“I probably could have handled this whole situation better”

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New schools suck taint, like properly suck it, leaving big bright swollen hickies right on your gooch... sorry, probably went a little too far there. But you get the idea right, I do not like going to a new school. There’s all the new politics to muddle your way through and avoid becoming a social pariah from saying the wrong thing or talking to the wrong person without any idea what any of the fucking triggers are... I guess this story is about the time I got both wrong... repeatedly...

Newgate Fell Comprehensive Secondary School, what a dump, I need to get that point across, it is a proper sty. The nicest of the buildings one of those old early sixties “oh shit we need new schools now” prefab things that are still fairly common all over the place. The ones where the walls open up in the wind, so wide you can get your head and shoulders out... and from the glares I was getting in my first tutor session I felt that making the jump wouldn’t have been a bad idea (and with what happened later, probably wouldn’t have hurt as much.)

Now, I will admit, as a school, Newgate isn’t the worst of the many I’ve been sent too, at least the teachers aren’t dealing hard shit to the students like at North Moor High. But I’ve been moved about so much and been to so many schools, I’ve picked up a bit of a rep, that isn’t helped by being in the system since I was born, as an unadoptable ‘Problem Child’. Oh, it’s not a behaviour thing or anything like that, it’s a ‘we don’t want the risk of a #insert-age-here#-year-old kid with a medical record you can use to beat whales to death with on our books’ thing. It gets justified as sending me to be near a new specialist, but I know it’s that they don’t want to be the ones to deal with the investigation when something finishes me off.

Right, yes, Tutor Group... sorry it’s these painkillers, they make me a little scattered sometimes. Yeah, so my rep, as soon as the Teacher introduced me everyone started whispering about me, and not kindly... (this is where the over sensitive hearing thing fucked me over... again.) I mean he wasn’t like the arsehole in Glasgow who managed to mispronounce every bit of my name, and talked over me when I tried to correct him, so I was stuck with the nickname of ‘Grotty Cumrag’ for 7 weeks. I wish I was allowed to change it, but they say ‘it’ll mess up too many records’ and ‘but surely you want to keep your family ties?’

He even asked if there was a particular way I preferred to be called, even if it’s not related to my ‘Real’ name, said it was school policy. I guess if I’d know about that in advance I could have picked something better than Gotthard Cymru, instead of just going all quiet and awkward. So there I was, able to hear everyone passing insane rumours about me, looking at me like something the dog left right in the middle of an expensive rug. Except for her.