It’s midnight, I go into the teen’s bedroom. Her laptop is propped up in front of her. All I can see is the glow of her face in the laptop light. She hasn’t left her bedroom all day except to make a bowl of pasta.
“Eventually you are going to lose the use of your legs” I snark.“You’ve let a moth in”
I turn the light on, see it land on a poster of Kurt Cobain. Smack! I lift my hand and there is a smear of ex moth on Kurt’s jumper.
“How dare you do that to Kurt!” the teen yelps.
“I think Kurt would have appreciated it” I retort
I look on her windowsill, she’s growing something in a pot.
“What’s that?” I ask“Not telling you”“Is it marijuana?”She rolls her eyes. “No, like I’d do that here”I wait.“It’s basil”
I see the packet now. How sweet.
You see, when kids aren’t at school they do all sorts of creative things they don’t normally do. She’s also started mowing the lawn on a regular basis.
“Um, have you got any exams coming up?”“Tomorrow” she says casually, not moving a muscle.“Tomorrow!!” I exclaim.“When’s the exam after that?”“I’ve got exams all this week, every day” she replies.“Aren’t you supposed to be revising or something?”She takes a deep philosophical breath…“Well, I feel, at this stage, whatever happens, will happen…”
“Que sera, sera?” I paraphrase, an eyebrow raised.
“Yeah, that sort of thing. By the way, don’t wake me up in the morning, it’s an afternoon exam”
I close the door. I hope she knows what she’s doing. Watching David Mitchell panel show re-runs will not get her into university and watching Black Adder does not count as history revision.
Don't worry, she'll be fine!
Good luck to her on her exams!
ML, you're harder than me when disposing of insects. I'm a big softy who used a glass and a piece of card and throws them out of the window.