As a kid, I was probably the most hyperactive, weird child that most people have ever come across. I was the serious 'weird kid' at school, due to the fact that I liked books and not barbies, dispised pink and liked beating boys up if they came anywhere near me. I was detested by the majority of my mums family and friends, and this is a story from when I was about nine.
My mum had decided that it would be a good idea that I made some new friends, so she took me along to her friend's theatre group for kids about my age, and left me there for the duration of the day. Bear in mind that I was an icredibly difficult child, with quite serious Bipolar disorder and the social skills of a gnat (yes, biting people was usually involved). I arrived at the theatre group after staying up all night being petrified of the ghost of Berkely Square, and possible iminent nuclear war. I was stood, alone in the foyer, in my dads old addidas t-shirt that reached my knees and a pair of flowery leggings, with my badly dyed orange hair that I completely avoided brushing, and luminuos green nikes at least two sizes too big for me, waiting for someone to sort of pick up on the fact that I was new and didn't know anyone. Nobody did. So I decided, in my exhausted nine year old brain, to go find somewhere that sold food and hot chocolate, take these treasures, and go somewhere very quiet to read my book and possibly sleep. So I decided to quietly sneak away from the quaker hall in which the forced social interaction of pre-teens was taking place, and wandered around the streets of North London trying to find somewhere to purchase my desired items.
Suddenly, all hell broke loose. I found myself in the middle of some sort of police raid, with large terrifying men yelling at me to get out of the way, news cameras, armed police, and some sort of drugs cartel. I was totally and utterly confused, and stood by, book in hand, to watch the proceedings. Some men were arrested, and some drugs were found without much further ado.
By this time, my mum was having a lovely cup of tea at her friends house and watching the live news, broadcast from the Turkish area of North London, not far to where she had just dropped her daughter off. Hang on. Is that.... Oh my god. My mum had seen me in the edge of the news broadcast, and started to majorly freak out. She called the friend I was supposed to be with, and to her dismay was told that I was nowhere to be found. She began to panic (and my mum is a totally unflappable woman) and called the police.
Around the time she started to worry, I got on a bus down to the river Thames, found a small hippy cafe, and was happily chatting to the owner about the life and works of Oscar Wilde, a subject I was much more comfortable with than anything the pre-teens had to offer me. I had twenty quid, and was happily munching chips and drinking coke whilst I read my book in the lovely peaceful cafe, with the wonderful herby smell.
Meanwhile my mum was going out of her mind. She had arrived in Green Lanes to find that I was nowhere to be found! She had police hunting for me, and a troop of her friends and family too. I was happily unaware of the hours passing.
Anyway, the cafe owner alerted me to the time and the fact that she wanted to close up. She asked me where my parents were and I replied ' I don't have any. They died in a boat crash' and promptly left. I got on the bus back to North London, with the intenetion of waiting for my mum outside the quaker hall as if all was normal and I had attended the required theatre session. When I got there , I was met by flashing blue lights, police and general hubbub, and for the second time that day I thought that I was going to be arrested for nicking off.
I was suddenly slapped around the back of my head so hard by my mum. She screamed incoherently for a good ten minutes at me, then I was marched off by police and asked if I had been abducted, molested or generally harrassed, to which my answer was 'No. I just didn't want to do theatre so I went off to a nice cafe near the river and talked about Oscar Wilde.'
Nobody was impressed.
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