Drooly Backwash
Julie Bagshaw never played well with others
Didn’t go out of her way to irritate
But her social skills weren’t that great
And she was awkward with everyone
Even her mother, who made her black A-line skirt
Ironed her plain white school shirt
Couldn’t get her to string two sentences together
Rather die than start a conversation
Rather die than be in one
Somehow managed to fall foul
Of the posh girls in 5B
Who were inventive in their invective
Called her ‘Drooly Backwash’
And the nickname stuck
Like glitter to Pritt
Repeated like a needle in a scratch
And as Julie walked onto the court
At the inter-schools netball match
The posh girls started up a chant:
‘Drooly! Drooly Backwash!’
With claps and stamps like
‘We Will! We Will! Rock You!’
Everybody joined in the fun
Everybody.
Even the teachers.
And Julie Bagshaw ran out
Of the cavernous sports hall
Raw-faced and howling
Ears ringing
Later, in the park across from the school
By the boating lake
On her favourite bench
She wiped her eyes
And planned her revenge
The grinning ape who took off
With a bag of your Granddad’s marbles
The lot: glimmers, swirlies, shooters, steelies
Even though he said ‘No keepsies!’
The lanky wanker who cobbed a stick
Between the spokes of your birthday bike
And laughed like a gurgling drain with his mates
As you hurtled helpless over the handlebars
Nothing at all like Supergirl
The ones who mocked your spots, your specs
Your unfashionable shoes and your M&S kecks
The way you talked and the cut of your hair
The ones who laughed as they kicked away your chair
You’re not telling me
You never wanted to get even
With every one of those smirking clowns?
Didn’t lie in wait at the end of a jennel
With a cricket bat
To whack some bully’s teeth clean out
And take back what was yours
Your dignity, maybe
And your Gaga’s bag of mabs?
In your dreams, at least?
Wouldn’t you punch the air
Whoop and give a standing ovation
When Drooly Backwash
Got her own back on behalf of the underdog nation?
She went home when it went dark
Trudged up the drizzly hill as the streetlights
Shone orange dazzle under hissing cars and
Painted the park darker
Had the first non-transactional conversation
Of her life with her mother
Both somewhat shocked at the
Sudden and unforeseen intimacy
She unloaded every detail
The events leading up to the dreadful denouement
The netball match she’d run from in shame
Before it had even started
And now she knew with terrible certainty
How the whole school felt about her
It was clear she could never return.
Her mother talked to her friends in education
And shipped her daughter off to another school
On the far side of the city
Where she could concentrate on being
Her solitary self
And nobody knew or cared
About Drooly Backwash
Years rolled on, coat after coat
Layers of bland magnolia
Covering over everything past
And these things happened
Lost between the layers:
Posh girl number one
Fell pregnant at sixteen
Leaving her rather stiff parents aghast
After one too many alcopops
At a particularly unbridled party in the park
They locked the gates at night after that.
Posh girl number two
Made a lot of dubious decisions at Uni
Culminating in a tequila and acid-fuelled breakdown
That Steadman could have illustrated
And ended up scoffing beetles and moths
In an expensive, exclusive sanatorium
Courtesy of her understanding mother.
Julie Bagshaw, meanwhile
Got good ‘A’ level results
Studied at East Anglia
Became a moderately successful writer
Wrote a couple of well-received novels
Married for love
Had two kids
And lived happily ever after
The best revenge of all…
…that is, of course
If you don’t count burning the school down
She never got caught
Maybe one day she’ll write about it.