This is getting tiresome.

P seems to be ill a lot. Or rather, he says he’s ill a lot. Yesterday, on the way to school I noticed him clutching his tummy and asked him if he felt alright. This was probably a foolish thing to do as he immediately said he’d had a rumbly tumbly (our name for runny tummy) and felt sick.

Being a soft touch, I duly went in to see his teacher to say I’d keep him home. But she wasn’t there yesterday and I’d had to leave a message for the supply teacher. All day he jumped about the house and there was no evidence of anything amiss with him. So this morning I said he should go back, and he didn’t argue.

I dropped the boys off at their school around eight twenty and headed off to the next school. Luckily I had primed J about not staying too long with her in the playground, and I was able to able to make the third school before nine for once!

Sitting in the car park I debated the dog’s walk but decided I’d get the shopping done early and headed back toward town.

At exactly nine minutes past nine my mobile went. Except it’s illegal to answer your phone when driving so I had a right dance through traffic as I manoeuvred to a safe spot to stop and answer. It was P’s school. He hadn’t even been there an hour and they were asking I pop by and take a look at him, as he was complaining he felt sick. Again.

Luckily I was two minutes away and even P was surprised at how quickly I was at his side. He did feel a tad warm. And what am I supposed to do when the school obviously don’t want anyone who might be sick about? So he’s home, yet again.

But I don’t think he’s ill. And his constant supposed illnesses are playing havoc with our after school activities. S missed swimming yesterday, and today J will have to miss hers, because I can’t have him in the car for two hours at a time if there is the slightest chance he might be poorly.

I’m at my wits end. I’ve talked to him and he says everything’s fine at school. No one’s being horrid to him. He hasn’t got any tests. It’s not swimming today. He says it’s all good at the moment. And yet...


But this gentle approach the school and I take has reminded me of a childhood incident. When I was five and in the first proper year at my convent school, I was taught by a merciless bitch woman called Mrs White. She was old and ruthless and unless you were on your death bed, she expected you to be in class.

On this one occasion I had been off school for a couple of days with sinusitis, but my mother was playing in some golf tournament and was desperate to get me back to school, and so packed me off, promising that if I needed her the school would call the golf club and she’d come get me.

Mrs White had just taken registration when I put my hand up and said I felt ill. I remember she ignored me for the first few times I said it, but I guess I must have irritated because then she slammed her hand on the desk and told me to go into the coat room (like a big cupboard than lay adjacent to the classroom).

I did as I was told, thinking I should put my coat on. But that wasn’t what she meant at all. She locked me in.

Luckily I had been an wicked big sister that day and pinched my brothers snuggle blanket. I sobbed into all morning, alone in that dark room.

At lunch she came in and asked if I was ready to be a big girl. When I said I was, she said I could go play in the courtyard, but I wasn’t to tell anyone where I’d been all morning.

My mistake was not realising she’d watch me. I headed straight for a prefect and started to tell. But I didn’t get the story out before that witch was storming across the courtyard and carried me screaming back into that room.

At the end of school she again warned me I wasn’t to tell anyone, or I’d be back in there the next day. This time I believed her. I didn’t tell my mother about it till I was thirteen and had changed schools five times.



Today I’m asking P to stay in his room because he’s supposedly poorly, anyone would think I’m locking him a cupboard the way he reacts.