Studying Servitude: An Article

Studying Servitude with Charlie the Charboy.

A Tight Spot

Mrs Spencer is wiping the windowsill of a back bedroom window when she notices two schoolgirls walking down the alley at the back of the house. She doesn't recognise either of them so they certainly don't live on this terrace, and it's not an alley that leads to anywhere so they can't be taking a short cut. She thinks they're acting suspiciously; the girl with the French braids appears nervous and keeps looking over her shoulder. Mrs Jackson steps back from the window and keeps a covert eye on them. “What are they up to?” she asked herself as they drew to a halt by the back gate. When the gate began to open, she darted down the stairs to find the two intruders sneaking in through the back door “What are you doing in here?!” Mrs Spencer barks. “Get out of my house now or I'll call the police!”

“Mum it's me.” the girl with the French plaits says, looking up at his mother and gulping.

“James!” his mother realises. “What are you doing? Why are you dressed like that?” she gasped, looking him up and down. A pair of black leather ballet shoes are on his feet. His thin legs are clad in thick back tights and a short pleated skirt hangs from his waist. The girl who stands sheepishly beside him is dressed almost identically, although she wears a lilac winter coat whilst he wears a school blazer; and a girls one at that. “You've got make-up on too!” his mother states as she peers into his timid eyes. 

“I can explain.” James says.

“Well it'd better be good!” his mother barked. “Come on!” she said, before herding them both into the parlour.

“Can I get changed first?”

Truants

Two lads, Wayne and Alan are playing truant from school. They spent the morning lurking around the railway sidings until a workman told them to clear off. They loitered around the town centre, avoiding policemen and panda cars. They pooled what little money they had and shared a bacon bap from one of those cheap cafés that caters mostly for taxi drivers, claiming they had a dental appointment when quizzed about not being in school. Later in the morning, they loiter at a bus stop and wonder what to do for the rest of the day.

A lady who lives nearby notices them from an upstairs window. Twenty minutes later they're still there and after half an hour, she's deduced that they're not waiting for a bus since three have gone past now. Knowing that they probably should be somewhere else, she dons her overcoat, exits her home and approaches them. She loiters as if waiting for a bus for a few moments before breaking the ice. “No school today boys?”

Play Nice

Felicity is visiting her sister's family one Sunday afternoon. Penelope's husband is playing golf and her two children; Alice (8) and George (9) are playing noisily on the staircase and landing. They spend more time arguing than getting along and Penny frequently has to interject before their behaviour gets out of hand. George is forever teasing his sister and Alice is always on the defensive. “Why can't he just get along nicely with her?” Penelope says after breaking up yet another spat.

“I was round at a neighbours the other day and she has one of each.... you'll never guess what she does to 'encourage' her son to play nicely with his sister.”

“What?” Penny asked.

“Well... I called around and I could hear the kids playing upstairs... we sat at the kitchen table having a coffee and a chat. The kids were playing hide & seek. We could hear footsteps and doors opening and closing and in the background the daughter loudly counted backwards from fifty...” Felicity described. “The footsteps come down the stairs and all of a sudden, her son enters the kitchen looking for somewhere to hide... I don't think he knew I was there because he froze and looked absolutely mortified when he saw me.”

A Short Protest

“So what's this I’ve heard about a protest tomorrow?” Toby's mother asked when he arrived home from school. “Something to do with the boys not being allowed to wear shorts...”

“Errr, yeah... some of them are going to wear skirts tomorrow.” he replied. “So they claim anyway.”

“And are you going to be involved?”

“No.” he bluntly retorted.

“Why not?”

“Because it's a stupid idea.”

“But... wouldn't you like the option of wearing shorts when the weather's hot?”

“Not really.” he shrugged. “I only wear shorts when I have to.”

“Well... don't you think it's important that the boys who'd prefer to wear shorts should be allowed to?” she asked.

“Yeah.” he replied. “Course.”

“Then maybe you should take part in the protest.” his mother suggested.

“Nah.” he replied. “It's a stupid protest and I’d look stupid in a skirt.”

Becoming Alice

My sister's been walking on clouds all year. She's going to Glastonbury with a bunch of friends and I'm really quite jealous. I'm almost seventeen and my sister has just turned eighteen, and in spite of the fact that sixteen and seventeen year olds are allowed to attend the festival unaccompanied, I wasn't even allowed to register because Mum thinks I'm 'a bit too young'... so I'm sulking in the back ground as spring draws to a close whilst my sister and her pals are getting over-exited about tents, wellies and festival outfits. Six of them are going; Claire (my sister), Rebecca (her best friend), Sally and Hannah (college friends), Shannon (Hannah's sister) and Alice (our cousin). Alice isn't much older than me so it's doubly annoying they she was given permission to go and I wasn't. Mum tells me that I can apply for a ticket next year but... next year is going to be a 'fallow' year which means there'll be no Glastonbury festival for two years.

AWOL

From the first moment I saw a picture of our new house I knew exactly which bedroom I wanted. It's the one with three windows overlooking the porch roof. I always thought it was cool in movies and TV shows when kids could sneak out of their bedroom window, clamber over the roof then climb down a trellis after curfew... and this room would allow me to do exactly that.

The Clearout

To raise some funds to buy even more clothes, I've decided to sell the old, outgrown and out of fashion things I have on FleaBay. Mum said it was OK so long as I ask before I put anything up for auction, so I began sorting through my clothes, deciding what I wanted to keep and what I might sell. Mum wouldn't let me sell a few items that I really wanted to get rid of, but for the most part, she was happy. Now the work begins. Not only do I have to photograph every item, I have to create the listings and write the descriptions, and getting this right will determine if something sells or not. I'd done a lot of reading about successful FleaBay selling and according to the interweb, clothes sell better if they're photographed being worn rather than on a hanger or laid flat. The more images the better, so front, side, back, close-up details and the label should be included. I modelled the first batch and Mum took the photographs... but they were all a bit crappy. If they weren't blurred they were wonky, which means I’d have to spend ages straightening and cropping the images on my laptop. Mum blamed the camera and I blamed her, before asking my brother to help. His photos looked OK on the small camera screen, but “Oh Peter you're as bad as Mum.” I whined as I looked at them on my large laptop screen. “Can't you hold the camera still for one millisecond?!”

“I was.” he claimed, before blaming the camera.

I picked up the camera, told him to stand where I'd been standing and took a couple of pictures of him. Then I viewed them on the large laptop screen and showed him the difference between my 'steady' photographs and his shaky ones. We started again and whilst some of his pictures were perfectly sharp, too many weren't. “This is going to take forever.” I sighed.

“Sorry, sis... I'm trying my best.” Peter claimed. “Why don't you put the camera on your dresser and use the timer?”

“Because that'd take forever... I'd be waiting 30 seconds for each picture.”

“Yeah, true.” he sighed. “Well... I wish I could help but, if I can't take a decent photograph there's not much I can do.” He began to make his exit.

Mid-term

The possibility of moving to another town had been on the cards for months. Peter's dad works for a logistics company which has been planning to relocate their head office to a more central location and when the office moves, so will Peter, his sister Kate and his Mum & Dad. When the news finally came, things began to move much quicker than they'd anticipated. No sooner had they broke

up for the summer holidays, their parents informed them that they'd be moving up to Butterworth, a small town somewhere in the Midlands. “It's in the middle of nowhere!” Kate whined as Dad pinpointed the town on Google Maps. “Why are we moving there?”

“Because the company's moving there.” their dad replied. “They're relocating the depot...” he pointed out a large industrial estate near the small town and explained that its close to the M1 and M6.

“And miles away from all my friends.” Kate moaned.

“Mine too.” Peter added.

“You'll make new friends, and you can keep in touch with your old ones.” their mum claimed. “They do have the internet in the Midlands you know. You can still keep in touch on Messenger or VideoChat.” she reminded her children.

“But what about school?” Kate asked. “I'm about to start Year 11.”

“I know, and it's not ideal.” she's told. “...but you'll be moving to a much better school with an 'excellent' Ofsted rating.”

Dressed Under Duress

The images have been 'borrowed' from Daphnie's Secret Garden on Deviant Art.
The story was supposed to be a single captioned image, but it got a bit too big.
Sorry about the terrible title, I couldn't think of anything better. Please advise!

Unwanted Gifts

Since I intended my last story for Xmas day, but posted it 10 days early... I decided to quickly pen another festive fantasy. It hasn't been proof read so could be full of errors. It doesn't even have a proper ending so could be continued at a later date... but I hope you enjoy it.

Happy Christmas!

~o0o~

As is the norm, my sister and I try to guess what each of our gifts might be before removing the wrapping paper. As she passed her gift to me, I instantly guessed that it was some vinyl. It was obvious because I'd bought myself a vinyl player with the money I'd got in Xmas tips from my milk round. But is I took hold of the brightly wrapped parcel; approximately twelve inches square and a quarter of an inch thick, I quickly realised that it was too light to be what I'd initially guessed. “A calendar?” I guessed, since it's light in weight and slightly floppy. My sister smiled and shook her head. I ran my hands over the paper, feeling for clues as to what's inside. It's mostly flat, slightly lumpy here and there. “Wall art?” I guessed. She shook her head. I couldn't guess so turned it over and pulled open the snowman clad paper. Inside I found a square sheet of brown corrugated cardboard which I grabbed and turned over. My heart jumped into my mouth. I gasped. I gulped. I looked at my sister. A smug smile covered her face. “You bitch!” I spat.

“Peter!” my dad snapped.

“You promised!” I growled.

“So did you.” she dryly replied. “Now you won't have to go sneaking into my things.”

“What is it?” Mum asked.

Dolls and Dresses

To celebrate this blog getting one million page views, I'll publish my Christmas story a week early. But first of all, I'd like to say thank you to all my readers. THANK YOU!!!

This story isn't my best, but it is festive. Inspired by an excellent cartoon by RocketXpert (find him on Deviant Art)... set around Christmas 1983... somewhere in England.

~o0o~

Like all kids, Timothy is eagerly anticipating Christmas Day and all the gifts it brings. This year he's set his heart on adding an InterCity 125 train to his model railway layout, and goes to sleep each and every chilly December night dreaming of unwrapping this:

Meanwhile, Timothy's mother is having second thoughts about Christmas. In the background, the radio blasts out yet another festive pop song: ...he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake... She sighs and wonders if her son really deserves the Christmas gifts he's hoping for.