Primary School Confidential by Woog

worse. But I will share with you my highlights reel—or should that be lowlights reel?—to give you a sense of what I took away from the experience . . .

    A popular weekend activity among one group was to take the train to nearby Chatswood, a large shopping precinct only a fewstops away. The purpose of the expedition was shoplifting. And when I say shoplifting, I don’t mean nicking a red frog from the counter of the local milk bar; I’m talking about expensive items that the boarders would then on-sell to the daygirls at a reduced rate. Levi’s jeans, Doc Martens, dresses—everything was fair game. One girl in particular, a doctor’s daughter from a country town near the Queensland border, was a kleptomaniacal genius. If it wasn’t nailed down, she shoved it up her top. They grew so practised at it that eventually they began to take requests and stole to order.
    For some reason—perhaps still wary after my long-ago ladybird-hairclip spree—I never got involved in this racket. I certainly played my part when it came to other shenanigans, though.
    My first suspension was in Year 8. It was for something that, if you ask me, should have seen me hailed for showing early signs of entrepreneurial excellence, not derided as a common thief. You see, the Christian group in the school, known as the Crusaders, was going to hold a dance to raise money for some worthy cause (I can’t remember what). One day, I happened to walk past the table they had set up to sell tickets at $5 a throw.
    Now this dance was to be held in conjunction with the local boys school, so I knew that there would be much interest in attending, because . . . BOYS. So I waited until the two girls at the table were distracted, then I slunk over and swiped a handful of tickets.
    By lunchtime, word had got around that one of the Year 8 girls (that would be me) was selling tickets to the hot event for half-price. I sold out of tickets in no time, and was just contemplating how I could get my hands on some more when I was approachedby a teacher, who told me that the headmistress would like to see me.
    BUSTED!
    Apparently, tales of my business prowess had reached the ears of some meddling do-gooder, who had turned me in.
    I found the headmistress—a woman who looked uncannily like a Border Leicester sheep, if you can picture that—sat behind her desk, nostrils flared so wide you could make out the shape of her brain.
    ‘Sit down,’ she thundered.
    So I sat, and confessed all.
    Then followed a solid thirty minutes’ berating: I was a disappointment; I was wicked; I was no better than a common thief. By rights I should be expelled on the spot.
    Then the door opened and in walked my mum. To be honest, I think she was more scared than me. The headmistress gave her a toned-down version of the lecture she had given me, and then I was sent home for five days to have a good think about what I had done.
    On the way home, Mum was a bit cross with me, but not as much as I’d feared. When we got home she rang my dad and told him what I’d done, and I listened from the next room as they laughed about my business acumen.

    I was suspended for the second time the following year. There was nothing clever or entrepreneurial about my crime this time; it was more of a straight snatch-and-grab.
    Oh Lord, forgive me, because indeed I did sin. I stole in your house.
    I stole the contents of the chapel plate.
    Okay, so in my defence Levi’s had just brought out a range of white jeans. WHITE LEVI’S! I needed them in my life.
    On the day of my crime there had been a special collection so that the Crusaders could buy bicycles for Nepalese orphans. By some twist of fate, I had been put in charge of counting the collection, along with another girl whom I thought was my friend.
    The bowls were heavy with coins and the final tally amounted to several hundred dollars. Well, several hundred dollars minus the thirty bucks that ended up in my pocket.
    Later, as I was treating my mates