The First Book Of Boogedy - Chapter Two

Show Notes

In this, the second chapter of, THE FIRST BOOK OF BOOGEDY, we meet our hero, Sam, and learn why the first day of school is terrifying and why you should, never, EVER try to sit on someone else's imaginary friend...

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Samuel was a boy who, like many his age, had learned to be fearful of a select few things. For example, there was the wrath of his mother, the sting of the wasp and the strange, goopy mixture that sometimes nested in the kitchen plug hole. He had developed a healthy respect for punches in the arm, naked knees on fresh gravel and the gnarled, yellow toothed dog at number eleven. Yet there was one thing that Samuel had learned to fear more than all the others combined and that was the first day at a new school. Three weeks after his twelfth birthday, Samuel began High School and as he stood amongst that swarm of strange looking youths, gormless adolescents and pimpled teens for the first time, one thought and one thought only went through his head…
“I want to go home.”
It had taken him, as it would every morning, a forty-five minute bus ride to get there and thinking that he could perhaps use the time wisely and make some new friends, Samuel’s attempts to get a seat next to someone had generally gone like this;

“Excuse me, may I sit here?”
“Uh, no.”
“Um, why not?”
“Well, there seems to be someone sitting there already.”
“But there’s no one there.”
“Yes there is. Mr. Pepper’ there… Mr. Pepper is my imaginary friend.”
“Couldn’t he move over a bit.”
“I’m afraid that Mr. Pepper has a very large bottom, you see and is a little sensitive about it.”
“Oh, well I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to…
“Mr. Pepper says you should go now. Mr. Pepper says you smell.”

And so it went.
With nowhere else to sit, Samuel was forced into the front seat of the bus next to Bowman, the school janitor who had long, ratty brown hair and smelt of peanuts. Most of the time Bowman didn’t even glance his way and chewed on apples so loudly that Samuel wished that he were deaf. This was the least of Sam’s problems as making friends in school proved to be far more difficult.
With all his mates attending other schools, Samuel was surrounded by a sea of unfamiliar faces and felt very much alone. He could not find his classes and when he could he didn’t understand exactly what the subject was that he was in (what IS trigonometry anyway!?) He did not know the teacher’s names, couldn’t write down from the board quick enough and his school uniform was itchy and uncomfortable. To make things worse the toilet cubicle doors didn’t go all the way to the floor, the canteen food was terrible and the grass on the playing field was yellow and smelt like dog wee.
Whenever Samuel approached a group of students they would all turn their backs on him and whisper to one another. When he tried to join in the conversations he found that not only did he not know what they were talking about, but he wasn’t even sure they were speaking the same language. One day, in desperation, he brought a ball to school in the hope that someone might join him for a game and think him worthy of friendship. Unfortunately, after accidentally kicking the ball through the staff room window, Mr. Schnell, the gym teacher told Sam he had the “soccer skills of a hamster” and Samuel thought it best to retire from the world of sport at that point.
So, dear reader, though it saddens me to say, from that day on, young Samuel sat alone in the classroom and spent his lunchtimes watching all around him from his lonely perch. Convinced that everyone in the world had all the friends they needed, he decided that his own company was all the company he required. Lonely but contented, Samuel decided that if lonely was as bad as it got, then maybe it wasn’t too bad at all.
Then, of course my friends, as often happens with such tales, things got much, much, much worse.