After all the high spirits and jolly hoo-ha of the past few days, at precisely 3 a.m. this morning I discovered what Mum’s been wittering on about all my life when she says “Things always seem blackest in the middle of the night”.
Silly old me thought this was Mum stating the bleeding obvious, like durrrrrr, of course it’s dark at 3 a.m., or else we wouldn’t need bedside lamps, would we? And how would we know when to go to sleep? Of course, now I realize that Mum was being “deep and meaningful” and she was actually meaning:
“When your worries wake you up in the middle of the night, suddenly they seem bleaker than you could ever imagine.”
This is soooo true.
I slid under my duvet last night as a funky, sassy, music-festival organizing chick who was over the moon with what we’d achieved. But at some point during the wee small hours the bogey man crept in, shovelling sackfuls of self-doubt down my lughole.
Of course, I’m blaming Mr McGraw.
It was ol’ grey chops who introduced me to imagining the “worst-case scenario” outcome in every situation, including Blackwell Live. I didn’t even know what “worst-case scenario” meant, until I began at Blackwell School and learned that every single path you choose to walk in life could have a WCS if you’re unlucky.
Say, for example, Blackwell enters a cross-country team in the local championships. Sure, we might win loads of medals and get our photo all over the local papers; it could be wonderful. But wait for it, the “worst-case scenario” would be that we trail in last to every other school, that we get our sports hall kits stolen by local “sneak thieves” and then the minibus gets a puncture so we have to get towed home.
You didn’t think of that, did you?
Bummer, eh?
Or, say, in geography, you were learning about Jamaica? About its lush tropical climate, local carnivals and gross national product? Well, if Mr McGraw was taking that lesson he’d point out the strong potential for freak weather conditions causing the banana harvest to shrivel and a mass typhoid outbreak.
Getting the picture? Life sucks sometimes; get used to it.
So, anyway, at 3.14 a.m on Saturday morning, I woke up needing the loo, but somehow started contemplating just what the LBD had got themselves into.
Not only had we promised McGraw and Guinevere, as well as the whole school, that we would put on an amazing Astlebury-style music festival with live bands and cheering crowds, we’d also stuck audition posters up and posted it on the World Wide Web too. Everyone was talking about it. There really was no turning back.
Now, every time I closed my eyes, all I could imagine was a big, empty playing field and a tearful, disappointed Mrs Guinevere. Nobody would want to buy our stupid tickets. In fact, as far as I could see, no bands would offer to play at our idiotic concert anyhow.
My palms were beginning to sweat.
I mean, imagine if nobody turned up at the auditions?
What if it’s just the LBD sitting in the sports hall on Monday, all by ourselves, playing “I-Spy” for an hour, then doing the “walk of shame” through the streets home? We’ll never live it down! Okay, I’ll admit I wasn’t so bothered about looking like a loser in front of McGraw: sheesh, I’ve had three years’ practice doing that.
BUT WHAT ABOUT IN FRONT OF YEAR 11? What about in front of Lost Messiah (who have now started practising in our function room so I can’t even escape their ridicule out of school hours.)
“Aaaaggghhh!” I eventually whispered out loud. “We’re going to be the laughing stock of the whole school!”.
(NOTE TO SELF: Find out what is “ the laughing-stock”. I have no idea what this means. I just know Magda often threatens people with being it and it’s a very bad thing to be.)