10/07/2012

The Man With The Child In His Eyes

Dear everyone and everything holy,

The answer will be no, but I seek forgiveness anyway. I am a respectable and respected doctor in the south-western area of the UK (hope that's vague enough). I have a son Tim and a daughter Charlie, both charming of course. And they both go to our local primary school where normally they just get on with being 10 and 8 and all is well…apart from George.

My theory is that every school has at least one George. On the outside, smiling and popular but when teachers and parents backs are turned, perfectly vile and manipulative. Wherever George went he created discord and unhappiness. He’s in the same year as my son, so Tim has often come home unhappy at something George has said or done. Being friends one minute and then apparently enemies the next with snide comments and hurtful putdowns. Many times I considered calling his parents but never could bring myself to do it.

However when Charlie too came home complaining of George’s playtime nonsense, I really felt annoyed. Apparently he'd run around flicking the girls legs with his fingers, but when they'd told the teacher he'd denied it and said it was my Tim. Well we made the appropriate comments to the school but more to the point was what happened the following week. It was sports day.

At our school this is a fairly traditional affair and enjoyed by most. George of course is great at everything. He can spend the afternoon winning medals and annoying everyone. Most parents had to steel themselves for his triumphs in the throwing of things and the running of races. His parents were quite sweet really, they just did the "isn't he great" routine a few times too often. We all wanted to say "yes he's great apart from when he's making our children miserable". But we didn't.

Anyway, cut to the end of sports day and the relay race. Four keen teams all poised and ready. My Tim is ready to start in lane one. George, racing in another team, was due to run last. And presumably, triumphantly, over the line.

Except what's this? The race is delayed, can't start. George appears to have lost his running shoes. They were there with all the others a minute ago. Apparently. But now they aren't. And he can't run barefoot apparently as it’s against the rules. He'd better borrow someone else's but the only forthcoming pair are a size too big. So after quite a fuss, we are ready to go.
The race is very even, Tim runs his bit well, if a tad slowly, but into the final straight, George’s team are doing well…it’s just that when it's his turn to run, he sets off but both shoes come off within 10 yards. He realises he has to have shoes on so stops to put them on and by then everyone has zoomed past. He comes 4th. Oh well, it could happen to anyone. It's not the winning but the taking part etc etc…

Except that, and I realise this sounds bad now, when they all removed their shoes for a trampoline demonstration, and I was checking Tim knew where his were, I hid George’s shoes under a nearby tarpaulin. They were discovered later but by then the damage had been done.

In my defence, I truly believe you would have done the same if you had a George in your son’s class. And he did seem to be a little chastened after the event.

Come on, let me off!

Doctor.