#Peenie Petal | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

harrison-abbott · 7 years ago

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Taut Lips - Short Story

Olga lies thinking about the garden at night. She wishes she could be back there, helping Mother with the flowers. Dreaming is the only time she’s taken there again, among the pollen scent, the coloured petals. Then there’s a bang on the walls, or people are shouting at each other below, and she’s pulled into reality. Into her new life in this metropolis, to be sad again.

It happens constantly during the nights – the commotion in the flat-block. Olga can’t understand why the people are like this here. She’s only seven and the chronic anger of adulthood bemuses her. The bottles smashing, the police, ambulance sirens. She’ll hear scuffling below in the courtyard and wonder what’s happening. The words they yell are harsh, thick; she doesn’t understand much of them either. Olga’s only just moved here from Poland, and Polish is a far different tongue than English.

The flat-block isn’t what bothers her most. There were many similar buildings, probably more, in Krakow. What hurts her is the absence of greenery. No trees, barely even any fields. Back home, Mother had been a gardener. Olga had grown to adore the funk of soil and the presence of insects. She’d always be playing there, learning the characters of plants.

Mother had liked her work, but it was just her and her daughter as a family: they were very poor. That’s why they’d moved to England, to make more money. Olga had asked her, before they came, if they’d have a new garden where they lived. Mother tightened her lips and said, “one day we’ll have one …” Nowadays Mother leaves the flat early and comes back late – a process of tube trips and a job all lasting thirteen hours. Olga can’t see any change in wealth; Mother’s always too wiped to chat with her at night. Olga used to ask her what she works as, but Mother wouldn’t tell her, so she stopped asking.

Because Mother leaves so early in the mornings, Olga must take herself to school. She takes the bus into town, sitting huddled up to her schoolbag by her chest. Through the windows she watches the city churn outside; the morose postman, the overt men in suits, the road-rage-drivers versus skinny cyclists. All seems like mayhem.

But it’s much worse when Olga’s classmates get on the bus. Sometimes she’ll try to hide from them, but they always spot her – the new Polish girl. They have a habit of raising palms to high-five her as they pass, then laugh as she dutifully high-fives them and sit behind her.

The laughter is louder whenever Olga says something in class, because her English is so infantile, different from the regular accent. The teacher will ask her a question and she’ll get it correct, and there’s an instant tittering from the girls. The boys imitate her, raising their voices even though their Adam’s-apples haven’t dropped yet.

As the classes go on, Olga’s constantly learning a new language. Her brain’s functioning much quicker than any of the other students, but none can see this. The teacher will stick bits of paper on objects with nouns written down – BLACKBOARD, WINDOW, COMPUTER. She encourages the other children to help her with translations whenever they can.

The children are taught ‘projects’; The Romans; The Rainforest, things like that. They study World War Two as well. Olga marvels at the British perspective of the War, because she’s never learned it before. All they taught her back in Poland about WWII was how her kin had been repeatedly destroyed by the Nazis and the Soviets across six years, because that’s exactly what happened.

They then move onto the project of ‘Sexual Reproduction’. By now Olga’s English has developed a lot; she’s just as coy and embarrassed about sex as any child is at that age – but none find talking about it more difficult than their teacher.

The typical exercise method is for the kids to get into pairs, where they make posters etc. By the first lesson of Sex Reproduction they’re asked to pair-up and analyse body parts, and what organs do in the human body.

As the class zip around, excitedly getting into pairs, Olga sits alone. She’s used to nobody wanting to work with her; the teacher will put her with a trio after all the others have joined. But one of the kids is off today, making the class-population even-numbered. Suddenly there’s a big girl standing in front of Olga. She hasn’t spoken to her before but knows her name is Jasmine. First thing she notices about Jasmine is how big and pointy her ears are …

“I go with you?” Olga says.

“Yeah, okay,” Jasmine sits next to her. The teacher hands the children a piece of paper with a cartoon diagram of a naked man and woman, whereupon they’re supposed to define the labelled body-parts.

Jasmine’s quiet, and initially she pencils in the body names on her own. Olga can’t remember hearing her talk before. The popular boys/girls have such a dominion over the class’s communication in general that people like Jasmine are left in the background. Her ears are so prominent that it’s hard to not look. When Jasmine does speak she has a nice, heavy accent.

“Do you know all the English words for the body-parts?”

“I know some …” Olga draws she finger down the picture, “that’s the heart, there’s the liver … Umm, that’s the bladder … and this is the …” and she finger pauses on the man’s groin area. Jasmine jumps into the silence:

“That’s the penis.”

Olga smiles and blushes a little.

“What’s the Polish for ‘penis’, Olga?”

“Oh, it’s the same. But we say it like penees rather than peenis …”

They both laugh, and Olga’s blush ripens because Jasmine’s the first person she’s made laugh at school, after all this time.

The whole classroom is lively – everyone’s happy, Olga too, as she starts talking to Jasmine. It’s still a struggle to string sentences together, but Jasmine makes her brave. At one point Jasmine asks:

“So are you coming to the botanics on Friday with the class?”

“I don’t know … What is the ‘botanics’?”

Olga’s mother paid for the school trip – it will be her first in England. She just doesn’t know the translation for the botanical gardens; Jasmine tries to explain it to her but her vocabulary is too dense. Olga doesn’t know what she means, but nods, saying, “Yeah sure I’ll go there.” Jasmine blinks and says cool and then there’s another nervous silence. Olga likes Jasmine and wants to keep talking, so uses the cartoons to make more conversation. She scans over the woman’s face, knowing the names for the eyes, nose, but she doesn’t know how to pronounce ‘ears’.

Olga points at Jasmine’s ears, with a smile and asks, “how do you pronounce these?”

Jasmine’s face drops in a scowl. She holds her hands across her eyes and starts crying. It’s audible, and the other children cease talking, and stare. Mrs Madigan arrives by their table; the adult will invade the drama, mould it.

“Jasmine, tell me why you’re crying?”

“Because Olga said I have big ears!”

Mrs Madigan turns on Olga as the classmates’ heads shift across like pigeons. Everyone knows Jasmine has large ears but suddenly it’s nothing to be mean about. Madigan orders Olga to stand up and then starts berating her. How she shouldn’t be cruel, the voice heightening. This young woman with pretty blonde hair screaming above her, a seven-year-old girl motionless below. Olga’s sense of language departs versus the blood in Madigan’s face, the shooting spittle; there are no questions, only the tirade. By the end of it Olga simply says,

“I’m sorry.” And she’s released from power.

When Olga gets home from school that afternoon she makes a hot water bottle and lies in her bed. Before Mother gets home, she holds the bottle against her forehead. Mother comes in finding her sweating, delirious. Olga’s eyelashes are slick with tears and she won’t speak. “Oh, Olga, you must have a fever. Let’s keep you at home tomorrow.” Mother takes her own day off work tomorrow to stay with her daughter.

Tomorrow’s Thursday, and unto the afternoon Olga can’t keep her temperature trick up. Mother had believed she was ill the night before, now she’s diagnosed it as a short illness – the fever’s passed. So why does her girl keep crying in her bed, why won’t she move?

Olga wants to say that she misses Poland, that the presence of the garden hurts because it’s always there, and yet it’s not. Why can’t they go home? Why is money so important, if they’re poorer here than they were there? And she doesn’t know that Mother’s thinking the same thing. But Olga never says it, so Mother never agrees. “You’ve got your school trip tomorrow, remember? It’ll be fun,” and leaves her to sleep. Like a woman Olga remains in worry before falling unto slumber. Within dream-land, she dabbles through the pinks and blues of the garden; the moss underfoot cushions her feet; she watches the water globules form on the greenhouse panes.

With a start she’s tugged back again: it’s Mother entering her room with juice and toast. She sits by Olga’s bedside; she knows Mother’s only trying to reassure her about her trip, because she can’t take her to school. She’s already late for work herself. Olga’s and her Mother are as close as sisters. Mother gives her £10 to buy some lunch or a treat on her trip. It’s the most money she’s ever held in her life.

Olga walks into the schoolyard with a type of pride. The rash, lyrical sounds of her Mother’s voice fill her. She approaches her class: the kids are waiting outside for the coach. Mrs Madigan spots her entrance and looks away. Maybe she knows that Olga hadn’t meant to offend Jasmine the other day … Whatever a teacher does is justified. It’s in the past. There will be no judiciary, even for her own shame.

The coach arrives and the children pile in with their lunchboxes. She sits by herself against the window – which is never a bad seat – whilst the child-hierarchy unfolds around her.

The engine’s rumbling and they seem ready to go, but the coach stalls and there’s impatience. Mrs Madigan’s talking to the bus driver at the front and she says there’s one child still to arrive – they have to wait because the children have all paid for their tickets.

“Oh, there she is,” Madigan then says and the latecomer arrives.

It’s big Jasmine, flustering onto the coach and she tries to speak to Mrs Madigan but the teacher only tells her to hurry up and sit down.

Jasmine edges down the aisle, looking for someone to sit next to. Her friends before her were early, and they’re all happily together, and won’t offer her support; everyone’s watching and it’s prime embarrassment. She gets to the end of the bus and there are two spare seats free at the back, and one free next to Olga. …

Olga truly doesn’t expect it when Jasmine sits next to her. Jasmine’s wearing a broad red sweater; looks she’s just changed uniforms for another school, out of their typical green sweaters. She fidgets by Olga’s legs for minutes as the bus departs. There’s sweat on her forehead as she suddenly darts to Olga, saying:

“What’s the Polish word for ‘sorry’?”

“You pronounce it like ‘pshe prasham’ …”

“Pshe prasham for getting you into trouble the other day … I know it was mean, but I didn’t mean it.”

Olga grins and says it’s all right and they can just have fun today.

The bus passes towers, churches, the glint of skyscrapers. Their eyes partake in urbanity as they talk together, these two girls. Urbanity mixes unto twigs and foliage as they continue; London changes by the sparkling daylight, and the bus pulls into a car park and stalls. Mrs Madigan then announces that they’re here at the Botanics.

Through the windows Olga finally realises what the Botanics are … She claps Jasmine on the shoulders, ready to return to the garden, emboldened by the green.

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