Anti-Poppins
For some strange reason I'm popular with the children of my friends. For some even stranger reason, my friends are cool with this. They ask me to babysit, they invite me to sleepovers, they don't complain when I teach their children swear-words or fall asleep on the floor with my head on the dog while I'm supposed to be supervising.
This is not without benefits, such as access to Sky and free takeaway when I babysit, an excuse to go and see Coraline or Bolt 3-D without looking like a prat, and so on.

Anyway, one day, we'd all been to a pantomime, and I decided to descend the stairs by sliding down the banister ('Vicar in a Tutu' playing in my head as I did so). Not a big deal, not particularly adventurous, I just felt like it. The kids, however, were hysterical. They thought it was hilarious. One of them, Lily, has a particular fear of authority and of rule-breaking, so she was amused, but also a bit nervous. I said, "Oh Lil, it's fine. What are they gonna do? Shout at me? Look, I'll do it again. I don't care." (I was a nerd in school, so it is with these 8-11 year olds that I am finally able to appear cool and rebellious, for once in my life.)

So off I went again, sliding down the bannister and shouting "Wheeee!" as I went. The kids were off, "Again Roota, again!" "This is simple", I thought, "Simple and a lot of fun..." so I kept on doing it. So fast at one point that I scorched my Mackintosh. Oh yes. (The mark is still there on my cheap polyester primark mack.) Eventually I grew tired of this and told them that was enough.

Suddenly, Lily, (the one who is always good, and has such a fear of getting into trouble that she even checks for double-yellows when her mother has parked the car) thought it would be funny to PRETEND that she too was about to slide down the bannisters. She clearly had no intentions of actually letting go and descending the stairs in such a break with convention and flagrant disrespect for general order. No. She merely sat on the bannister, took ONE foot off the floor and said "Wheeeee!" She then promptly put her foot back down and began to walk away.

At this very moment, a theatre employee came along. A very officious woman with an A-line skirt and cankles that demanded our deference.She sees little Lily, just leaving her 'slide-down-the-bannisters' pose. "What do you think you're doing, young lady? I hope you're not going to slide down that. You might injure yourself or somebody else on the stairs!" Lily is crest-fallen. How could somebody accuse her of such a thing? She'd never do anything like that. In fact the only person who'd do something like that is her deranged Aunty Roota, who is surely going to bail her out, and maybe even confess, in order to divert this negative attention from this uber-usherette. Surely?

Nope. I gave a calm smile, patted Lily's head, looked at Cankles and said (not very convincingly) "I'm sure she wouldn't reeeeallly have done that..."
Lily did not grass me up, and got a telling off in the bargain. I felt terrible. "What if she burst out crying?? What if she cries all the way to her mum and tells her what a complete piglet I've been? What if I get my arse kicked by all of the parents??" It was my turn to panic.

Until I looked down at Lily, who gave me a big, beaming grin and proudly declared "She thinks I'm naughty!" I returned the grin and said "Yeah, and she thinks I'M a responsible adult!"
Lily's 11 now, and she's brilliant. I hope we stay mates and that one day when she's a grown-up we can go out, get drunk and slide down bannisters together.


Length? Long, and made of polished brass.
( Roota zweeeeeoooooowm, Thu 17 Sep 2009, 17:19, Reply)