I woke up to my clock radio playing a song I hadn’t heard before…

… A four of fish and finger pies
In summer, meanwhile back

Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout
A pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she’s in a play
She is anyway

It was a strange song. It sounded like the Beatles, but more like a grownups song than an older kids rock type song with guitars and drums and worrying about girlfriends and freedom and that sort of stuff. And some of the words I didn’t understand, like “finger pies” and “roundabout”. And that last line, “though she feels as if she’s in a play, she is anyway”, what was that about? Was it like drug stuff, like that “Along Comes Mary” song by the Association that older kids said was about drugs, “My empty cup is as sweet as the cup”, even though it didn’t talk about TAKING any drugs like that marijuana stuff.

Penny Lane, the barber shaves another customer
We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim
And then, the fireman rushes in from the pouring rain
Very strange

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It was Friday afternoon and the last bell rang for the end of eighth period, the end of the day at Tappan and the end of my fourth week of school in this crazy junior high place with a thousand other kids.

It had been a very weird day because we had done swimming again in the school’s indoor pool for Phys Ed, and we didn’t wear swimsuits, we were naked that is.

Our Phys Ed teacher Mr Wash had said, the day before the first day last week when we did class in the pool, that it was his and the school’s “strong preference” that we swim without suits, because they didn’t want us bringing swimsuits to school and hanging them wet in our lockers, because they said stuff in there would get all moldy and stinky and stink up the whole school. He said if we insisted on wearing a swimsuit, we had to bring it that morning and take it home at the end of the day, and not leave it in our locker.

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I had to leave home at the latest by ten to eight, to get to Tappan by second bell, which gave me five more minutes til third bell and the start of my first class. It took about twenty minutes to walk to school, though it seemed longer than that, maybe because I had to keep turning corners and going on different streets.

Today was a “T” day, so I had to remember to bring my saxophone, because I had Band fifth period. On “M” days, I had French instead, which meant I only had to carry my three-ring notebook, and whatever textbooks I brought home yesterday to do homework. When girls brought books to school, they would carry them against the front part of their body with one or both arms wrapped around them. But you never saw boys carrying them that way, though I think it was easier. We always carried them in one arm on the side of our body. I’m not sure why, except that boys never wanted to be seen doing anything “like a girl”.

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