Girl in Green

I was one of those girls in green
You see them walking down the road from the big school
That they expanded back when I was a Year Niner
They made little similarity between the old bricks and the new metal roof
Which heated the place up something dreadful in summer

The girls in green are frequently as slutty as possible the older they get
Although even before I left the preteens seemed to be getting in on the act
With their faces turned orange disks from foundation and fake tan
And their nails made of manufactured plastic with white ends and patterns
It was not uncommon by my last year to be mouthed off at by a first year

The young ladies are an infamous breed
Something that seems to existed for decades
I heard boys on the bus from the school up the road
Call us lesbians and they frequently pestered those who sat near them
With insults, jibes, probably even offers before now, like we were an alien species

I was often in the midst of the bitching in school
To be honest, I joined in and made a girl cry, which made me laugh in cruel victory
She had been one of my best friends before she had struck below the belt at a party
And for that I was determined that she pay in kind
My friends congratulated me in my success of eliminating our schoolgirl bond

The balcony that overlooked the Victorian hall was our domain for two years
We elected ourselves prefects, unofficially but unchallenged for the privilege
Of guarding the corridor that was the shortcut between wings of the school
It was unknown for the dinner ladies to come and inspect the work we did
Those busybodies would try to split us and say that we were failing in our task

The younger years were the other main problem towards the end
As the enlarged building swelled with twelve-hundred female pupils
We alone, me, my four best friends and our some of our closest allies
It was us alone who had the right to sit where there was both shade and light
Yet a large gang, twice the number of us and foul, would often disobey the silent rule

I am not unhappy to have left the school, for the place was intolerable when I left
Where there had been an upper and lower body at my beginning
There was a single straining monster at my end
And one that was obsessed with the goal of a centenary do and becoming specialised
Of the, the latter was achieved and we became and art and science school

The decision to put particular emphasis on those two subjects was detrimental
For it was not just the geography and history and language departments that suffered
Even the science rooms, with windows that hardly opened and useless fans
Saw little benefit from the grant that Fat Phillips, the Pope in our Order, was given
All that money was squandered by a brainless woman and her fawning minions

The art gallery that she built with the cash, and more stolen
From what should have been a fund for more computers in the IT suites
Was a house built on sand, for our Headmistress had no permission for it
She tore up part of the expensive car park, prime spaces
And the eyesore was not for the use of her own charges

I hear now that Phillips is bankrupt
And that just yesterday an emergency staff meeting was called
My old school is not even owned by the Board anymore
But by those who built the fabricated toilet in the first place
Apparently one of the best schools in the borough is finally losing its façade

The teachers that are employed are hired in desperation
They are the dregs and poor at their job
Frequently they were terrible people themselves, unfit to teach us
And those that were good left before their time or retired
So that the ranks were split between those loyal and those resilient

The girls in green grimaced when the uniforms took a turn for the worst
That was a few years ago, when our blouses were tailor chequered for each year
Although I escaped by a hairsbreadth to keep the sane and familiar white
Despite her resemblance to a beached whale, Fat Philips also meddled with our food
A field of rabbit food and small portions was now our lunchtime ordeal

I am not best pleased with my new school
Or college, if you would rather call it that
But it is a small sacrifice I guess
For not having religion forced down our throats in daily doses
And fire alarms ring at every inopportune moment

September 2001-July 2005