against the window. “This one’s locked too!” someone shouted. It all went quiet. It all went horribly quiet for about five minutes. Which in real time is nothing, but in ‘sitting scared in a cupboard in a foetal position’ time, is about four years. I dare not breathe, I dare not move, I just waited.
The door burst open with a loud bang. I froze preparing for the worst. I heard someone enter the room, just one person. It was definitely just one set of footsteps. A big clang rang out from near the entrance to the room; whoever had come in must have kicked the wedge I had lodged into place across the room and onto a metal chair leg. The footsteps moved around the room, one way and then another. Then they came closer. The footsteps came right up to the cupboard door and stopped. This was it. 10 verses one, no chance. But one versus one, a good chance, I thought (even if it is the giant ginger tosser’s brother!)
I made my decision that attack is far better than defence (obviously going against all my prior, yet meagre martial arts teachings) and leapt out of the cupboard jumping straight onto the figure that was looking the other way across the room. I pulled my tightly clenched right fist back ready to strike and bundled into the figure. As soon as I made contact I realized that it wasn’t in fact one of Todd’s gang, it was actually Gary Clearly, one of the premises team at the school, I lowered my fist and got to my feet sharpish and started to bring my heart rate back to just a mild gallop,
Poor Gary didn’t know what on earth was going on. “What the hell do you think you are doing?!” he said. “You frightened the living piss out of me!”
I apologised profusely and explained the situation in detail to him. “I know,” he continued. “I have just chased three of them out of the Maths block, they have smashed a door downstairs and have turned a number of classrooms upside down, what do they want with you?” Again I explained the situation I had gotten myself into. I explained about my ‘relationship’ with Todd and about the incident with the ‘ginger tosser’.
“I am afraid, Matt, that I am going to have to report this.” I agreed with him. Looks like I will need all the help I can get at the moment, this could have been a very nasty situation with a very painful ending. Gary called my dad from his mobile and he reluctantly came and picked me up, although it did take him nearly an hour to travel the five minutes down the road.
Dad arrived; I thanked Gary for his help and jumped in the car. “What the hell have you done now?” asked Dad. “What are you getting yourself mixed up with that lot for? I bet it’s over that bloody girl isn’t it?”
I explained myself yet again and unusually for my dad, he swallowed it first time. No questions, no doubts, nothing. Just a brief nod of the head and a quiet five minute journey home.
Once home he made me a cup of tea and sat down with me in the lounge and began:
“Listen, Matt, I know that this situation is not one that you have deliberately created, but things are going to have to change a little over the next few weeks. I see these guys around a lot and you are really going to have to watch yourself around them. Particularly that Todd character you mentioned, his family are mad and he is no different. I am pretty sure you can fight and look after yourself, but there are a lot of them and god knows what they could be carrying around with them. If something happened to you we would all be crushed, we love you, you know. So from Monday, I will drop you and Martin at school and pick you up at the end. That way you won’t have to go through this again and I will know you are safe.”
I agreed with him and thanked him for understanding. It’s not a bad idea considering what has happened today, I don’t really want to go through that again.
I rang Sasha and explained what had happened yet again. She apologised for not being at the gates, she explained that she was held up by her English teacher to finish off a piece of coursework. I explained that I was glad that she wasn’t with me, as the stationery cupboard would never have been able to fit us both. My dad popped his head around my bedroom door while I was on the phone to Sasha and said, “Matt, why don’t you invite her round for dinner tomorrow night? Say six o’clock? Mum and I would really like to meet her.”
I did, she agreed. God knows what we have just gotten ourselves into. I am not sure that this is the best of ideas, but it’s done now.
Oh god. At least we don’t have a cat.
Saturday, March 4th
Oh my god, my parents are a fucking hideous embarrassment! Sasha arrived for dinner at around 17:45 and left at 20:56. I know this almost to the second, as I was in severe psychological pain for the duration of her stay. Now don’t get me wrong, dear diary, if my parents were not around the three hours and 38 minutes would have passed in what seemed like a blink of the eye. But with my parents present the same amount of time seemed to last just shy of 46 weeks.
My dad decided to turn into the world’s shittiest stand-up comedian. Here are a few of the priceless gems he decided to share with my beloved Sasha:
My father used to walk up and down the catwalks of Paris, Milan and Madrid carrying a bag of sesame seed buns. He was a fantastic ‘roll model’.
I took my wife to the races the other day and she got stung five times on her head. She really had a bee in her bonnet.
The other day my wife said to me, “Dum de dum.” I said, “Pardon?” She then said, “La de da.” I said, “Well, you’ve changed your tune.
You see, an absolute bag of shit.
My mum spent the evening showing Sasha pictures of me when I was a toddler. I honestly had no idea that there were so many pictures of me with my cock and/or ass on display in circulation. I am tempted to write a letter to the company that has developed them and ask them why they felt it appropriate to print so many pictures of a two-year-old child fully displaying his rather small and inoffensive family jewels! It really doesn’t seem right at all, I thought this country was supposed to be clamping down on paedophiles.
What made it worse was that Sasha spent the whole of her time at my house laughing at my dad’s shit jokes and the several thousand pictures of my pre-pubescent balls. Nice. One thing’s for sure though, my parents absolutely fell head over heels for Sasha, and why shouldn’t they? – she is completely perfect. As embarrassed as I was with the situation I couldn’t help smile as Sasha’s face lit up every time she laughed. She is gorgeous all of the time, but when she laughs her whole body laughs. She glows and I love her more.
My mum was relentless, photo after photo, story after story, bollock after bollock. But Sasha just carried on laughing and genuinely seemed interested in everything the crazy woman had to say. She really must be into me
The only saving grace of the whole evening was the fact that my dad cooked instead of my mum. My mum’s cooking may well have spelt the end for Sasha and me, so thank the lord!
Credit where credit is due, my dad pulled it out of the bag as far as dinner was concerned. We had a rocket salad with caramelised onion and crispy streaky bacon for starter. Followed by fillet steak with a peppercorn sauce. For dessert he made Eton Mess, which was just out of this world.
I walked Sasha back home after the meal; she had a beaming smile on her face all the way. We laughed and repeated some of my dad’s shit jokes. We got to her door and kissed for what seemed a lifetime. And then she said, “Matt, I am just so happy I have you. I really love you. I hope you know that. I mean, I know we haven’t been seeing each other that long, but this just feels so right. I hope that doesn’t scare you.”
Her words warmed me right through to the bone, which was quite impressive as it was a bloody freezing evening! I pulled her close and kissed her tenderly and looked deeply into her eyes and said, “I am head over heels in love with you and the only thing that scares me is the thought that at some point in the future I may not have you. I really do love you too.”
“You are stuck with me forever!” she said.
“Fine by me,” I said coolly and shrugged my shoulders, kissed her on the cheek and turned for home.
Man, I really am in love. That’
s a really good thing.
Sunday, March 5th
Sasha and I have agreed that we are indeed going to go camping. Martin has also agreed to come, along with Sasha’s best friend Dawn Frost. Sasha seems to think that they are a match made in heaven. I don’t think Martin has ever actually had a girlfriend before, in fact I actually think girls scare him a bit. Girls are not really a topic of conversation for Martin and I; we mainly talk about video games, TV, films and music. I think the only time we drift into the ‘girl’ topic is when a hot girl passes us by in the street and one of us (usually me actually!) says something sexist, such as: “Look at the fun bags on that!” Or, “I would absolutely destroy her!” That kind of thing, not exactly Keats or Byron.
I popped around Nan’s with the family to reluctantly receive a warm pound pressed into my hand and an itchy, hairy kiss. It was nice to see her though, she does make me chuckle with her funny ways. I particularly like the way she announces to the whole street whenever she decides she needs to use the loo. “Just off to the little girls room to do a wee wee!” Or, “Just popping to the loo, will be a while… It’s number twos!” And with that off she waddles like a drunken duck with a hunchback.
All in all this has been a pretty action packed weekend, so much so that