  There is some poetic justice in the world.

 

So, all in all, today has been perfect.

 

Thank you Morgy, you're an angel and I must never, NEVER lose touch with you.

 

Except for one thing, which I am a little hurt about.  PLEASE ring me.  Today of all days.  Text me.  E-mail me.  Anything.  Contact me.  I don't think I'll be able to go on like this much longer.  I don't want to have to hold everything together.  Please.

 

Other than that, it's beena blissful day.

 

Oh, that and Physics, but one can't have it all, can one?

 

RH, your tabard is legendary and I wish I could have got a picture.  If you have one of your trench coat, tell me.

Yep, I was macebearing today.  Twas fun.  Mace piddly little thing, but shiny O_O and knobbly on your shoulder.  Watched people with bagpipes and kilts and badger handbags, went to a service at the Abbey (well it wasn't too long, at least.  But the choice of hymns were ATROCIOUS) and paraded a bit.  Then, we were standing by the podium near the end for the badger handbag plus Brownie walkpast, and the bloke with the big mace (can't remember his name, looked like a miserable git, but really nice) who was stood next to me says, "Have you any idea how old that mace is?"

 

So I look at it, see it's lovely and shiny, extimate from the look on his face that it's old and think, it's a George V one, isn't it?  60 years old?  70?

 

"I've no idea."

 

"Look at the marking on it."

 

The mace is marked C R.  Charles II.  This mace was made in 1660.

 

I have been running around Romsey with a 400-year-old mace.

 

How's that for surreal??

 

And then there was a reception, which sounds really, grand, probably because it was.  Town Hall full or women in magena or eggshell blue suits and funny hats saying things like "Has anyone seen Marty?" and little fussy little brie and cranberry pastry - things - and microscopic egg mayonnaise sandwiches.  When I am on a computer where I can do so, I'll upload some pictures of it for you.  Really good fun, I think that officially counts as Hob-Nobbing.  Does anyone else want a lifestyle like Sandra Gidley?  Really fun worthwhile job (debatable but you know what I mean, and I think she's fantastic), home life with semblance of normality and no press after your blood hiding in your front garden, PLUS she gets to go Mingling with glasses of white wine wearing a funny hat.  She's done pretty well for herself, I think.

 

 

Yesterday was wonderful, although granted I did lose at Monopoly.  I put up a good fight.  Best of nine, eh?  Let's.  Just remember: it ain't over til the fat lady sings.  The rest of the day more than made up for it.

 

No school for me til Weds :D I rule.  If you're not busy let me know because I might get a bit bored with all this freedom....

One night, quite a long time ago now, it happened that five of the more famous Knights of the Round Table were eating and drinking their favourite foods, all of which were different (well, they were knights.  They could afford to be fussy) while sitting at a smaller, similarly round table with five seats numbered one to five clockwise around the circle so that the knight in place number five was sat next to the knights in place numbers four and one.

 

The knight seated in place number five, however, was approached part way through the meal by a messenger who whispered something to him.  He reportedly went pale and refused to eat another bite.

 

The only problem is, as problems are wont to arise in situations such as these (they make the whole thing more interesting, I think), that Morgan le Fay, or someone with similar powers of uncalled-for malevolence, has put an as yet unbreakable spell on the knights so that they do not know where they were sitting, or what they were eating.  Instead, the following clues were left:

 

The five knights were:
Lancelot, Galahad, Gawain, Bedivere and Kay

 

The five foods were:
Veal, boar, beef, venison and rabbit

 

The five drinks were:
Red wine, mead, white wine, cider and beer

 

CLUE NUMBER ONE:
No two people eating meat with the same initial (e.g. boar/beef etc) are sat next to each other, nor are the two people drinking wine.  Galahad and Gawain were not sat next to each other.

 

CLUE NUMBER TWO:
The mead drinker ate venison and the person who ate veal sat in place number four.  The red wine and cider drinkers were not sat next to each other, but either side of Galahad.  Gawain drank the beer, but not with beef.  Kay did not drink white wine.

 

CLUE NUMBER THREE:
Galahad, who was in place number one, did not drink wine; Lancelot, who was sat next to him, ate a whole roast boar by himself, amazing one of his neighbours who dined relatively lightly that evening on rabbit and a rather fine wine.

 

 

Who needs History revision, I say?  For a first attempt at a logic puzzle... it was quite fun actually.

 

Go on then.  Who was in place number five and what did they have to eat/drink?  (And if while you're at it you want to say who were in the other four places, that'd be good too.  But five is the important one.)

Ah... the joy to behold that is the First Year Love Story.  I don't know whether to be worried for Lily's image or sanity, or just to be a little annoyed with her for what she did.  Because, like it or not, I think she has been a total prat and she is not going to do well over this.

 

Bloody hell, if you're going to do a Bad Thing, pathetic as it may be, at least have the courtesy to look ruthless and unashamed about it, as opposed to having a panic attack, bursting into tears and getting your mother to ring up other people's parents.

 

What happened was this:

 

Lily, being adorably innocent and playing truth or dare on the Spanish trip (what memories that brings back, eh?) kisses one of the boys who... erm... has a girlfriend.  I seem to recall it was on the cheek, although that may be a fabrication for my mother's benefit, but it was most certainly no tongues.  And then his girlfriend found out and... I don't know why I'm writing this all out for you, just thought you'd find it amusing... but anyway this girl apparently told someone who told someone out of school who told Lily that the boy was heading for a slap and Lily would get "hurt".

 

I love it, don't you?  These are first years.

 

So Lily bless her took it seriously, had a bit of a panic attack, well, a LOT of a panic attack, and told Mum the lot.

 

Does anyone else think she might be asking for a little trouble here?

 

Mum ended up callind several people's parents... and then doing the "silly little gossiping girls" talk.

 

I really don't know what to say.

Why the hell does this happen?  Why can't someone else have the perpetually dysfunctional family member who always gets the wrong end of the sodding stick and won't do the bloody obvious to get us all out of this HUGE MESS WE'RE IN??

 

I'm shattered.  Not in the tired sense, I'm actually okay like that, but I can't think straight, my head feels like it's suffering a predicament uncommonly similar to the Man in the Iron Mask, I can't stand up without swaying on the spot and I feel completely abandoned... Lily's away so I get the full effect of my mother's wrath, Dad's just doing what he always does when this happens, gets slower and slower to understand things, says less and less... and I'm just sat here, breaking down...

 

STEPH WHY DIDN'T YOU GET IN TOUCH WITH ME?!?!  I could have got out of this hole... but don't worry about it now, it's too late, it can't be rearranged, I'm on my own...

 

I'm not meant to be on my own.  On paper, I am surrounded by people.  But they won't even talk to me now, what is it that everyone has against the telephone?!  All I need is someone to tell me that it's okay, I'll get out of this eventually, and I'm not alone.  Just listen to me, please, that's all I'm asking.  Make the effort to hear me.  But my voice has become too quiet to notice.  Or maybe I've lost it, it's dying in my throat anyway.  And nobody makes the effort to listen any more.  The listeners have died out.  The people who hear something and act on it have died out.  THE PEOPLE WHO CAN MAKE THE EFFORT TO PICK UP THE TELEPHONE AND KEEP THEIR WORD HAVE DIED OUT.  TWO OF YOU.

 

Two weeks and I can just up and go, where I've been planning to go all along.  My Holy Grail is in sight.  Twelve hours travelling... but I can make it.  Two more weeks and they can't make me stay.  I shall say what I have to say, and then... and then...

I am listening to the soundtrack... and looking out of the half-open window at the picturesque crescent moon.  I can still hear the nightingale down the road singing her heart out, although it is gone half-past-nine now, and the sky is deep cloudy grey-blue, nearly black.  I can see the outline of the trees stretching up almost to the top of the window.  They are complete black, in contrast with the musty blue...

 

Inside the window, it is bright, except for my shadow on the keyboard, and the deep dark colour of the curtains.

 

The music swells...  Laura... I know you're there.  I know you are.  Where are you hiding?

 

I need to go back to... how long ago was it now?  And feeling sick with strawberries, and chocolate, and memories of five years of history gone to waste because I was her Donna and now we never talk--