Late Bloomer by Clem Bastow

Author:Clem Bastow [Clem Bastow]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
Published: 2021-05-08T00:00:00+00:00

THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

It’s a funny thing, really: one of the best years of my life was also one of the worst years of my life. I only remember snatches of it, good and bad, because the fact of its being the worst has also, bittersweetly, extinguished my memories of some of the best moments.

1994 started off on a good footing: I had escaped primary school! I was to begin my secondary schooling at Elwood College. Elwood was a state school with impressive arts, theatre and music programs, and a diverse student body. Despite the nerves of starting at a new school, I immediately felt at ease on its then slightly scratch-’n’-dent grounds. If you’ve ever watched Heartbreak High, it was like that. In a way, it felt like being back at St Joseph’s. There were kids with learning disabilities and recently arrived Russian kids and hippies and weirdos and show-offs. Nobody gave a shit about Melrose Place, and people wrote poems about Kurt Cobain in English class. Ahh, I thought, I will fit in here.

I quickly made friends with a few fellow oddbods, including Alexandra, a theatrical type too, and Naomi, who had an undercut and smoked like a chimney, and became a swimming champion thanks to her deathly fear of sharks (the secret: imagine there’s a shark waiting to chase you from the starting blocks). It eased the pain of Tash and her family having recently moved to Queensland, though none of them could hope to take her place in the firmament of best friends.

Everywhere I looked, there were kids of all ages who seemed like they wouldn’t fit in anywhere other than Elwood. Rebecca, who got sent home from science class for wearing a Cypress Hill ‘Cone Flakes’ T-shirt. A punk, Seamus, who had dragons tattooed on his temples (he was in a higher year level). Sometimes I’d watch him, awestruck, at the canteen; he’d order ‘ten dim sims with tomato sauce, please’, then turn and grin at me as he tucked into his revolting lunch.

Elwood was the sort of school where a kid like me could flourish; the type of school where all the teachers were overworked and slightly stressed, but had a real passion for helping their charges thrive. I got a small role in the school musical and relished the camaraderie of the mixed-peer cast, and the proximity to cool, weird students like Amiel (the future ‘Totally Addicted to Bass’ vocalist) and Ashley, who played saxophone in the school jazz ensemble, the hilariously named Jazz – Off The Rails. This was high school as film and television had told me it would be: it was like my mental Rolodex of popular media had come to life at last. Never had I been more thrilled than when, at musical camp, Ashley flushed Corey’s head down the toilet in a truly Shakespearean battle for the affections of Liz, the walleyed opera singer. When we all returned from musical camp and were waiting for parents to come pick us up, my friends started giving me shit for something (take your pick).

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