At My Mother's Knee...And Other Low Joints by Paul O'Grady

Author:Paul O'Grady [O’Grady, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2008-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

I did have intermittent trouble with my stomach so I didn’t feel bad about this lie. Soon I was hardly ever at school. I was roaming the streets of Birkenhead instead, as bored now as I ever was in class. Sitting for the umpteenth time in a bus shelter in Heswall on a rainy February morning, cold, hungry and bored out of my mind, I came to the conclusion that it was time to call my career as a truant a day and get myself back to school. If nothing else there were kids my own age to talk to, and it was warm.

‘Oh, Mr O’Grady, nice of you to join us,’ Mr Broad the PE teacher shouted across the class as he called out the register. ‘It’s been so long since we last saw you. My, how you’ve grown. Why, I hardly recognized you. Class, in case you’ve forgotten, that strange boy at the back is Paul O’Grady.’ Huge burst of merriment around the room.

Sarcastic bastard, I thought, my face burning with embarrassment. If I had been genuinely ill he’d no right to take the piss, and if he thought he was so bloody smart then how come he never twigged that I’d been sagging? Berk.

‘I’m going into hospital next week,’ piped up the boy next to me. ‘I’m having me tonsils out,’ he went on proudly. ‘Me aunty’s bought me a pair of pyjamas and me mam’s got me a sponge bag to put me bits in, and I get to eat loads of ice cream.’

I wanted a sponge bag to put me bits in. I wanted to go into hospital. I wa— Suddenly, as in every good Daffy Duck cartoon when the duck hatches a plan or thinks of a brilliant idea, a light bulb came on over my head. That was it! I’d invent an illness and be taken off to St Cath’s Hospital and be spoilt rotten.

There was another reason why I could do with a spell in hospital just then, and that was because my dad had received a letter from the Board of Education enquiring why his son had been absent from school for the best part of the term. The proverbial shit was hitting the fan. My dad had to go down to the education office and explain himself. ‘I’ll see you tonight,’ he had said ominously as he left for work that morning, ‘and you better have some answers.’ I had to move quickly.

Sensing that there was no time like the present I went into school and dramatically fainted in assembly. I was carried outside and taken into the school secretary’s office, just as I’d planned. All sick kids ended up in Miss Savage’s office. She was a kindly soul, and because of her name I felt that I had a connection with her. Miss Savage ran off to get me some water and I seized my chance. I quickly took the register for my class from her desk and shoved it down the back of the radiator.

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