Super-Kid!

A Scrupulous Superhero Selection Process.

When I was seven years old, I discovered that everyone else was too busy to run around aimlessly with me at break times.

The motive behind my running was pretending to be a superhero, running down a hill to give me the sensation that I was flying. I’d stand atop the mound of grass (which, at the time, seemed huge) and look around to see what my classmates were up to. It was a small school, with an average of around eight pupils per year group, so we were often doubled up with another year and taught by the same teacher. My year group of just six included a girl called Eliza; at seven years old already so motherly that she attached herself to whichever teacher was on break duty and helped the younger kids who had fallen over, or were missing their parents, or had spilt something on themselves. I remember being invited to a surprise birthday party for Eliza, and when we jumped out and shouted happy birthday at her, she burst into tears and everyone was told to go into the garden and play while her mum comforted her. She couldn’t be a fellow superhero of mine, for which one of the key qualities was surely braveness.

The other girl in my year group was Shayla. She wasn’t just brave, she was tough. She once stood on the desk halfway through an English lesson and threatened to kill herself by jumping off. Yes, jumping off a 2ft table. I remember her chunky, black school shoes muddying up the surface of the desk and being careful to keep my fingers out of her way, for fear of them being stomped on. Mrs Heard calmly told us all not to look at her and continue working, but strangely enough, it’s difficult to concentrate on grammar exercises when there’s a pair of legs next to your ears. She was defiant, and wouldn’t get down until Mrs Heard called the headmistress, Mrs Westfield, of whom everyone was naturally terrified. Shayla would have easily been a contender for superhero playmate, but unfortunately she was rarely outside at break times since she was usually being told off for one thing or another and kept inside as a punishment.

Then there were the boys; Aaron, Jack & Matthew. I got on with Aaron quite well, and it was he who taught me the ‘I’ve got a song that’ll get on your nerves’ song, which I decided was an exceptionally clever song. We’d sometimes play Top Trumps in the wooden den at the top of the slide. There were small benches in there, and we’d often be interrupted by other pupils asking if we were ‘in the queue’ to slide. We weren’t; we were battling each other with various Top Trumps packs: cars, battleships, tanks. Boy things. However, I was forced to deem Aaron unsuitable for superhero status, as he regularly suffered from bouts of eczema. How cruel I had been, although I never told him. I never told anyone that I was looking for a superhero peer, or indeed that I was the guardian of the school grounds.

Jack was friendly enough but he was always playing football, so I didn’t bother to approach him at break times. I didn’t know him that well. I remember his dad picking him and his brother up from badminton club once and noticing that the three of them all had the same shoes on; obviously different sizes, but the same brand and colour: a hardy, sandy-coloured, mountaineering type of shoe. I always thought that was strange; I couldn’t imagine going to the shoe shop and choosing to wear the same shoes as both my sisters AND my mother. Superheroes MUST have a sense of individuality.

Finally, Matthew, who was a good, religious boy, but another one who was never around at break times, as he was always practising one instrument or another. Piano with Mrs Dale, or guitar with Mrs Hooke. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he were determined to become an expert at the triangle. I once went into the cloakroom with Matthew to put away all the sports equipment after a PE lesson, and suddenly there were rumours flying around that we were going out now because we’d been in there alone so had probably kissed. We hadn’t, and I discovered that day the odious rumours that can come with recognition. I learnt to stay low-key, to be open, to be aware of public perception.

So that was it for my year group. At that age, it’s not so common to have friends from other years, and although I did know a girl in the year below me called Anne, I couldn’t ask her to play with me because there was one key feature which prevented me from befriending her. We would eat lunch in the hall in rows of our school houses, and Anne was in the blue house with me, named after Elizabeth Fry (the lady on the old £5 bank note). Anne used to eat ketchup sandwiches and the smell made me want to puke. She was not someone whom I could entrust with superhero status.

So, I set about my quest as a solo superhero during break times, and I never felt lonely because the world was at stake here, people. My superhero duties mostly involved being on the lookout. Disappointingly, no villains ever seemed to actually enter the playground.

Then, during the summer, I turned eight and my mum moved me to another school. There were a number of reasons, one being that there weren’t enough pupils in my year so apparently I wasn’t socialising enough. I had become somewhat quieter over the previous couple of years, but clearly adults didn’t know to let superheroes brood so they could think up fantastic ways to fight evil. My first day at my big new school was scary; it looked different, it smelt different, even the religion was different. I’d been going to a Protestant school and this new one was Catholic. However, the worst thing of all was that, on entering my new classroom, I turned to my mum and clung onto her, frightened, begging her to take me back to my lovely, old school. So much for superhero; when it came to real life I was a total baby. My new teacher held me from behind and gently pulled. I started to cry, but my mum let go and I cried even harder. Now, such an event would have been fine, something an eight year old could have recovered from, if, that was, my new classmates weren’t sitting quietly at their desks and staring at this truly embarrassing little mite, salty tears and gooey snot rolling down her face to form a bitter cocktail of disgust in her open, heavily-gasping mouth.

Ten minutes later I was quietly playing chess with a girl named Gemma, and my mum treated me to fish & chips that evening so I wouldn’t resent her for her earlier act of betrayal. It worked. Superheroes should be immune to bribery, damn it!

Gemma didn’t become one of my best friends in this new class, but we remained in contact, sitting only two tables away from each other. It was she who invited me to an Italian restaurant for her 10th birthday party, which occurred on the night that two rather important things happened in the centre of town. I consumed spaghetti carbonara for the first time, and Trade Carpets burnt down. To my knowledge, the two events were not connected. We’d never seen flames like it; smoke billowing across town and out to the fields. I’m unaware if sheep recognise the smell of burning wool, but if they do, their little legs must have been quaking that night. By that time, of course, on the precipice of my teenage years, my earlier folly had been forgotten, and it never crossed my mind to don my imaginary cape and mask and pursue the Trade Carpets arsonist (the whole town was convinced the fire had been no accident).

Does that seven-year-old superhero live on somewhere deep inside of me? Possibly. Yet, it’s also possible that they’ve grown lazy, stuffed to the brim with carbonara; grown ashamed at their narrow-minded recruitment process; grown embarrassed, far keener to actually make friends with their classmates than to sit on a hill and watch, convincing themselves that they’re protecting everyone from unknown threats.

Written by Lauren Johnston

Lauren writes for fun but will also do it for money if offered. She works as Keeper of the Books (ok, librarian) at a school in London. Her website is here: https://laurenjohnstonwriter.co.uk